Unbearable Pain

Florida Jewish News, May 5, 2006, pp. 15, 18

For some reason, a quote I used last week in my article was bothering me all week. I quoted Rabbi Yosef Karo, the writer of the Shulchan Oruch (Code of Jewish Law) as saying, “Conversation is strictly forbidden during the Chazan’s repetition of the Shmoneh Esray. If one speaks at this time, his sin is too great to bear.”

What was bothering me is: “too great” for whom? Who is it that finds the sin “too great to bear” if someone speaks during the repetition of the Shimoneh Esray? The people around him? Well, they’re probably annoyed, but I hardly think it places them in so much pain that they can’t bear it. Him? Well, he’s doing it and doing it and apparently has gotten away with it many times, so it’s not like he got zapped by a bolt of lightning from talking during repetition of the Shimoneh Esray. Who in the world has been placed in such unbearable pain?

And then the answer hit me (like a bolt of lightning): God.

God finds the pain unbearable. How is that possible? The Creator of the Universe, who is in charge of everything, can’t bear the pain of our sins? Obviously, He does, because here we still are. The world is standing; He has not, after all, turned it into water, a threat He once made (it’s in the Yom Kippur davening) and something He is quite capable of doing. If He couldn’t bear it, you’d think He would do something about it.

I think He did.

I think God is giving us a message by this statement, namely, that if He did feel unbearable pain, then He would surely feel it when we talk during repetition of the Shimoneh Esray. And what’s the point of this? Why do we have to know this piece of information? Why is this sin described as “too great to bear?”

Put that one aside for a moment and consider another thought in an entirely different area. On his Pessach CD, Rabbi Yossi Jankowitz made the fascinating observation that the entire Pessach story hinges on Yoseph being sensitive to the wine steward. Yoseph noticed the wine steward seemed depressed and asked him what was bothering him. Imagine! Here’s Yoseph who has been unjustly sold as a slave by his own brothers, again unjustly treated by being thrown in jail for a crime he did not commit, and “he saw” the Egyptian wine steward and the baker—people with whom he had nothing whatsoever in common— “were aggrieved and he asked, ‘Why do you appear downcast today?’”

This is absolutely mind-boggling. You and I would be licking our wounds, feeling sorry for ourselves—and justifiably so—in his shoes, but not Yoseph! He was, as Rabbi Yossi so precisely put it, sensitive to the pain of another person.

Had Yoseph not had this sensitivity, the rest of the story would not have unfolded as it did and we would not have been redeemed from Egypt!

Rabbi Karo’s statement and the Yoseph story together settle a question that challenges me nearly every day at work: If a person’s feelings get hurt easily, how sensitive is too sensitive?

Hardly a workday goes by when one member of a couple does not accuse the partner of being “too sensitive.” Up until now, I relied on a little humor to handle it. I’d smile and say to the complainer, “Nah, you’re just too insensitive.” But between you and me, I always wondered if I was wrong. What if the spouse or child really was too sensitive? Where do you draw the line?

Now, I know where to draw it.

If God Himself was hurt beyond what He could bear from us, his children, simply by a little talking in shul—such a small thing, one would assume—and Yoseph showed us the right way to treat others by showing sensitivity to the feelings of jailed Egyptian stewards, then surely, surely no level of being sensitive to our wives, husbands, parents, and children is “too sensitive.” Surely, we should always consider the pain of those we love as “too great to bear.” The message is clear: There’s no such thing as “too sensitive.” We all should be that sensitive; that’s a good goal for humankind.

In the future, no one’s ever going to throw me again with that “too sensitive” nonsense. Not only will I be telling the guy (usually it’s a guy, though not always) that he’s too “insensitive,” I’m going to add, “And I have it from a Higher Authority.”