Our Greatest Social Crisis: We Have Stopped Seeing People
We’ve become great at categorizing people. We’ve become horrific at just seeing people.
We see a political position, a religious label, a social type, a difficult child, an underperforming employee, or someone who has disappointed us. We decide what they represent without giving much thought to what might be beneath the surface or to discovering who they truly are.
More often than not, we have very good intentions. But as parents, as educators, as mentors, and as friends, we fail to appreciate the consequence of a top-down approach of “I know what you need, I know who you should become, and my job is to impose that upon you,” which is that the child – the human – can disappear beneath the program, the rules, or the educator’s authority.
In this week’s portion, as the Jewish People are poised to cross the Jordan River and enter the Land of Israel, the tribes of Reuven and Gad approach Moses to request permission to settle their families on the East Bank. Moses initially responds very sharply to them, believing that they are abandoning the Jewish people. But he allows them to explain themselves and to clarify their intentions. Moshe listens and does not remain trapped in his first interpretation. Once he sees what they are actually proposing, the conversation changes.
Before asking, “How do I shape this student?” a true educator asks, “Who is this student? What is happening inside this child? What strengths, fears, struggles, and possibilities am I being entrusted with?”
That is the larger issue facing us today.
The theme of this season on the Jewish calendar – the “Three Weeks” of mourning the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem – is to reflect on the cause of that tragedy: baseless hatred between people. We reflect not just to mourn, but to reverse what happened. If baseless hatred led to destruction, then baseless love is what we need to rebuild our Temple and bring redemption to ourselves and our society.
What is “baseless” love? It is allowing another person to exist as someone other than the person we need them to be. It is seeing them before deciding who they are.
Many of the wounds in our homes, schools, communities, and society begin when we stop seeing people and start seeing only the problem they present. And this is not just about the “problem child”. Even the “perfect child” becomes so identified with what is expected of her that she never has the space to discover what she herself wants.
In education, parenting, leadership, and community life, we are focused on rewarding compliance and achievement, but beneath all of that is a human being with an inner world and an individual calling. They have their own designs and their own desires that must be discovered – by themselves. On their own.
Love begins with attention. Before I can love another person, I must allow that person to exist in my mind as more than the role I have assigned them. Because truly loving someone is not only about wanting what is best for them. It is to make room for them to become themselves.
Hatred reduces a person to a label, a problem, or an obstacle. Love restores depth. It looks again and asks: Who is this person beneath my expectations of them?
