From Care to Compassion
The last two weeks have been harrowing, and while there have been moments that have felt clarifying, the most consistent theme I’ve heard from others and felt myself is a deeply unsettled anxiety that oscillates between sadness, fear, and anger. Who are we to be as Americans, as Jews, as people connected to Israelis (or Israeli ourselves), as people committed to justice and solidarity, as students of history and dreamers of a brighter future?
As Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld wrote recently (and we quoted last Friday), “I have no road map for this moment, and I am wary of anyone who says they do… Let yourself be uncertain about what Israel should do next in this impossibly painful and frightening moment… I trust that every member of this community longs desperately to do what is possible to prevent further suffering and death of innocent civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli. I hear the same longing from my Israeli friends and family as well. Let us be very, very humble as we share ideas about how best to do so. Beware of facile answers.”
I want to share with you a story, drawn by Martin Buber from Hasidic sources. This is a hard story about our yearning to alleviate suffering. It is called, “The Angel and the World’s Dominion.”
“There was a time when the Will of the Lord, Whose hand has the power to create and destroy all things, unleashed an endless torrent of pain and sickness over the earth. The air grew heavy with the moisture of tears, and a dim exhalation of sighs clouded it over. Even the legions that surround God’s throne were not immune to the hovering sadness. One angel, in fact, was so deeply moved by the sufferings he saw below, that his soul grew quite restless. When he lifted his voice in song with the others, a note of perplexity sounded among the strains of pure faith; his thoughts rebelled and contended with the Lord. He could no longer understand why death and deprivation need serve as connecting links in the great Chain of Events. Then one day he felt to his horror that the eye of All-Being was piercing his own eye and uncovering the confusion in his heart. Pulling himself together, he came before the Lord, but when he tried to talk, his throat dried up. Nevertheless, the Lord called him by name and gently touched his lips. The angel began to speak. He begged God to place the administration of the Earth in his hands for a year’s time, that he might lead it to an era of well-being. The angel bands trembled at this audacity. But at the same moment Heaven grew bright with the radiance of God’s smile. He looked at the supplicant with great love, as He announced His agreement. When the angel stood up again, he too was shining.
And so a year of joy and sweetness visited the Earth. The shining angel poured the great profusion of his merciful heart over the most anguished of her children, on those who were benumbed and terrified by want. The groans of the sick and dying were no longer heard in the land. The angel’s companion in the steely armor, who only a short time before had been rushing and roaring through the air, stepped aside now, waiting peevishly with lowered sword, relieved of his official duties. The earth floated through a fecund sky that left her with the burden of new vegetation. When summer was at its height, people moved singing through the full, yellow fields; never had such abundance existed in living memory. At harvest time, it seemed likely that the walls would burst or the roofs fly off, if they were going to find room to store their crops.
Proud and contented, the shining angel basked in his own glory. For by the time the first snow of winter covered the valleys, and dominion over the earth reverted into God’s hands, he had parceled out such an enormous bounty that the people of the earth would surely be enjoying his gifts for many years to come.
But one cold day, late in the year, a multitude of voices rose heavenwards in a great cry of anguish. Frightened by the sound, the angel journeyed down to the Earth and, dressed as a pilgrim, entered the first house along the way. The people there, having threshed the grain and ground it into flour, had then started baking bread – but, alas, when they took the bread out of the oven, it fell to pieces, and the pieces were unpalatable; they filled the mouth with a disgusting taste, like clay. And this was precisely what the Angel found in the second house and in the third and everywhere that he set foot. People were lying on the floor, tearing their hair and cursing the King of the World, who had deceived their miserable hearts with His false blessing.
The angel flew away and collapsed at his Master’s feet. “Lord,” he cried, “help me to understand where my power and judgment were lacking.” Then God raised his voice and spoke: Behold a truth which is known to me, and only to me from the beginning of time, a truth too deep and dreadful for your delicate, generous hands, my sweet apprentice – it is this, that the Earth must be nourished with decay and covered with shadows that its seeds may bring forth – and it is this, that souls must be made fertile with flood and sorrow, that through them the Great Work may be born.”
Like all stories, this one cannot be reduced to a single lesson or point. But I particularly appreciate what the writer and activist Parker Palmer sees in the story. “Though some people see the angel as being compassionate from the outset of the tale, I do not. Compassion means, literally, the capacity to be with the suffering of another. Though the angel was ‘deeply moved’ by human suffering at the beginning of the story, the text says that he was moved only by ‘the sufferings he saw below.’ His relation to that suffering was both visual and vertical: he saw it rather than touched it, and he kept himself above it rather than entering into it… If the angel had proceeded differently - if he had asked at the outset to become a pilgrim on earth [rather than earth’s chief executive officer for a year] so that he could share the plight of the people - he would never have planted the seeds of false hope that grew into false wheat and were baked into false bread. It may be easier to act from a distance than to practice true compassion, but such action rarely results in anyone being fed.”
In this week’s Torah portion, Noah builds an ark in order to survive a flood that destroys the rest of the world. It is said he was a righteous man, blameless in his generation (Genesis 6:9), a curious qualification that leads Jewish tradition to wonder if he could have been an even better person. Noah follows God’s instructions, and honestly I often feel a similar impulse - when the flood of sorrow and violence and vicious words become too much, I want to build an ark and float away with the meager number of people who think exactly like I do. I want to close ranks, tend wounds, and disconnect.
But no - Noah’s story, like Buber’s Angel, is a cautionary tale. Noah “did not reach the [spiritual and ethical] level of sharing in the sorrow of human beings” (Nosson Tzvi Finkel). According to the Torah, Noah simply built an ark and survived. According to the Talmud, Noah spent 120 years chastising the people and urging them to change. (They didn’t). But he never once tried to visit them in their pain.
May we encounter each other not as arguments with legs and social media accounts, but as humans with hearts and hopes and heaviness, and care for and about each other’s pain. May we care for ourselves with kindness, and when we have capacity may we turn to curiosity and compassion.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jay LeVine
