Monday, June 7, 2010

Chasam Sofer & Self-Estem Problems

This attempt to understand Rashi is the earliest mention of problems caused by self-esteem that I have found. It is a quote ascribed to him by one of his students and published in Toras Moshe by his grandson. The relevant phrase is "If a person values himself more than he really is or the opposite, in the eyes of other people people he will be valued less then he actually is"



3 comments :

  1. "Sorry, this document not publically available."

    Could you please fix?

    -micha

    ReplyDelete
  2. Translation please.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not sure this is saying what you suggested. You laid it out as an "if-then" (If a person values himself more than he really is or the opposite, [then] in the eyes of other people people he will be valued less then he actually is"). Ah, now I see why - you put a comma AFTER "uv'hefech." I read it with the comma BEFORE that word and would translate it thus: "Generally a person considers himself more important than he actually is, and, just the opposite, other people generally consider him less important than he actually is." (I think my translation not only makes more sense, but fits the structure better - using a vav as a disjunction instead of a conjunction is doable, but in common.)

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