Welcome to Simha Emotional Minute.
We last spoke about one of the interferences of empathy, or Noseh B’Ol, which is that you're just too busy, and the source is a Midrash that says Hashem commended Moshe Rabbenu for literally, ‘leaving his business.’ Business is busy-ness. Empathy means leaving your busyness and focusing on someone else.
But there's another reason we fail to be Noseh B’Ol. Rabbi Friedlander discusses this at length in his sefer Sivtei Chaim, where he says that the first condition for the trait of Noseh B’Ol is all is to free yourself from the boundaries of your eye, or your ego. As long as you're constantly stuck in your own personal needs, viewing things through the lense of how they are worthwhile or beneficial for me, it's not going to work. You have to free yourself from yourself, and then you can start focusing on others, like Moshe Rabbenu, “Put his heart and his eyes on someone else,” to start feeling someone else.
The first step is to get out of yourself, because if you're stuck on yourself, you can't see anybody else.
He says the ultimate gift you can give somebody is not money or time, it's giving of yourself, and you can only give of yourself if you're not stuck in yourself. A human being, by nature, is stuck in himself. He's always thinking about himself, every second of the day. ‘I'm cold, I'm hot, I'm thirsty, I'm hungry…’
It's always about me.
Even when you do an act of kindness, quite often it's about, “What's the benefit in it for me?” Rarely do we have something called Hessed shel. Emet/kindness that is true, because it's only for the other person. Therefore it's a big job- First, to realize how much we are involved in ourselves, and then to be able to move away from that.
Therefore, it's really about working on yourself, which takes years of mussar, and years of kindness. It's not just something you can read about in a book. You can read about it, but you’ll still be stuck in yourself.
It’s why great people are really the most empathetic of people. Moshe Rabbenu was humble, he wasn't all stuck in himself, so he was able to see others. That’s what all our Gedolim are known for.
One of my favorite stories about the Chafetz Haim really shows this concept. He used to travel through many towns in Poland, selling the many books that he authored. Once, while visiting the city in Vilna, he stopped at a restaurant in an inn, run by a pious Jew. While he was waiting to be served, a rough- looking, elderly man entered and demanded a bottle of whiskey and a roasted chicken. When he was served, the man grabbed the chicken in one hand, the bottle of whiskey in the other, and he began to gorge himself. He wasn’t wearing a head covering, he did not wash his hands, nor did he make any berachot beforehand. He was even leering at the waitress in an obscene way. While the Chafetz Chaim was watching the man, the innkeeper came over to him, pointed to the man and said, “Stay away from that man. He's a sinner. He uses profane language and violates nearly every command of the Torah.” The Chafetz Chaim was disturbed. He asked where the man was from and who his parents were. The innkeeper said he never studied, he never even went to Yeshiva. “When he was a child of seven years old, he was captured by missionaries who kept him in a monastery until he was 10. Then he was drafted to serve in Czar Nikolai's army for 25 years. It's no wonder he behaves this way. It's a miracle that he never converted and still remains a Jew.”
The Chafetz Chaim rose, approached the man, and greeted him. “Shalom,” he said. “Indeed, it’s a privilege to meet you. Is it true that when you were a little boy you were stolen and raised among the Christian monks, and then later you had to serve 25 years in the Czar’s army? Because of this, you were never taught even one letter of our Torah?! You practically passed through a living hell on this earth! I shudder at the many times they tried to convert you and yet you stood fast to your beliefs and remained a Jew. I envy you now, the great merit you have. You are surely going to have a high place in the future world. I can just picture you seated amongst the great saints of the past generations. Do you think it's a small thing that you accomplished? To live so many years among the missionaries and the rough army of the Czar and still remain a Jew? Why, your test was greater than Hanina, Mishael and Azarya who were thrown into the flaming cauldron! Their test was only a minute, but yours was over 36 years!”
Hearing these kind words spoken by the Chafetz Chaim, the first kind words ever spoken to him, made the man tremble, and he suddenly began to cry.
All the pent-up emotions of his past years exploded, and the man fell on his knees sobbing hysterically. The Chafetz Chaim, realizing that the spark of Jewishness still burned in his soul, told the man to stand up, and he said in a soothing voice, “A person like you, who will be seated among the holy and highest saints who have sacrificed their lives for Hashem, will be embarrassed if you cannot converse with them as an equal. You'll feel ashamed that they would know that after you came out the army, you made no effort to observe the Torah. Come with me, study the Torah and learn how to behave like a true Jew. And I can assure you that your merit will far surpass that of all the saints in heaven.”
The greatness here is that when we look at a man like this, automatically our ego, or our agenda comes into play…we think we are better than him, we start to judge him and so on and so forth. We start bringing ourselves into the equation. But the Chafetz Chaim just saw a broken soul. He saw through all the negativity, and therefore was able to get into his situation, to feel what this man felt like, to bring out all the pent-up emotions and to turn him around in literally moments. What might take years or decades with a therapist was accomplished by the Chafetz Chaim in moments, because the Chafetz Chaim had the tools of true empathy, which is one of the main techniques needed in therapy.
It wasn’t about him.
Let us all strive to become less egoistic people, because there's no simple answer.
Have a wonderful day.