Larger Than Life

W

hen one of my sons was in cheder, he played the game chamesh avanim (also called “kugelach”) for hours on end. I tried to entice him to learn a Mishnah with me, or at least do something intellectually stimulating, but my efforts were in vain. Nothing could break his immersion in the game. I thought he would grow bored after a few days, but month after month went by, and his game sessions only grew longer.

I knew my son had the potential to become a bona fide talmid chacham, and watching him waste countless hours was dismaying. Furthermore, I couldn’t fathom the appeal of that dull and monotonous game for the life of me. But one day it dawned on me that in his own way, my son was training himself to become a masmid. He was honing his ability to repeat the same activity again and again without losing focus — an ability that would later enable him to learn a sugya for several hours without interruption. To me it was a trifling game, but in his life, it was a formative experience.

We view other people from the vantage point of our own lives. We acknowledge the importance of another person’s endeavors only to the extent that they influence our own lives. If someone’s behavior, personality traits, or attitudes aren’t exactly our cup of tea, we dismiss those aspects of the person, oblivious to their significance in that person’s life.

Our inability to view another person’s life on its own terms inhibits us from being nosei b’ol with those around us. We can only understand people’s pain, joy, frustration, or excitement if we put ourselves in their shoes and see how they — not we — approach and experience life. This middah is the backbone of interpersonal relationships — and, according to the Alter of Kelm, of avodas Hashem in general. You don’t have to be a psychologist to do it; you simply have to think about the other person’s life in its own right.