Frank: So often I hear about someone’s character, which are the traits that represent a person’s moral and ethical beliefs and behavior. There are several adjectives that help define character and any one of them could be used to describe a person of good or not so good character. They primarily include honesty and integrity, however, there are others such as trustfulness, kindness, humility, patience, generosity, and respectfulness. If we meet the criteria of one or more of these qualities, we are often described by associates, friends and loved ones as having a “fine character.” If we do not meet any of these qualities, we are described as someone lacking in character. Mark, I wonder what your thoughts are in how we, as a society, describe someone’s character, since when life ends for each of us, I am sure that we would all like to be thought of as someone who was a mensch and who displayed the attributes of “good character”.
Mark: In many ways, the quality of one’s character is the exterior reflection of the goodness of one’s soul. Character is the measurement taken of one’s integrity, judgement, empathy, trustworthiness, and a host of other qualities that deem one worthy of another person’s trust and equally ensures a sense of confidence in that person’s worthiness.
In Jewish tradition, the Yiddish word we often use for character is menschlichtkeit, a person who acts with decency, integrity, and with an unwavering degree of honesty in one’s interactions with another human being. We refer to this superb kind of individual as a mensch. A mensch is the type of exemplary individual who will always act with honor and unimpeachable integrity.
The greatest persons of good character, in Jewish tradition, carry an even higher title of honor: they are referred to as Tzaddikim, or righteous ones, who never fail to make the right ethical choices, even under the most difficult of circumstances. Frank, it seems to me that one of the important qualities of a person of good character is the ability to keep and protect another person’s confidence or secret. Do you agree with this assessment, and if so, why?
Frank: I believe you have made a critical point in stating that an essential element of having good character is the trust that is built in a relationship that values and honors the maintenance of sensitive shared information. There is a comical adage that states, “I can keep a secret, but it is the people I tell who cannot!” That may be humorous; however, it does explain why it is so difficult to maintain secrecy. “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
As a physician, I lived in an environment that held sacred the principle of keeping information obtained in a doctor- patient relationship from reaching anyone other than other providers of the patient’s health care. It is also true that you lived in a similar environment, yet here we are talking about something different. When a friend tells me something that is personal and sensitive, whether they ask me to say anything to others or not, I pledge to myself that their information will remain in my “vault” for as long as I live. Trust takes time to become a firm foundation in a relationship and it is this pledge over time that helps build that trust.
I have always loved the saying, “If man is God’s gift to the world, then being a mensch is man’s gift to God.” Being a mensch takes many good qualities of human behavior, and being trusted to maintain confidentiality is clearly one of the most important that exemplifies man’s gift to God. It also helps identify a person of good character.
Mark: Frank, I fully empathize with the role that confidentiality plays regarding character, in your case, particularly in the physician- patient relationship. This also holds true in the relationship between rabbi and congregant. That sense of confidence, and confidentiality, within the walls of the rabbi’s study, is magnified by the many important and urgent reasons why congregants wish to share very personal information with their rabbi.
The whole reason they are willing to share privileged information with their clergy is the sense of profound, unwavering trust that they place in that relationship. What is disclosed within the walls of that study, has more to say about the character of the rabbi, and the trust in that relationship, then any other venue, or any other person with whom they are willing to share their deepest fears and darkest realities.
Sometimes, it is an older couple that comes to share medical news that is troubling, or heartbreaking concerns about legal difficulties of their grown children. Other times, it is just one spouse who enters the rabbi’s study, to share stories of infidelity or impropriety. Often it is the adult children of aging parents, who express specific concerns about their parent’s well-being and their safety as they approach their final chapter of life. Or it is a bar or bat mitzvah student who is struggling with anxiety or despair, or the ongoing pressures of growing up in the face of social or scholastic difficulties. In any of these cases, unless there are ethical or legal concerns, those confidences are sacrosanct.
Often, I knew things about one member of the family, while needing to look at other family members in the eye and show not the slightest hint, nor convey even the most oblique thought or reflection, that might disclose or violate a confidence shared with
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me by another member of their family. That sacred trust, between rabbi and congregant, is the strongest test of the degree of one’s character, the very nature of one’s ability to demonstrate that vault of knowledge that is ironclad and fully sealed and locked away.
Sometimes, people would come to see me not about their own family, but about other members of our Temple family. That is, they may have heard a story, or a rumor, about another member of the congregation. Sometimes there might be a degree of truth to what they had heard, which I could neither confirm nor deny to them. Other times, there was no verifiable veracity to what they were reporting or alleging about another member of the congregation. Here, too, I need to maintain not only their confidence, but even more importantly, anything I knew about the person to whom they were referring, out of a sense of profound moral obligation to the confidentiality of that information.
Even if there was a shred of truth to what was disclosed, I am neither judge nor jury. We are taught to view others with a “kaf zechut” — a scale of merit, to give them the benefit of the doubt, to bend towards mercy. The same holds true when hearing of a congregant’s illness: We may listen, but it is not acceptable to act on the shared information as it would be a violation of the privacy of the one who has chosen not to make that information public.
Frank: Such is the critical importance of confidentiality as a component of character in the work that both of us have engaged in. However, it is also a significant component of the interactions we have outside our professions. Trustfulness is one of the important aspects of having good character. As it has been said: Challenges do not build character. They reveal it.
Rabbi Mark Schiftan can be reached at mschiftan@aol.com
Dr. Frank Boehm can be reached at frank.boehm@vumc.org
