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The Gemara relates that Rebbi Elazar bar Rebbi Shimon was once riding his donkey proudly on the river bank after having learned much Torah. He was greeted by a very ugly person and he did not reply to the greeting. Instead, he said, "Empty one! How ugly are you! Are all of the people of your city as ugly as you?"
The person replied, "I do not know. But go and say to the Craftsman Who made me how ugly His handiwork is."
This verbal abuse leads to the concluding aphorism "A person should always be soft like a reed and he should not be stiff like a cedar, as one who is proud like a cedar is likely to sin." And therefore, due to its gentle qualities, the reed merited that a quill is taken from it to write with it a Torah scroll, phylacteries, and mezuzot.
What are the halachot of abuse?
We explore the notion of the flexibility of the reed over the strength of the cedar as applied to resistance vs accommodation even in disaster management and finally are there cross-cultural connections between our aphorism and Aesop's fable "The Oak and the Reeds"?