Noblesse Oblige
(The Obligations of Nobility)
If not Me, Who?
If not Here, Where?
If not Now, When?
Hillel’s Challenge
On a high hill, in a stone castle with his wife, lived a wealthy nobleman. In the castle’s great bedchamber were two strong boxes, bound in iron and faced with leather, filled with all manner of riches, the keys to which, the Lord carried on his belt.
One particularly difficult winter, the village headman came to the Nobleman and said, “My Lord, I regret to tell you that since this winter is especially hard, the towns’ people are freezing.”
The Nobleman said, “Ask them if they’d be good enough to share the castle and keep with us.”
Word went out and the people dragged themselves within the stone walls where, protected from the wind and cold, they and their livestock huddled together and thereby survived the winter. It was unbelievably hard on all concerned, but as the Nobleman said to his Lady, “If they starve and die, we do as well.”
As spring began to blossom, the headman had another item to reveal… “Sire, we’ve been forced to eat the seed corn to survive, and I fear a barren harvest.”
The Nobleman summoned his servant, saying: “Go to my bed chamber and bring me here the two great chests you will find there!”
When they brought the chests, the Lord and the Lady stood side by side, and, as the townspeople, with their children filed through the castle gate, they gave to each from the great chests, (one carried gold, silver and jewels; the other, seeds for corn, vegetables, fruits, and wheat). So that in the hands of every Mother, Father, Son and Daughter were carried the future of the town, the castle, and the Noble Lord and Lady.
The “Obligation of Nobility” is to rise and respond to what circumstance demands. Nobility brings the benefits of wealth, education, wider travel, access, professional credibility, and of broader connection to a larger world. Those are not rights, but privileges which come at a price to be exercised for the greater good of the individual, but also for their family, their community, their profession, their country.
In every culture, the “greater good” has been both the province and the responsibility of the Nobility. Of late, it’s clear that we no longer understand the meaning (or the obligations) of the concept. And it’s equally clear that no one feels themselves called to the task.
Consider: Nations, communities, and people — absent nobility. Everyone pointing at and deriding the others. No one rising to the challenge. And, if someone chose to honestly serve, would we respect their sacrifice, their willingness to carry the burden? Or would we simply stand by, and criticize?
The way back, for us, for our communities and our beleaguered cultures is to once again seek out, acquire and honor the concept of Noblesse Oblige.
Applications
1. For You
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that yours is an honored profession, and your oath may include something to the effect of putting others’ interests first.
Is it possible that you can contribute something of your time and intelligence to your community? To the School, the Church, to leading the Company? Can you help the Town, County, City, the Fire Fighters? The Police? Needs everywhere, and everyone saying, “Not my problem…”
2. The Family
If your kids grow up being taught to find ways to help others, they will build a foundation that will benefit everyone and everything they touch. That can’t be bad. We’re in a strange patch right now, in that “civilization” seems to have led us to a time of disparate striving and disparate achieving. Not so much, “Inequality” but a time when large numbers of us can’t see a need for us to contribute anything more than taxes to anyone within our purview. But looking further out, we discover that there are great needs, great hunger, great illness, and great ignorance which might come within our reach, if we but decided to reach.
3. At Work
Consider this as well, there are those within your reach who can benefit by your personal interest. If you are an elder, consider inventing a way to mentor someone who needs you but who hasn’t yet discovered the courage to reach out. What can your firm do for the less fortunate by way of creating a sports network, a tutoring club, a debating society, an astronomy club? It’s not only a matter of money being helpful, but of actual people reaching out personally and being helpful as well. Nothing is more valuable than your personal manifest intention to make someone’s life better!
Is it within your reach to help?
Then help, and manifest Nobility!
“For if they fail, we fail as well.”
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