R-E-S-P-E-C-T

There is a difference between admiration and respect. We live in a world that is very good at the first one. Crowds, platforms, followers, likes. We have built entire industries around it. Admiration is a response to what is visible. It feels good. But it doesn’t last. And it doesn’t satisfy the deeper hunger.

In 1967, Aretha Franklin recorded “Respect.” Rolling Stone would eventually rank it the greatest song of all time. Here was a woman at the height of mass admiration, and what she was articulating was not a desire for more of it. When asked why the song connected the way it did, her answer was simply this: “Everyone wants to be respected.”

Not admired. Respected.

And here is the irony at the center of it. The thing we most want recognized is almost always the thing no one can see. Not the achievement, but the effort behind it. Not the words, but the restraint it took not to say the other ones. Not the action, but the internal negotiation that preceded it.

We can’t ask for credit for what is invisible. So we carry it quietly. And hope someone sees anyway.

That is what kavod is for.

Rav Shlomo Wolbe writes that the theme of Parshat Emor is kavod. Parshat Kedoshim, last week, gave us kedushah. This week asks: what do you do with kedushah once you can’t see it clearly? How do you respond to something real that cannot be pointed to or proven?

You give it kavod.

Kavod is not etiquette. It is not about being nice. It is the discipline of treating something as if it carries weight, even before that weight has been revealed to you. Shira Zell pointed out this morning that kavod shares a root with kaved, meaning heavy. What you give kavod to is what you give weight to. Not what you politely acknowledge. What you are actually willing to carry.

And here is the honest question this raises: watch what actually gets your attention this week. What makes you stop scrolling. What makes you respond quickly. What makes you feel impressed, or dismissive. That’s where your kavod is going. Not what you say you believe. What you react to.

The Torah makes this concrete in a surprising place. Right in the middle of the moadim, the holiest moments of the year, it interrupts to talk about pe’ah, leaving the corner of the field for the poor. The message is clear: kedushah cannot live only in sacred time. It has to move into the everyday. Into the person at the edge of the field who doesn’t need to prove worth in order to receive.

Today the edge of the field is not a literal place. It’s the person you’ve stopped really seeing. The child who is harder to deal with. The spouse you’ve stopped really listening to. The colleague you’ve already written off. And perhaps most importantly, the version of yourself you’ve quietly given up on.

That’s where kavod is tested. Not in grand gestures, but in the moments where it would be easier not to see.

And this is where the Mishnah in Avot takes on new depth. Who is truly honored? The one who honors others. But there is something even more precise being said. The capacity to see kedushah in another person depends on first believing it exists in yourself.

If you have collapsed yourself into your failures, your limitations, the ways you have fallen short, you will do the same to everyone around you. You can only give what you carry. This is not a call to arrogance. It is the quiet recognition that you too were created b’tzelem Elokim. That the effort behind your actions, the restraint no one witnessed, the struggle that left no trace, these things are real. They have weight. They deserve kavod.

You cannot give to others what you have not first learned to see in yourself.

Think about the teachers who changed you. Not the ones who knew the most or pushed the hardest. The ones who saw something in you before you saw it in yourself. Who gave you weight before you had earned it.

That is kavod. And it may be the most transformative force one human being can extend to another.

Aretha Franklin wasn’t asking for a bigger crowd. She was asking for someone to see past the performance. To honor what was underneath. To treat her as if there was more there than what was immediately visible.

That is what everyone is asking for.

Not admiration. Kavod.

The question is: who, this week, deserves your kavod before they’ve given you a reason?

The answer, if we take the Torah seriously, is everyone. Because kedushah does not wait to be earned. It simply waits to be seen.