Miller's Musings Parshas Netzovim: Whose Pain is it Anyway?

 

 

Anyone composing a speech knows that the introduction can be crucial to capturing the attention of the audience.  This week’s Parsha finds Moshe once again addressing the Jewish people, beginning with the proclamation “You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem your G-d”, a powerful introduction indeed.  The question however arises when we see that after already declaring that everyone is there, Moshe then felt it necessary to enumerate all the separate groups of people present; heads of tribes, elders, children etc.  Why was this deemed necessary after he already stated a general inclusion of the entire nation?

The concept of knowing anything is one which is subject to a vast range of levels, from knowing something in the most vague and equivocal sense, to recognising something to be true with one’s mind, body and soul.  Rabbi Mordechai Miller zt’l explains that the difference between the two is determined by how profoundly one has experienced that reality and how much it is something that has been personally experienced rather than an inference or something gained through secondary evidence.  This axiom therefore helps us to understand that for the message Moshe wanted to convey to the Jewish people to have the maximum impact upon them, he needed it to be felt personally by each and every individual, not just by the nation as a whole, hence the requirement for more specific references to sections of the population.

We often hear of tragedies or people with tremendous hardships, and although it may give us momentary pause for thought, it is more often than not a fleeting reflection on the other person’s situation because it is just that; the other person’s situation…not ours.  To remedy this inherent flaw in our empathy towards others, Hashem has given us an incredible gift, that of the imagination, which we can use to try and envisage ourselves in that situation, what it must be like for the person experiencing that pain, how much they would appreciate whatever it is we can do to alleviate their suffering and the happiness we might bring to their world.  No one wants to be uncaring.  No one wants to sit idly by and disregard the plight of another.  But if we don’t make that hurt something real and personal to us, we can never be the type of truly giving and compassionate person we surely all want to be.

May our Shabbos be one of compassion and true sensitivity to one another.

L’ilui Nishmas Leah bas Avrohom