A presidential inauguration was conducted this week, centered on a theme of American greatness. Helpfully, it took place between two Torah readings that help us to understand what greatness is.
In Parashat Shemot, Moses is described as attaining greatness: “And it came to pass in those days, and Moses grew” (Ex. 2:11). The word for growth, vayigdal, is the same word that is used for greatness, gedulah. However, there seems to be too much greatness here: the preceding verse has the same word, “vayigdal hayeled, and the lad grew” (2:10). Rashi, quoting a midrash, offers that the second usage describes his growth in status in the home of Pharaoh. It seems, though, that there is a more significant “greatness” being described here.
This greatness is indicated by what immediately follows in the same verse: “and he went out to his brothers, and looked (va-ya’ar) on to their suffering”. What is the significance of this “looking”? Rashi, again from a midrash: “he set his eyes and mind to share in their distress”.
This language evokes what is now known as “active empathy”. The word “empathy” itself is a relatively recent term, dating back only to the early 20th century (1909), and derived from the German “Einfulung”, or “feeling into”. Before that, it was known as “sympathy”, and was discussed by the Scottish philosophers David Hume, in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), and Adam Smith in the The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).
However, there is a difference in how they related to it; Hume wrote of mirroring, an automatic and natural process. Smith, by contrast, saw it as a product of the imagination, whether imagining what the other is feeling, or placing the observer in the shoes of the other.
R. David Zvi Hoffman noted that there is another word that is repeated: va-ya’ar appears twice in the space of three words. First, he looks upon the suffering of the Jewish slaves; then, he sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jewish slave, his “brother”. The second “seeing”, he suggests, is with the extra compassion he developed through the first; he had grown as a person. R. Zalman Sorotzkin, in his Oznayim LaTorah, writes similarly that the second usage builds on the first, and that va-ya’ar should actually be translated in the sense of “understanding”, (as in Ecc. 1:16), and that is not only because of “mere seeing… but because of complete joining in their anguish, and not only in crying and sighing over their situation, rather through actions and self-sacrifice”.
Emphatic identification, crucially, means more than just suffering because someone in front of you is. Dr. C. Daniel Batson is an expert on empathy who has advocated the “empathy – altruism hypothesis”, that argues that empathic concern is what motivates altruism. He has performed tests involving people exposed to suffering and unsettled by it, and that had in front of them two options, to leave and avoid seeing it, or to work to help, the more difficult option. If they were just feeling distress, he found, they would run away, but if they felt empathy they would help. The difference between empathy and personal distress, research indicates, is not just quantitative, but can be distinguished at a neurological level.
Yeshiva University President Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, in his eloquent and powerful benediction at President Trump’s inauguration, beseeched God to “grant all Americans the opportunity to realize our shared dream, of a life filled with… compassion and contribution.” This couplet is not merely alliterative; it recognizes that there is a direct connection between the first word and the second. The contributions come from those who feel, who make sure that they experience, the compassion.
The themes of the new administration will mean what the American people want them to mean. “America First” can be understood in many ways, and indeed at times in America’s history it has carried darker connotations. However, it can also evoke what some rabbinic commentaries considered the core principle of charity: “aniyei irkha kodmim,” the needy of your city come first, indicating charitable attention to those in closest proximity.
To understand this rule and its primacy, we can turn to R. Shimon Shkop, the great European Rosh Yeshiva who taught at Yeshiva University as well. In the introduction to his Sha’arei Yosher, he suggests a novel interpretation of the statement of Hillel: “Im ein ani li, mi li? U-ke-she-ani le-atzmi, mah ani?” The common understanding of this phrase is that it represents the tension between necessary self-interest and communal concern. On the one hand, “If I am not for myself, who will be?”; but this thought is balanced by, “if I am only for myself, what am I?”
R. Shkop understands the phrase slightly differently; As human beings, concern for oneself is understandably the starting point. However, the measure of a person is in how expansively one chooses to define the concept of “myself:” me the individual; me and my family; me and my city; me and the Jewish people; me and the world. Thus, the phrase is interpreted: If I am not for myself, who will be?; but if I define “myself” as only me the individual, then I am, in actuality, very small.
This is evocative of what Alexander Pope wrote in his “Essay on Man”:\
“ . . . Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
. . . Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race.”
All of us, necessarily and responsibly, tend to our own needs. Nonetheless, we have agency to define what is considered “our own needs”; and there, true greatness lies.
Parashat VaEra, the portion of “I have been appeared”, or alternatively, “I have been seen” by the forefathers, who understood that the path of compassion is the path of God, is a further lesson in active empathy. The tribe of Levi was exempted from the enslavement. R. Yonatan Eibshutz explained that Pharoah’s fortune tellers predicted that the savior of the Jews would come from that tribe; his mission can be thwarted if he is excluded from the suffering, because, then, why would he care? Pharoah and his type could not conceive of the emphatic abilities of a great man such as Moses.
In our Torah reading, God commands freedom for the slaves; but the language is somewhat perplexing; not only Pharoah, but the Jews are also addressed (Ex. 6:13). The Jerusalem Talmud (Rosh HaShanah 3:5) explains that the Jews are being commanded too, regarding a future date, when they will have slaves that must be freed. If so, why command them now? R. Chaim Shmuelevitz pointed to the reality that it becomes hard to identify with the feelings of those who yearn to be free when you yourself are disconnected. To be able to experience the emotion that brings with it action takes conscious, deliberate effort. Accordingly, the Jews are being told, seize this moment: remember your time of burden, protect that awareness, internalize it, so that when it will be helpful it will be there.
Today, there are Jews and others that are suffering as much as anyone ever has, yearning for freedom with as much desperation as those of the time of Moses, who became great when he saw and felt what they were going through. America has always aspired to greatness, and it became greater throughout its history as it opened its eyes to the suffering and the yearnings for freedom of all its inhabitants. As it strives for ever increasing greatness, may the needs of all of those within and without its borders be seen with increasing attention, and may that bring with it the greatness the world truly needs.
R' Daniel Feldman
