Start to feel again

What the Rav said:

At a time when there was a number of terrorist attacks, the Rav said: how is it possible to hide yourself from the suffering of others?

We need to learn from it, and to be pained by it.

But, if we only read about these things out of interest, and are not pained by the suffering of others, then it is preferable that a person doesn’t get involved with them at all.

My thoughts:

We live with 24hr news.

All day, every day, the media fights to give us more excitement, more eye-candy and more gruesome details, pictures, videos…

Throw into the mix movies, special effects and CGI, we no longer know what’s real and what’s not.

We hear about a disaster and see pictures, videos. We no longer know how to distinguish it from the movie scenes (which we told ourselves aren’t real).

We’re catastrophically desensitized to others' pain and suffering.

The Rav is telling us – better to take a step back, turn the screen off, take a break and go do some hitbodedut. Continuing like a zombie, devoid of feelings, is more damaging.

Better to hit the off switch, until I can start to feel again.