If a person is disgraced by others, he should not take it to heart at all nor quarrel with them. Rather, he should tell himself that Hashem has sent him the pain of disgrace to atone for his sins. On the contrary, he should be happy that Hashem sent him this shame, which is a relatively light form of suffering, for it does not cause any monetary loss, to atone for his sins. This is on condition that he accepts it with love and welcomes it. About such people, our Sages commented (Gittin 36b): “Those who hear themselves reviled and do not answer back, of them it is written, Those who love Him are like the powerfully rising sun (Shoftim, 5:31).”
One must be careful to never be ungrateful and shame a person from whom he received even the slightest benefit. The Sages taught that one must be careful to treat even inanimate items with respect, such as food, which must not be mistreated (Berachos 50b). They said: “Do not throw a stone into the well from which you drank” (Bava Kama 92b). For this reason Moshe Rabeinu did not strike the river because it helped save him, and he also did not strike the ground of Egypt since he had benefited from it when he buried the Egyptian whom he executed. How much more so must a person forever love a human being who consciously and willfully bestowed goodness upon him!
And even more so — many times over — must one be careful to not disgrace someone whom he is obligated to respect, such as his father and mother, as it is written: Cursed is the man who shames his father and mother (Devarim, 27:16). And although our Sages said “If a father renounces the honor due to him, it is renounced” (Kiddushin 32a) — that is with regard to forgoing honor, but he has no right to allow his disgrace. Likewise, one must be careful to not shame his Torah teachers. One who does so is to be excommunicated, even if he merely referred to them disrespectfully, and all the more so if he actually speaks disparagingly of them.
In addition, one must be careful in the presence of one’s parents, teacher or Torah scholar to not sit before them in a disrespectful manner.
