The Importance of Empathy - Rabbi Shlomo Landau

many years ago when i was first starting my rabbino career i must have been in my 20s i wouldn't make an appointment to come talk to me about some issues that she was having in her family she must have been in her mid-40s and she's sitting there for probably about 45 minutes or an hour and she's sharing with me very complex issues the relationship with her husband her children baggage that she came into her marriage with so many things and the whole time i'm thinking to myself i am so inadequate i do i am not a professional counselor i do not know how to deal with what's going on over here and i don't actually honestly don't even know how to give her advice what am i supposed to tell her after about 45 minutes or an hour the woman picked herself up took the pile of tissues that she'd used and as she's walking out she says to me rabbi you have no idea how helpful that was your advice was excellent i feel like a new person thank you so much this was incredible and she walks out the door and i think to myself advice i didn't give her one piece of advice as a matter of fact i sat stone silence okay periodically i clucked and i nodded i i understand i understand but i hadn't done anything the answer was that i'd done a lot perhaps without even realizing it because what i tried to do in that period of time those 45 minutes or an hour was feel her pain here had a woman a wife a mother a jewish woman who was broken so many things in her life were falling apart it seemed like her world was collapsing what i tried to do was feel her pain or empathize and we don't realize the power of empathy psychologists tell us that if you can empathize with a person it actually takes away some of their pain we find this by mushroom it says maisha grows up and he sees what's happening the terrible enslavement the torture and the barbaric actions of the egyptians and maisha really couldn't do much he wasn't in a position to stop it but what did he do saw what was going on he tried to feel their pain and on some level that alleviates the pain we have to look at the world around us there's a lot of people that are suffering unfortunately and the truth is we can't always practically do something for them but one thing we could do is we can empathize we can tell them that we feel their pain or even if not we can listen we can be there for them and at some level and certainly in a real way we can change their situation and make it a little bit more bearable relieve perhaps some of their pain so let's just not be ignorant and numb to the world around us people especially in our lives that may be going through difficult situations let's be there for them let's empathize and we can make a very big difference [Music]