Road Rage

I have a confession to make. I do experience road rage in traffic jams. Not just any old traffic jam, mind you, a particular type, namely, when there is an accident at the side of the road and all the cars-in both directions- slow down and “rubber neck” in order to get a glimpse of what happened. You quickly understand that there is no other reason for the traffic tie-up other than people slowing down to “look.” It upsets me because of the reason for the delay—that people can’t help but gawk at the misfortune of others. “Not true!” the innocent driver will protest. “I slowed down to see if I could help.” Sure. If you really wanted to help you would have parked the car, gotten out and done something!

The protesting driver is suggesting that he is doing the honorable thing, namely, slowing down in order to empathize and share someone else’s pain. He says that he is identifying with the unfortunate circumstances of the person in the accident by slowing down to show that he cares. What would I have him do, he would ask—drive right past as if nothing happened? Yes! I suggest that, by slowing down to gawk, the driver is not sharing his pain or empathizing. He is merely saying, “I’m glad it’s not me.”

 The authentic way to identify is to translate the feelings of empathy into action. That is genuine identification. Put your money where your mouth is. Talk is cheap. It is not enough to show your sensitivity by saying, “tsk, tsk, isn’t that terrible.” To share someone’s pain, you’ve got to get down on the floor, hug them and cry with them and see if there is something you can really do to help.

You’re never going to believe this, but it’s true. I had finished writing the previous paragraph and gone to work. As I was coming home that evening, I was caught in a traffic jam and I noticed a man trying to cross through the heavy traffic on foot. He was, unfortunately, hit by a car just ahead of me, literally “flew” twelve feet through the air and landed on his side.

As I witnessed this horrible scene, I said to myself, “This has got to be a test to see if I am for real.” I pulled off the road, drove onto the sidewalk, took off my coat and put it under the man’s head, which was bleeding. I waited by the man’s side until the ambulance arrived to take the injured man to the hospital. I think we ought to be careful about what we say. Someone may actually be listening.

                There is a story told of a rabbi who called upon a rich member of his community to solicit funds to buy coal for a poor widow to heat her home in the winter. The rabbi did not actually make the request for the donation until he left the rich man’s home and was standing outside saying goodbye in the freezing cold. Halacha—Jewish law—requires a host to escort his or her guest at least six feet outside the door when the guest leaves to give the guest a sense of reassurance that the host truly enjoyed the guest’s company and is sorry to see him or her leave. The rich man walked the rabbi out the door without bothering to put on his coat thinking that he would be standing on the porch with the rabbi for only a few moments. The rabbi continued small talk with the rich man shivering outside for about six or seven minutes. Then the rabbi asked for the donation.

“Why didn’t you ask me while we were in my house?” asked the rich man.

“I wanted you to feel what it meant to be cold, before you responded to my request,” said the rabbi.

The host “identified” in a real way with the widow’s predicament because he felt what she did. He then donated money to buy coal for all the poor people in the town.

When someone in the Jewish community experiences a bereavement, Jewish law requires that the bereaved stay in their homes for seven days, sit on low chairs to represent their “down” mood-and their “loss” of stature, and to receive callers, who visit in order to offer comfort and console them. It’s called shiva—the Hebrew word for seven.

When someone visits the bereaved, Jewish law requires that the visitor sit as far away as possible from the bereaved. The visitor must also refrain from speaking with the bereaved until the bereaved speaks first so as not to disturb the mourner if he or she is lost in thought. The idea of being silent in the presence of the mourner seems a strange requirement. Wouldn’t it be better to talk about the weather or current events to take the mourner’s mind off his or her loss rather than remain silent? The answer is that to be silent and to thus share the pain with the mourner is the best way of empathizing. We are not there to distract the mourner, rather to stay “with” the mourner in his or her pain and to share it.

Being able to share someone else’s pain is an indicator and an ingredient of self-esteem. We can only share someone else’s pain if we think and feel beyond our own selves. If we feel good about ourselves then we don’t need to spend all our time and energy on our “selves,” rather we can begin to reach out to others.

The empathy we must feel for others is woven into the daily Jewish prayer service. We Jews never pray for ourselves alone, rather we pray in the plural, as we say in the Shemoneh Esrei-the silent standing prayer: heal us, bless us, hear our voices…

 The Talmud teaches us that anyone who requests mercy for his friend, where he himself is in need of the same mercy, he will be answered first.” When you feel for another-when you empathize with the pain of another-that is true humanity. God listens when we reach our human potential.

A teacher of mine, Rabbi Nachman Bulman ,z”l, related that a woman in his former community in Israel once asked him for a blessing to be able to conceive. He told her that he had no special hotline to God but he suggested that she might pray for his own daughter who had one child many years before and who hadn’t been able to conceive since then. She agreed to pray for his daughter and the rabbi asked his own daughter in America to pray for the woman in his own community. A few months later the rabbi learned that both were expecting, one month apart. His daughter gave birth two weeks early. The woman in Israel gave birth two weeks late. Each gave birth to a healthy baby girl on the same day. Each had prayed for the other, and each was answered first—which happened to be at the same time.

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