The Power Of Experience

A woman was in the mountains with her twin 18 month old baby girls while her husband was back in the city working [כנהוג ואכ"מ]. She was very attached to these girls as she had waited a long time until they were conceived. Conception and childbirth is not always easy. Before eating one meal, she went to wash netilas yodayim and took one of the girls with her and left the other one at the table. Upon her return, she started looking around but couldn't find her missing toddler.

She began to become frantic. She called out in the busy dining rom "Has anyone seen my baby who looks just like this one?" People sort looked around in a perfunctory manner and said "No, we haven't seen her".

She then saw a group of girls and asked if they saw her baby and they said no. Suddenly, one girl, like a commader in the army, began to "deploy the troops". "You go to the pool, you go to the play room, you go to the classroom etc. etc." The girls came back one by one as the mother waited anxiously but the little girl was not to be found. Not by the pool, not in the playroom, not in the classroom etc. etc.

You can imagine how incredibly nervous she was. Finally, finally, finally, the girl who had sent her friends out on the search, returned with the baby.

Ahhhhhhh.

The mother asked where she had been. "She was in the classroom" explained the girl.

"Yes", asked the mother, "but another girl already checked the classroom and didn't find her?"

"Right, but I checked and found her under a desk."

"Tell me", inquired the mother, "why did you care so much. You sent everyone out, and you looked with extra special care and effort?"   

The girl replied simply, "I am Leiby Kletzky's sister".

I think that our apathy is just an outcome of the fact the we have never before experienced what those who have suffered experienced. Not the poverty, or illness or loss. Next time someone comes to your door asking for help - use your power of imagination to feel as if it were you at the door.

That would be a super tikkun and do much towards fixing the sinas chinam and אדישות חינם [baseless apathy] that afflicts us.

לע"נ יהודה בן נחמן קלצקי