What Are You Seeing That I Have Not Yet Seen?

The Right Hand Must Draw Near

There was a time when raising a child was understood to be, at least in part, a communal undertaking. A neighbor who saw a child behaving badly might offer a correction. A teacher who noticed that a student was struggling could speak candidly with the parents. The assumption was not that every observation was accurate or that every adult had the right to interfere. It was simply understood that other people sometimes saw things that parents themselves could not see.

That understanding has become more difficult to sustain. Today, concern about a child can easily be heard as criticism of the parent. A teacher’s observation may be interpreted as an accusation. A neighbor’s correction can provoke indignation. Even rabbis, coaches, and other adults entrusted with some measure of responsibility for a child’s development often learn to be cautious about saying what they see.

I learned this firsthand years ago while teaching a Bat Mitzvah student. She was having great difficulty reading the text in front of her. It seemed clear to me that the problem was not preparation or ability. She simply appeared unable to see the words properly. I mentioned this to her mother. Her response was immediate: “Who are you to tell me what is wrong with my child?” Three weeks later, the girl came to class wearing new glasses.

I have remembered that exchange for a long time, not because I was pleased to have been proven right, but because it illustrated how difficult it can be to hear something uncomfortable about someone we love. The mother’s first instinct was to protect her daughter. That instinct was understandable. But protection can sometimes become defensiveness, and defensiveness can prevent us from receiving information that might actually help.

Jewish tradition offers a remarkably balanced approach to this problem. The Talmud teaches: “The left hand should push away, but the right hand should draw near” (Sotah 47a). The image is carefully constructed. There are moments when boundaries must be established, when behavior must be corrected, when someone must hear that what he or she is doing is wrong. Judaism does not confuse love with permissiveness. But the stronger hand is the right hand, the hand that draws near. Correction must take place within relationship. Discipline must leave room for return. Rebuke must never become rejection.

This principle becomes especially important when we think about children. Parashat Ki Tetzei introduces the law of the ben sorer u’moreh, the wayward and rebellious son. The rabbis imposed such extraordinary conditions upon the application of this law that, according to one opinion in the Talmud, such a case never occurred and never would. The Torah presents what appears to be a law about a deeply troubled child. Rabbinic interpretation turns it into something else: an examination of the world surrounding that child. Before we are prepared to declare the child alone to be responsible, we must ask about the parents, the home, the teachers, the community, and the environment in which that child is growing. 

The question gradually changes. Instead of asking only, “What is wrong with this child?” we begin asking, “What might the rest of us have contributed? What have we failed to notice? What might we do differently?” That shift is difficult because blame is easier than introspection.

When something goes wrong, our first instinct is often to identify the person responsible. Parents blame teachers. Teachers blame parents. Communities blame families. Generations blame one another. Political factions blame their opponents. The world provides us with endless opportunities to explain why someone else is the problem.

Torah asks us to begin closer to home. This does not mean that every problem is our fault. Nor does it mean that children should never be held responsible for their choices. It means that responsibility rarely belongs entirely to one person. Human beings are formed within networks of relationships, expectations, examples, encouragements, and failures. When someone is struggling, the most useful question may not be, “Whose fault is this?” It may be, “What can I do now that might make things better?” That question requires humility. It requires parents to listen when a teacher sees something they have missed. It requires teachers to speak with sensitivity rather than superiority. It requires rabbis and neighbors to know the difference between concern and intrusion. And it requires all of us to recognize that loving someone does not mean insisting that nothing could possibly be wrong. Sometimes love means noticing. Sometimes love means speaking. And sometimes love means being willing to listen when someone else sees what we cannot yet see.

The mother of my Bat Mitzvah student eventually did exactly that. Whatever anger she initially felt, she looked again. She took her daughter to have her eyes examined. Three weeks later, the child walked into my classroom wearing glasses, able to see the words that had previously been blurred before her. There is a lesson in those glasses.

We all have blind spots. The people who care about us may occasionally help us see them. The task is to create families and communities in which correction is offered carefully enough to be heard and received humbly enough to be useful. “The left hand should push away, but the right hand should draw near.” The goal is not to eliminate correction. It is to make sure that correction remains an expression of care. And when someone points out something we would rather not hear, our first response need not be, “Who are you to tell me?” A better response may be: “What are you seeing that I have not yet seen?”