Self-restraint as the Core of the Torah

Self-restraint as the Core of the Torah is Michel Sommo’s central ethical test for strength: not the ability to overpower another person, but the discipline to govern oneself, endure adversity, and refuse to pass suffering on. In a letter rebuking Boaz Brandstetter, Sommo frames self-mastery as the essence of Jewish life and as an alternative to the violence and pride he associates with Boaz’s biological father, Alexander Gideon.

The Meaning of Strength

Sommo argues that physical power is not a license to strike. Boaz, whom he describes as strong and imposing, has mistaken force for manliness; Sommo instead defines strength as mastering baser impulses and continuing along a chosen, morally straight path despite life’s buffeting. Violence, in this account, is not proof of power: it is the crude act of breaking something that any object could accomplish.

The claim becomes explicitly religious when Sommo calls self-mastery the Torah’s whole teaching in a concentrated form. To be a Jew, as he presents it to Boaz, is to withstand adversity, practice self-control, learn from what life has dealt, improve one’s conduct, and accept fate’s just decrees. The standard is therefore both inward and ongoing: hardship matters less as a test of physical endurance than as an occasion to govern one’s response.

The Letter to Boaz

The immediate occasion for Sommo’s lesson is Boaz’s violence against Abraham Abudarham, a benefactor who had treated him with kindness. Sommo lists the people Boaz has disappointed, including his mother and Inspector Almaliah, and links his conduct to arrogance: Boaz has turned physical strength into a means of striking others rather than controlling himself. The rebuke also insists that strength carries obligations toward those who have helped him.

Sommo further warns Boaz against imagining himself a prince with noble blood. He contrasts that fantasy with the suffering Alexander Gideon caused Boaz’s mother and with the humiliation and rejection Boaz himself experienced. Sommo says that he accepted Gideon’s money to try to guide Boaz toward a better path, despite the injury to his own pride. In his account, accepting the money rather than retaliating against Gideon is an act of honor because it requires him to overcome humiliation for Boaz’s sake.

Suffering Without Causing It

Sommo presents restraint as a refusal to make another person bear one’s own pain. He says he has endured mistreatment without responding violently, connecting that practice both to the commandment to love one’s neighbor and to a belief that suffering must be accepted with love. His stated measure is asymmetrical: enduring many sufferings is preferable to causing even one.

This ethic sharpens the accusation against Boaz. Sommo sees him as beginning to follow Gideon’s path of arrogance and cruelty, while also causing prolonged distress to his mother. He argues that Boaz has not yet shown the shame or humility needed to understand what suffering means. The letter is thus at once a reprimand and an attempted instruction: Sommo wants Boaz to learn restraint by choosing his example rather than his biological father’s.

Contrasts and Limits

The rule also clarifies Sommo’s opposition to Gideon. In a separate letter, Ilana Sommo portrays Gideon as relying on checks, powerful telephone contacts, charm, and fear, while questioning whether such influence has enabled him to comfort or bring joy to anyone. The contrast is not simply between wealth and poverty; it is between power exercised through control and strength expressed through care, self-command, and practical responsibility.

The ideal is not presented as a simple description of how everyone behaves. Ilana’s account of caring for the gravely ill Gideon combines compassion with disciplinary control, even as she says his condition has taught the family compassion. That tension gives the rule its force: self-restraint is an ethical demand against which conduct can be measured, not a guarantee that care will be gentle or that pride and anger disappear. Sommo’s letter makes the standard clearest precisely where violence, humiliation, and family obligation threaten to overwhelm it.