Torah Geek

The world needs less empathy.  Not what you were expecting me to say?  I’m a bit surprised myself; I have stood in this spot before teaching about the importance of empathy — how our experience as strangers in Egypt is supposed to lead us to empathize with other people suffering today and that our empathy should motivate us to work for causes that support the poor, refugees, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, equality, health care and more. But it turns out that inspiring empathy is not the best way to increase moral behavior and that empathy is not enough. Empathy is often understood to be the root of compassion and moral behavior: if I feel how you feel, if I’m hurt when you hurt, then I will do whatever I can to alleviate your suffering. Empathy can lead to good outcomes — we might be more likely to help someone if we empathize with them — but empathy is not a good enough motivator for moral action, and can not fix the world by itself. To truly fix the world, we n...

“ No Regrets ” Sermon for Kol Nidrei 5777 Rabbi Shawna Brynjegard-Bialik Temple Ahavat Shalom – Northridge, California The Maggid of Dubnow was once passing through a town and came upon an old, abandoned barn. On the side of this barn were 100 targets. And in the center of each target, was an arrow.  100 targets, 100 bullseyes. He was amazed. Immediately he went to the town square  and asked the villagers who was the marksman that had such amazing skill. They pointed to a boy,  sitting off to the side with a bow and quiver next to him. “Young man,” he asked him,  “how is that you are so skilled to have accomplished this incredible feat with your bow and arrow?” “It’s really easy,” the boy replied, “I shoot the arrows first, and then I paint the targets around them.” If you draw the bullseyes after you shoot the arrows, you never regret a single shot. American culture celebrates this “No Regrets” attitude. We hear it all the time, as if living lif...