A quick review – and then deeper in!

We’ve come a long way from defining our Ahavas Yisrael obligation as a command to feel warm and fuzzy towards every Jew. Instead, we’ve discovered clear guidelines and started on a practical path toward fulfilling this crucial mitzvah.

Step 1 had us learn to focus on the ritzonos, the wills, of other people – not their personalities or opinions, but the deeper will driving them.

Step 2 had us recognize that just as our will is sacred to us, others’ wills are equally sacred to them.

Step 3 taught us that loving our fellow Jew “like ourselves” means expanding our “I,” or the appreciation of the sacredness of our own will, to include the wills of others.

Step 4 assured us that respecting wills that oppose our own won’t negate ours. Instead, our work will serve as a second “leg to stand on” in our avodas Hashem.

Step 5 made things practical by using the example of children’s silliness to help us take others’ wills seriously and act on their terms, even if our own wills protest.

So – what’s next?

Step 6 will ask us to move from simply acting on others’ wills to genuinely feeling along with them.

Which isn’t at all simple. Firstly, we’re not feeling what they’re feeling. We aren't going through what they are. And even if we once did go through something similar, we’re different people with different personalities. We don’t experience things the same way they do.

How do we get past these obstacles and feel along with our Jewish brothers?

As Moshe conversed with Hashem at the Burning Bush, Hashem declares (Shemos 3:7): “I have indeed seen the affliction of My nation that is in Mitzrayim, and I have heard their outcry because of their taskmasters, and I have known of their pains.”

Rashi expounds: “I have focused My heart to contemplate and know their pains and did not hide My eyes or close My ears to their cries.”

Happily for us, Hashem’s words in this posuk present us with a 3-part formula for connecting with the pain of another. It starts with “seeing,” moves to “hearing,” and ends with “knowing.”

This week, we’ll explore what “seeing” means.

What does it mean to see someone – really see them?

Back to Moshe Rabbeinu. Earlier in Shemos (2:11), we learn that “Moshe grew up and went out to his brethren and saw their burdens.” Rashi comments here with similar words to the ones we quoted him using above: “Moshe focused his eyes and his heart to be in pain for them.”

Which means the sight we’re talking about isn’t just plain sight. It’s intention. It’s focus.

On a basic level, this kind of focused, heart-driven sight simply means paying attention to others and the goings-on in their lives. It’s natural for us to fill our brainspace up with our own stories. It takes focus and intention to direct our thoughts to other people’s needs. It takes heart and care to show them they’re important enough to us to draw our attention towards their lives.

And when they feel they matter to us, they’ll feel comfortable sharing their feelings with us – and we’ll connect to those feelings more easily.

Simple and beautiful – but there’s a deeper level to explore here as well.

The first time the Torah uses the word “Va’yar,” “And Hashem saw” was in Bereishis (1:4), when Hashem was creating the world. The Ramban comments there that Hashem wasn’t simply looking at His creations. “Seeing” there meant validating or confirming – “establishing [Creation] as a permanent reality.”

Often, we’d much rather not acknowledge the way others present their realities to us. Maybe we don’t agree with them. Maybe we think they need to change. Maybe we just don’t like their reality. Or we find it too painful to accept.

Seeing another person, really seeing them, means deciding – this is it. We’re accepting their version of reality, establishing it as "immutable fact” in our heads, and seeing them simply as they are.

We can’t feel another’s feelings, really feel them, if we’re trying to fix them at the same time. First, we need to accept them as they are.

Not easy. Not easy at all. But a massive, beautiful opportunity for growth.

Titles: Do you hear me? / I’m hear for you / Heart-hearing / Hearing with the heart / Heart of hearing

To connect to others’ pain, we’ve got to use our h-ear-ts

“I hear you.” “I hear that.” “I hear.”

But do you really?

Last week, we started exploring Hashem’s 3-part formula (Shemos 3:7) for connecting to another’s pain. Part 1 was “I have seen,” part 2 was “I have heard,” and part three, “I have known.” In last week’s email, we explored part 1. Now, we’re moving on to part 2 – hearing.

In Shaarei Teshuvah (2:12), Rabbeinu Yonah states that hearing something creates a deeper impact than seeing it. Which seems surprising – isn’t seeing believing?

Apparently, the hearing Rabbeinu Yonah refers to differs in some way from the kind of hearing we’re thinking of. What is that difference? What’s Rabbeinu Yonah’s “shemiyah” all about?

Have you ever tried to share something with another person and, after hearing their response, told them, “You’re not listening” or “I don’t feel like you’re hearing me”? Did you feel satisfied after they insisted they could repeat back what you’d said verbatim?

Probably not. Because while they might have heard you, they didn’t hear you.

They listened technically. They processed the information – and moved on. Whatever you shared with them landed intellectually, but didn’t penetrate their heart.

Shemiyah, real shemiyah, asks us to absorb. To actively take in and digest another’s words. In Sefer Shmuel I (15:4), we see the root word for shemiyah, hearing, used to connote gathering: “Vayishama Shaul es ha’am,” “And Shaul gathered the people.”

So how do we make sure we’re “hearing” properly? “Gathering in” what people share, and connecting to their pain? How do we prepare ourselves to be touched by what we hear?

By looking past the facts they share to the stories behind them.

In his introduction to Chumash Bereishis, the Ramban explains that stories, and specifically the stories of our Avos (Patriarchs), help us develop a strong foundation of emunah.

Do we really need stories, though? Aren’t stories for children? Can’t we sophisticated adults draw the necessary conclusions from straight information?

Not really. Because for something to penetrate deeply into who we are, it needs to touch our hearts. And dry information doesn’t touch our hearts. Stories take facts and breathe life into them. We relate personally to stories in ways we can’t to dry facts.

When we listen to another person share facts about his painful situation, we need to try and hear their story. Listen for the thought process, the emotional experience, behind the facts.

They’re telling us they’ve lost their job. But that’s not the only problem. Worse than the technical parnassah challenge is the terrible embarrassment and inadequacy they feel.

An ill friend is clearly suffering. We can assume it’s the physical pain bothering them. But if we’d really “listen,” we might discover that the aspect of their illness bothering them most isn’t the physical pain, but the painful fallout of their illness on their family.

We humans are problem-solvers. We like to jump in and fix things. Providing technical help to others is important and beautiful – but it doesn’t automatically mean we feel their pain. Problem-solving is a brain process, not a heart process.

If we truly want to connect to other Jews’ pain, we need to turn off our problem-solving impulse, and turn on our loving hearts. We need to “think into” and appreciate the story behind their problem. When we do, we allow ourselves to be touched emotionally. Which truly connects us to their pain.

What if we’re wrong in our thinking? What if we guess incorrectly about what’s lying behind their pain?

Truthfully, it doesn’t really matter. We don’t need to read others’ minds in order to feel their pain. For ahavas Yisrael to blossom, we simply need to do the work to allow their pain to touch us emotionally.

It’ll be enough for them, and enough to fuel our growth.