42 | JANUARY 27 • 2022

W

illiam Ury, found-
er of the Harvard
Program of
Negotiation, tells a marvelous
story in one of his books. A
young American, living in Japan
to study aikido,
was sitting one
afternoon in a
train in the sub-
urbs of Tokyo.
The carriage was
half empty. There
were some moth-
ers with children
and elderly people
going shopping.
Then, at one of the stations,
the doors opened, and a man
staggered into the carriage,
shouting, drunk, dirty and
aggressive. He started cursing
the people and lunged at a
woman holding a baby. The
blow hit her and sent her into
the lap of an elderly couple.
They jumped up and ran to the
other end of the carriage. This
angered the drunk, who went
after them, grabbing a metal
pole and trying to wrench it out
of its socket. It was a dangerous
situation, and the young student
readied himself for a fight.
Before he could do so, how-
ever, a small, elderly man in
his 70s, dressed in a kimono,
shouted “Hey” to the drunk in
a friendly manner. “Come here

and talk to me.
” The drunk
came over, as if in a trance.
“Why should I talk to you?”
he said. “What have you been
drinking?” asked the old man.
“Sake,
” he said, “and it’s none of
your business!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,
” said
the old man. “You see, I love
sake, too. Every night, me and
my wife (she’s 76, you know), we
warm up a little bottle of sake
and take it out into the garden
and we sit on an old wooden
bench. We watch the sun go
down, and we look to see how
our persimmon tree is doing.
My great-grandfather planted
that tree …
”
As he continued talking,
gradually the drunk’s face began
to soften and his fists slowly
unclenched. “Yes,
” he said, “I
love persimmons, too.
” “
And I’m
sure,
” said the old man, smiling,
“you have a wonderful wife.
”
“No,
” replied the drunk. “My
wife died.
” Gently, he began to
sob. “I don’t got no wife. I don’t
got no home. I don’t got no job.
I’m so ashamed of myself.
” Tears
rolled down his cheeks.
As the train arrived at the
student’s stop and he was leav-
ing the train, he heard the old
man sighing sympathetically,
“My, my. This is a difficult pre-
dicament indeed. Sit down here
and tell me about it.
” In the last

glimpse he saw of them, the
drunk was sitting with his head
in the old man’s lap. The man
was softly stroking his hair.
What he had sought to
achieve by muscle, the old man
had achieved with kind words.

SEEING THROUGH
SOMEONE ELSE’S EYES
A story like this illustrates the
power of empathy, of seeing the
world through someone else’s
eyes, entering into their feelings
and of acting in such a way as
to let them know that they are
understood, that they are heard,
that they matter.
If there is one command
above all others that speaks of
the power and significance of
empathy it is the line in this
week’s parshah: “You shall not
oppress a stranger, for you know
the heart of a stranger: You were
strangers in the land of Egypt”
(Ex. 23:9).
Why this command? The
need for empathy surely extends
way beyond strangers. It applies
to marriage partners, parents
and children, neighbors, col-
leagues at work and so on.
Empathy is essential to human
interaction generally. Why then
invoke it specifically about
strangers?
The answer is that “empathy
is strongest in groups where

people identify with each other:
family, friends, clubs, gangs, reli-
gions or races.
”
The corollary to this is that
the stronger the bond within the
group, the sharper the suspicion
and fear of those outside the
group. It is easy to “love your
neighbor as yourself.
” It is very
hard indeed to love, or even feel
empathy for, a stranger. As pri-
matologist Frans de Waal puts it,
“We’ve evolved to hate our ene-
mies, to ignore people we barely
know and to distrust anybody
who doesn’t look like us. Even if
we are largely cooperative with-
in our communities, we become
almost a different animal in our
treatment of strangers.
”
Fear of the one-not-like-us is
capable of disabling the empathy
response. That is why this spe-
cific command is so life-chang-
ing. Not only does it tell us to
empathize with the stranger
because you know what it feels
like to be in his or her place,
it even hints that this was part
of the purpose of the Israelites’
exile in Egypt in the first place.
It is as if God had said, your
sufferings have taught you
something of immense impor-
tance. You have been oppressed;
therefore, come to the rescue of
the oppressed, whoever they are.
You have suffered; therefore, you
shall become the people who are

Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks

TOA HEFTIBA ON UNSPLASH

The Power of Empathy

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH