Listen, my friend.
You've got two choices.
You can see what is happening
Feel the pain in this world
Hear the tragedies
Listen to the cries
And you can say
"Oh, I just saw him yesterday!"
"What a terrible thing to happen."
"She was so young."
"What a tzaddik."
Or you can do.
Feel.
Change.
Which do you choose?
15 comments:
That's what I say, we can either just talk and hear, or try to take action to make things better.
I say do both, it's not easy, what kind of change should we do? Take on something in their memory, teshuva, become a better person? Not sure what else there is to do.
I'm always getting in trouble for yelling at people to stop talking and do something...
So what do you propose we DO?
Let us just try to emulate the Meedos Tovos of the Niftorim.
people always just talk and talk without doing.
i'm not calling for anything collective. each person knows individually what he/she has to change. if you're not going to do it for yourself, at least do it for the niftar or nifteres.
Great thought! Now, in a situation where we can in fact DO something, we absolutely should! The tricky part is when sometimes there is NOTHING that CAN be done!
Everything changes us. Every exposure, every experience, every moment accumulates into who we are at any given moment.
The real cry to battle is to change for the better. To not just numb yourself to the experience, but to think. To think about what happened, to think about how you can turn this experience into positive change. How this experience translates into positive reform is an individualistic quest, it can manifest itself in any which way.
Awareness is the most crucial step in change.
This is how I understood your post.
(well said)
I feel...but I dont do..
Thats bad
:-(
I say both. My granmother passed away last week, and it really hepled us to hear about how she affected everybody. When peple came to be menachem avel and spoke about her, somehow it made it easier to bear.
But of course, we must do good in our own lives in her merit.
LV - when nothing can be done for the people in the situation, then that's the time to do something about yourself, and change yourself.
mel - well understood and well said.
you're quite articulate.
david - don't just say "I don't." Say "I will."
You'll be much more likely to actually do something.
Chaya - I agree with you, in that situation. I'm not speaking of the talking while being menachem avel. I'm speaking of the the talking that goes on when people speak of the tragedies amongst themselves. In my opinion, the people who talk the most are usually the people who do the least. And I'm backed up by this "Emor Miat Viaseh Harbeh"
Those conversations always nauseate me. I wonder why people seem to think their status will rise somehow if they know the victim or some new bit of information. If you must gossip, don't feed off a person's tragedy.
thanks.
"If you must gossip, don't feed off a person's tragedy."
Bas Melech,
This is precisely what I meant with my post about Camp Simcha!
The Dreamer said...
LV - when nothing can be done for the people in the situation, then that's the time to do something about yourself, and change yourself.
SOMETIMES, BUT NOT NECESSARILY TRUE ALWAYS.
LV,
I think you may be getting confused with the word DO. Doing something doesn't need to be a physical action it just means to be cognizant of how you relate to the situation. This knowledge or awareness is what will lead you to make better decisions in your life. This is what Change means. It means you learned something new. It means you are now capable of making a more educated decision.
This awareness sensitizes you to certain circumstances allowing you to relate and understand what the right thing to do is in any circumstance.
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