Rabbi David Wolpe’s Rosh Hashanah sermon was on “compassion fatigue” — the moral weariness in the face of tsunamis, hurricanes, hunger, the human disasters in Darfur and Rwanda, the continual terror in Israel:
When I was a teenager, my brothers and I received a letter from my father. It was full of paternal advice, one piece of which stays to this day in my memory. He said that in his experience the one quality that separated "the men from the boys" — that is, adults from children — was the quality of stamina. Many people make a single glorious effort in this world. The promise of imminent reward moves us. But the hero is not one who succeeds in a single burst, but rather the one who does not relent.
The threat of exposure to tragedy is that it will wear us down, inducing us to turn away. Slavery in Sudan? Butchery in Darfur? Homeless, hungry, helpless? How much more can I take?
The answer of full humanity, the answer of faith, is more, more and more. Each person, the Jewish tradition teaches, is a world, a unique reflection of God. . . . What do we do with the appeals that stuff our mailboxes? We may not be able to give as much to each as we wish, but we can pay attention to them. We can refuse to be coarsened. We can retain the vital quality of moral stamina.
It is evil to give in to moral despair. We cannot stop our ears against the cries around us because we just cannot listen any more. There are struggles, and we are sentries, and abandoning one’s post is the greatest sin.
Reminds me of the beautiful verse from Isaiah 62:6-7 — “I have set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem, who shall never hold their peace day nor night: you that make mention of the Lord, take no rest. And give Him no rest until He establishes and until He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth" — and the unrelenting efforts of the blogger who taught it to me.
Shabbat Shalom.