Rabbi REUVEN BULKA,

head of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa, hosts Sunday Night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA.

Your question reminds me of the reaction of Viktor Frankl to a similar type of generic question. He responded by saying that this is like asking, ‘What is the best move in chess?’ Verily, there is no best move in chess. All depends on the situation. Your question merits the same general reaction. But there is more to be said.

One important caveat should be shared. We all have qualities, yet many of them come to us through no fault of our own, but as gifts from God. As such, gifts from God cannot be identified as human qualities. The human qualities are those that we freely choose to implement.

Or, put another way, we all have the capacity to be kind, to be considerate, to be caring. Those are Godly qualities. What differentiates us is how we translate these qualities into action.

And, on the other hand, we also have the ability to be cruel, vicious, arrogant and dismissive.

With that background, let’s take a stab at your question. How about the following generic answer — the greatest human quality is using the Godly capacities with which we are blessed at the right time and in the right measure.

This means that there are times when being kind may not be the right reaction. Consider someone, a child, for example, who has just done something reprehensible, for which the child needs to be harshly taken to task. To be kind to the child at that moment may send the wrong signal, namely that the child can get away with anything and will not be reprimanded. If the goal of parenting is to raise a child who will be a good citizen, then our reactive behaviour in such instance should reflect that goal.

Kindness surely has its place, a central place, in our lives. But here, too, there are boundaries. Too much kindness can be harmful. A wealthy parent who can give the child enough money so that it need not ever work, is not doing the child a favour. In the end, we need not worry about an epidemic of too much kindness. Too little kindness is a more pervasive problem.

Back, though, to your challenging question. The capacity to know, and implement, the needed ingredient in the right dose for whatever situation is arguably our greatest human quality.