On March 21 of this year, Rabbi Herschel Schacter died at
the age of 96. Rabbi Schacter had
a long career as a pulpit rabbi in the Moshulu Jewish Center in the Bronx.
But he is even more widely known as the first Jewish
chaplain to enter Buchenwald following its liberation by General Patton in
April, 1945.
When he entered, he asked if there were any Jews still alive
and was taken to a barracks of Jewish inmates, lying on planks. They looked down at Rabbi Schacter, in
military uniform, and they were frightened.
He said, Shalom
Aleichem, yidden. Ihr sint frei. Greetings, Jews. You are free!
And slowly, slowly, people began to absorb the significance
of what had happened. And some
started to join Rabbi Schacter, going from one barracks to the other, telling
one another that they were now free.
Weeks later, it was Pesach Sheni, the second Pesach, the day
set aside in ancient times for those who were unable to celebrate Pesach during
its ordinary time.
According to an account by a prisoner of the camp, Shiku
Smilovic, Rabbi Schacter brought matzah and distributed it to everyone. He started to deliver a sermon to all
of the recently liberated prisoners.
At one point, the rabbi said, “We know what you have gone through” and a
former prisoner started to scream.
Here’s how Smilovic reported the incident:
“The man screamed and said: "No one, but no one, can dare say that
he knows what we went through unless, he or she was there! Only they can say, I
know what you went through!" He continued at the top of his voice with
quotes from the Torah and other scriptures. He was no plain ordinary every day
Jew. He spoke with authority. "Why did G-d forget about his children? And
we were devastated, just because we are Jews?" he continued. "Before
we make a blessing and eat this Matza. We want a Din Torah with the REBONEH SHEL OLAM (we want to Hold Court
with the All Mighty): Why? Why the little children?” You
can take your matzos back to America. I don't want them, as far as I am
concerned. The rest of you: you are free! You can do what your heart
desires!"
Rabbi
Schacter did not interrupt the man and he let him finish. He moved his fists
towards his heart and said, "Chotosi Uvisi Pushati Lefonecha:
Please, may I have your forgiveness?" The man raced up to the Rabbi and embraced
him for a while. The rest of us just stood there in silence, and our tears did
the talking. After that scene we all decided to have some Matzo anyway. We made
the blessing of ACHILAT MATZA in unison. I am sure that this blessing
was heard in heaven, and all the Angels answered Amen.”
I want to talk this morning
about empathy. Empathy is critical
for maintaining the fabric of society, but conveying it is complicated.
As defined in Psychology
Today, a magazine intended for laypeople, empathy is the experience of
understanding another person's condition from their perspective. You place
yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling.
Rabbi Schacter experienced empathy to some degree and tried to convey
it. Initially, however, he overreached. In his zeal to show empathy, he went
too far. Telling someone who
experienced something horrific that you didn’t experience, “I know what you
went through,” can easily sound facile and can backfire.
The man who screamed out was offended by the rabbi’s attempt to show
empathy. How dare you say you know
how I feel?
And yet, the rabbi was sincere.
His intentions were honorable.
And once he demonstrated his sincerity by apologizing for overreaching,
the outspoken man and his peers were able to acknowledge the rabbi’s expression
of solidarity and concern.
Sometimes we don’t even try to demonstrate our empathy toward
others. In the passages we read
from the Torah this morning, Moses confronts his brother, Aaron, after Aaron’s
sons are struck down by God for offering esh
zarah, a strange, perhaps unrequested, fire on the altar, as part of the
consecration ceremony.
Moses says to Aaron, this is what God meant when God said, bik’rovai ekadesh, Through those near to
me, I show myself holy.
And Aaron is silent. He
and his remaining two sons are not to mourn, since their continued
participation in the consecration ceremony takes precedence.
There is no leeway for Aaron, no support, not even the standard
mourning practice – and from Moses, there is no empathy expressed. What Moses was feeling, we don’t
know. But we read of no attempt
whatsoever to comfort his brother.
What gets in the way of our expressing empathy appropriately toward one
another?
Sometimes, like Moses in this instance, we are so preoccupied with
getting a task done that we ignore the feelings of those involved. Consider the college coach who wanted
so badly to win that he treated his players in ways that are downright abusive.
A basketball game, a board meeting, a play rehearsal, a Passover seder,
that emphasize completing a task at the expense of acknowledging the personal
dynamics in the room, will likely lead to the gradual erosion of the group and,
ironically, will likely derail the proper completion of the task at hand.
Elsewhere, Moses is keenly aware of interpersonal dynamics, sharply
resonant with appropriate empathy, as when he defends the Israelites from God’s
wrath on multiple occasions or prays for his sister, Miriam, to be healed. But when he confronts his brother Aaron at this
point in time, the bottom line overrides the interpersonal.
Sometimes, like Rabbi Schacter, we want to express our empathy so
strongly, because we’re feeling so bad about something that happened to someone
else, that we go overboard, projecting a depth of understanding that we can’t
possibly have.
So what should we do?
First, we should acknowledge that it is crucially helpful for us to try
to cultivate the capacity to empathize and to express empathy.
Some are more naturally empathetic than others overall and we each are
differently moved by different circumstances.
But in general, empathy allows us to consider experiences and
perspectives beyond the confines of our own person and that’s a good thing.
Otherwise, people who can walk easily would be unlikely to increase
accessibility for those who are physically challenged.
And people who don’t have children of their own would be unlikely to
support the appropriate expenditure of funds to ensure outstanding education.
And so on.
Once we accept that empathy felt and properly expressed increases the
likelihood of good outcomes for the greatest number of people, then we need to
focus, in boardrooms, classrooms, synagogues, playgrounds and families, on the
spoken and unspoken messages that stem from individuals’ hopes and dreams,
their failure and pain.
As soon as I heard President Obama deliver his speech in Cairo in 2009,
focusing on the accomplishments of Islam and the Arab world, I said in this
Sanctuary that he should fly to Israel and show some love for the accomplishments
of Judaism and the State of Israel.
His failure to do so for 4 years frankly had a negative impact on many
people’s sense of his support for Israel.
I’m not suggesting that everyone who questions Obama’s support for
Israel has been turned around 180 degrees by his recent trip.
But the trip had a large impact on the perceptions of Israeli Jews and
many American Jews, as well.
In his speech to Israeli young adults in Jerusalem, Obama acknowledged
the accomplishments of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, the
unassailable right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. He expressed his concern for Israel’s
security. He used a Hebrew phrase,
“atem lo l’vad!” which means, “You are not alone!” to express his concern.
Having conveyed his appreciation for the physical and emotional
security of the Jewish people, Obama asked his audience to consider the need
for physical and emotional security for Palestinian Arabs.
Obama marshaled facts and figures to underscore his points, but the
glue of his speech, the reason for its success, can be expressed in one word –
empathy.
Empathy that was appropriately felt and expressed.
Once he got past his initial awkward faux pas, Rabbi Shachter expressed
appropriate empathy for the survivors of Buchenwald. On the cusp of Yom Hashoah, we pledge to do our best to absorb the stories of the survivors with open ears and hearts.
Moses, by and large, was able to appreciate the emotional contour
of his surroundings.
A century and half ago, President Lincoln famously said, “As I would not
be a slave, I would not be a master.”
His capacity for empathy was legendary and critical to his political
success.
And our current president does his most effective work when he feels
and expresses his awareness of the circumstances of others.
If we want to make real progress, in our homes, in our synagogues, in our appreciation of history and
on the international stage, we have to try harder to understand each other.
I’d like to reappropriate Moses’s attribution to God in order to
conclude.
Each of us feels, deep down, bik’rovai
ekadesh – we each arrive at a higher place when others get closer to us.
Hal’vai, let’s hope that we will be on the giving and the receiving end
of empathy well-felt and well-delivered.
It is, after all, the glue that keeps us truly together.
Delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on April 6, 2013, the Shabbat preceding our Yom Hashoah Commemoration
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