Sympathy, Empathy, and Solidarity

Sympathy, Empathy, and Solidarity

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

There is a sacred continuum in the human heart — a progression from sympathy to empathy to solidarity — through which we are invited to move closer to one another, and thereby closer to God. Each point on this spectrum is holy, yet incomplete without the others. The Torah commands us, “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16). To obey this verse is not only to act, but to feel; not only to feel, but to become part of another’s story.

Sympathy is the beginning of compassion — the first spark of awareness that another person suffers. It is the head’s recognition that pain exists beyond our own boundaries. When we say, “I’m sorry you’re hurting,” we acknowledge another’s humanity. That, already, is sacred. But sympathy risks remaining at a safe distance. It can comfort without cost, weep without movement. It’s the cry from the shore for a person drowning far away — heartfelt, sincere, but dry.

Empathy wades into the water. It is the soul’s courageous act of feeling with another. To empathize is to remember our own wounds, to allow another’s pain to awaken something living within us. Empathy dissolves the illusion of separateness. We do not say, “That could have been me.” We say, “That is me.” When Torah commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), it isn’t telling us to treat others well — it’s demanding that we collapse the distance between “you” and “me.” Empathy is the awareness that the boundary is already porous.

And yet, even empathy can stop short of transformation. We can feel deeply and still remain still. Solidarity is empathy that has grown legs. It is the manifestation of compassion in motion, the covenantal choice to show up for another’s struggle as our own. Solidarity is when we stop merely understanding another’s pain and start sharing the risk of healing. It is when Pharaoh’s daughter, moved by the infant’s cry, not only weeps but reaches down into the Nile to save Moshe. It is when Jews stand with those who suffer, not as charity but as covenant. When we say Hineni — “Here I am” — not to speak, but to stand.

Solidarity, then, is the crescendo of human feeling. It is the place where we embody God’s image most vividly. The Holy One does not remain sympathetic or empathetic to our suffering; God enters it. The Exodus itself is the story of divine solidarity — a God who says, “I have heard their cry… and I will descend to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7–8). If God can descend into our pain, surely we can ascend into one another’s.

The continuum of sympathy, empathy, and solidarity is not linear but cyclical, a rhythm of awareness, feeling, and action. It invites us to live with open hearts and steady feet — to feel what others feel, and then to move. For in the end, love that remains unmoved is only sentiment. But love that stands beside another, shoulders their burden, and walks with them toward freedom — that love is redemption itself.

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A Prayer for Release and Healing

A Prayer for Release and Healing

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

At long last, beloved souls are coming home.

After two years of torturous captivity, we dare to breathe—through tears, through trembling, through prayer. We pray for their bodies, broken and starved. We pray for their minds, wounded by terror and isolation. We pray for those whose lives were mercilessly destroyed that their families should be able to bury them with dignity. We pray for all of the hostages’ families, who have lived in the unbearable space between hope and despair for over two years.

We pray, too, for the entire State of Israel, a family of millions aching together, holding each other through the unspeakable. And we pray for Am Yisrael, the global Jewish people, that we might be strong enough and tender enough to receive our siblings and our parents and our children with full hearts—to enfold them in love, to honor their trauma with patience, to surround them with unending care.

The work ahead will be long. The healing will not be easy. But we are a people of covenant, commanded to choose life and to repair what pain has shattered.

May we be worthy partners in the sacred labor of return. May this complicated homecoming ignite the long, hard work of repair—for them, for us, for all of Israel.

Amen.

A Prayer for Burying “Bring Them Home Now” Dog Tags*

A Prayer for Burying “Bring Them Home Now” Dog Tags*
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Mekor HaChayim, Source of all Life,
We stand today with trembling hearts,
bearing these small pieces of metal —
once cold, now warmed by years of tears
and hope and holy sweat.

For two years, these dog tags rested upon our hearts,
carrying our brothers and sisters,
our children and elders,
whose faces we carried into every prayer,
every dream, every moment of waiting.

We wore them as shields of faith,
as promises never to forget.
Each clink and gleam was a heartbeat of Am Yisrael,
a whispered “Bring them home. Now.”

Now, as we return these amulets to the earth,
we do not discard them.
We lay them gently, as we would lay a loved one,
trusting that memory is eternal,
that love does not rust,
that sanctity can dwell in metal, in tears, in time.

Holy One, let this burial be a bridge —
from pain to promise,
from captivity to compassion,
from symbol to action.

May the ground receive these sacred tokens
as we continue to carry their spirit in our souls.
May every name engraved here
shine in the heavens as a light that can never be extinguished.

And may the world never again need such amulets,
for all Your children to be free,
safe in their homes,
whole in their hearts,
together in peace.

Amen.

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*Other rituals will surely arise — songs, prayers, art, and silence — each guided by the wisdom and imagination of artists, rabbis, and ritual leaders who help us make meaning in the wake of sorrow and hope. Let us honor both the moment and the movement — the courage to create holiness even as we live toward wholeness.

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Defying Harshness with Song: A Reflection After Yom Kippur

Defying Harshness with Song: A Reflection After Yom Kippur
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

This year I again led prayers in a community I’ve come to know well. My voice, which I expected to weaken, grew stronger. And I know why: it was the strength of being in community. The resonance of not being alone.

And yet, alongside this renewal came heartbreak — the horrific attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, England where Adrian Daulby z”l and Melvin Kravitz z”l were murdered. The image that will not leave me is of Rabbi Daniel Walker, blood on his kittel, standing steadfast to protect his community. It is a vision of horror — and also, paradoxically, of sacred strength.

We must not allow terror to eclipse the power of Yom Kippur. For centuries, through Crusades and expulsions, we have carried into Yom Kippur the memory of those who fell in the Eleh Ezkerah section of Musaf. We emerge with prayers of hope. In the Avodah (another part of musf), when we join the High Priest entering the Holy of Holies, we are reminded of fragility — and of promise. The poem Mar’eh Kohen asks: What did his face look like upon emerging? It shone with light, with the assurance that the year ahead could be one of gladness, plenty, health, and safety. That was not a recitation. It was a promise.

Today, I bless us with the strength of Rabbi Walker, who like the Kohen Gadol, risked himself along with other members of the shul, to protect our people. He embodied what it means to carry community on your shoulders. And that is our calling too: to be a people whose strength is greater than anything the world can throw at us.

We live in a harsh time. Anti-Jewish hatred is not distant — it is on campuses, in streets, in sanctuaries, in Europe, in the United States, in our precious homeland. We do ourselves no favors by denying it. But friends, we are not defined by harshness. We are defined by resilience, by beauty, by song, by Torah. Survivors teach us to dance again. Rabbis remind us to love fiercely. Our ancestors whisper through us. And even in our own internal struggles, we hold ourselves accountable — because that is who we are.
Our story is not just Jewish; Torah begins not with Israel but with creation itself — a radical claim that God cares for every human being. To be Jewish is to hold our people close and also to hold the world tenderly.

And so I return to this truth: we are beautiful.

We sing, we dance, we grieve, we rise. We wear our people on our shoulders wherever we go.
This week’s Torah reading, Ha’azinu, reminds us that Moses, about to die, sang. He sang! He knew that life is fleeting, and song is eternal. That is part of his legacy to us all. Yom Kippur reminds us of the same truth: we do not have forever, so we must sing now.

Friends, breathe deeply. This very breath is a gift. Torah is a gift. Community is a gift. Shabbat is a gift. You are a gift. We are a gift.

So as we enter Shabbat, let us sing — not despite the brokenness of the world, but because of it. To sing is to defy despair. To sing is to remember who we are. To sing is to demand life and to be alive.
Together, let us keep singing until every captive is brought home, until every heart knows peace, until our people and the world are restored.

Shabbat Shalom.

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