Being Other-Centered

Being Other-Centered                                                                By Sara Esther Crispe

When I was twenty-three, I was hired as an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College to teach Composition. My only previous teaching experience had been with high-school seniors, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for.

The first day of class, I entered the room and quickly surmised that I was by far the youngest one there. And if I wasn’t, I certainly looked it. Being that Brooklyn College has a lot of returning students and students from around the world, the room was filled with every age, nationality, culture and religion you could imagine.

No one even noticed me standing at the deskFor the first minute, no one even noticed me standing at the desk. Then, when they did, they couldn’t believe I was their instructor. “Are you kidding me?” “She looks like she’s sixteen!”

Not a great start.

I introduced myself to rolling eyes, slouched bodies, heads on desks, and utter boredom and lack of interest about ten seconds into their very first class.

Then I told them to take out a piece of paper. On one side, they were supposed to write exactly how they were feeling at that moment. I told them to be honest. Brutally honest. Smiles appeared and pens moved.

Then I asked them to flip the paper over. On the other, they were to write exactly how they thought I was feeling at the moment.

And everything changed.

As soon as they had to think about me as a person—with feelings, with insecurities—it all shifted. If they were bored, I was nervous. If they didn’t want to be there, I was pressured to make them interested. If they didn’t think I looked old enough or experienced enough to do the job, I had to prove to them I was qualified. They quickly realized that as bad as they had it, I had it a lot worse. I was not the enemy . I was just standing on the other side of the room.

In the Torah portion of Lech Lecha, we learn of Abraham needing to leave his home, to go out. Chassidic commentaries explain that we should understand lech, “go,” and then lecha, “to yourself,” as “Go and find yourself.” And how true that is. But I think there is another lesson as well. If we want to truly find ourselves, and truly connect with others, we need to go outside of ourselves while simultaneously letting others inside. In order to relate, we must feel.

This is the difference between sympathy and empathy. If I sympathize with you, I feel sorry for you. Yet if I can empathize, I don’t just feel sorry for your pain, I feel your pain. It is a part of me. We are on the same team.

This is why the word for ‘empathy’ in Hebrew is ‘rachamim’ (and why the month of Elul is called chodesh harachamim, the month of empathy). The root of ‘rachamim’ is ‘rechem’, which means “womb.”

To empathise with you – to really understand you -  to relate to you, to have a relationship with you, I need to be able to put you at my center. I need to put you in my ‘womb’ so to speak.

I need to become other-centered (the converse of self-centred or self-aware). I need to feel what you feel, to think as you think. It’s not necessarily easy. But it works.

Comment:

Our parasha this Shabbat is Ekev. And it contains a text that articulates what HaShem requires from us:

Deut 10:12-14 -  "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good?

This is similar to Micah 6:8 - "He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?

In the Deuteronomy text, HaShem is our focus. We are commanded to fear Him, to walk in His ways and to love Him. You will notice three distinct instructions in both the Deuteronomy and Micah texts. The Micah passage however, two of the requirements focus on others – we are call to deal justly with others and to extend mercy toward others. In doing so, we walk humbly with our G-d!

In Mark 12, Yeshua reduced the three requirements to two. When asked by a Torah teacher what the greatest mitzvah is, Yeshua responded:

Mark 12:29-31

29       "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 

30       And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. 

31        And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 

Every Shabbat, we read this passage after we recite the Shema. Now, what G-d requires of us is reduced to two mitzvoth. Hillel the elder reduced it to one single mitzvah known as the Golden Rule. Expressed positively, the great sage taught ‘do unto others as you would want them to do unto you’.

Then, along comes Rav Sha’ul (Paul) who taught in Gal 5:13-15 - "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another"!

Here, Sha’ul taught that the entire Toraic legislation is fulfilled in how we relate to one another. And scripture seems to really emphasize this aspect:

Phil 2:3 _ ‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves’.

Elsewhere, we are taught not to see a small fault in others because we are blinded about our own shortcomings (Luke 6:42). We are commanded to be willing to lay down our will for the sake of another person (John 15:13).

I have consistently taught that we serve G-d by serving one another. So, before you react self-righteously to another person’s foibles, consider Sara Esther Crispe’s advice and first become other-centred. Remember that we all are emotive creatures who warrant respect and dignity!

May we learn this crucial lesson.