ר"ע תיתד תונויצל ינויערה גוחה ,םולשו זוע

"To Acknowledge the suffering of the 'other': Religious obligation, psychological challenge"

8 PM, Tuesday evening, April 17, 2001

Shalom Hartman Institute, Gedalyahu Alon St. Jerusalem

Rabbi David Rosen - former chief rabbi of Ireland, International Director of Inter-religious Relations of the American Jewish Committee

Dr. Daniel Brom, clinical psychologist, Israel Center for PsychoTrauma, Herzog Hospital, Jerusalem

Dr. Muhammad Horani, Shalom Hartman Institute

Dr. Shafiq Mesalha, clinical psychologist, lecturer at Tel Aviv University

Moderator – Prof. Alice Shalvi

This event attended by well over 100 people. Since the vast majority was English speaking, the participants agreed to speak in English and Rabbi Rosen translated a summary of Dr. Horani’s remarks that were made in Hebrew.

Rabbi Rosen quoted from Jewish sources of all periods to stress that peace is always preferred over war, and, when faced with war, there are clear rules of “permissible warfare”. He began with the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau, then quoted extensively from the midrash and from Maimonides, and included modern day responsa literature by former chief rabbis Uziel and Amiel, from Rabbi Chaim David HaLevi, and from Rabbi Unterman. He outlined the rules of warfare, which, in summary, say that a soldier can do whatever is necessary to defend himself from a clear threat to his life, but he may not harm people or property because of perceived and not actual danger.

Dr. Horani began by examining the questions, “Can one person’s suffering be different from another person’s suffering? “ and “Who is the ‘other’? “ His talk focused on the definitions of the ‘other’ in Islam, and how Islam relates to these different categories and its subsequent requirements for empathy. The groups he looked at, and described briefly how Islam differentiated between them, were Muslim-non Muslim, Muslim Arab-Muslim non Arab, male-female, and young-old.

Dr. Brom, the Israeli psychologist, began with a question as well, “Do we want to recognize the suffering of the other?” Even if we can say that we do, there are nevertheless psychological responses to situations of trauma that may preclude a true empathic response. These are: 1) a narcissistic response which places the traumatized person at the center of his world and unable to empathize with anyone else, 2) a continuous psychological re-enactment of the traumatic event which influences all subsequent events and, 3) dis-association in which one functions well during the traumatic event but has an ongoing response to it afterwards. All these mechanisms work against the ability to empathize when one is in the midst of a traumatic experience.

Dr. Mesalcha spoke about the influence of trauma on an individual’s perception of his own history. For Palestinians, 1948 was a traumatic event, and many Palestinians speak of the event, not in political terms, but how it affected their life. They still suffer from the memories and it colors their relationships and has transferred to the next generations. Three obstacles were mentioned in the process of recognizing the other. 1) the ability to empathize, 2) projection – describing ourselves as “good” and the other as “bad”, and 3) collective responsibility – a fear that if you acknowledge the right of the ‘other’ then you give up your own legitimate rights. And beyond this, he mentioned three levels of recognition of the ‘other’: 1) tolerance – accepting the presence of the other despite the fact that he is wrong, 2) pluralism – accepting the other and recognizing that he has value and, 3) partnership or multi-culturalism – in addition to accepting the presence of the other you feel that without the other your life would be missing something.

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