Honor
According to the Talmud, it is a commandment (mitzvah) to stand up for a Rabbi or Torah scholar, and one should also stand for their spouses and address them with respect. Kohanim are required to honor Rabbis and Torah scholars like everybody else. However, if one is more learned than the Rabbi or the scholar there is no need to stand.
In many places today and throughout history, Rabbis and Torah scholars had and still have the power to place individuals who insulted them in excommunication.
Read more about this topic: Women Rabbis
Famous quotes containing the word honor:
“Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“This monument, so imposing and tasteful, fittingly typifies the grand and symmetrical character of him in whose honor it has been builded. His was “the arduous greatness of things done.” No friendly hands constructed and placed for his ambition a ladder upon which he might climb. His own brave hands framed and nailed the cleats upon which he climbed to the heights of public usefulness and fame.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“The state does not demand justice of its members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it, hardly more than rogues practice; and so do the neighborhood and the family. What is commonly called Friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)