Where did our humanity go?

Yesterday, a six-year-old boy from Beit Shemesh, the son of a couple I know, suddenly passed away. He was a healthy boy who had been sick with a fever. Suddenly he lost consciousness and the emergency response team tried to revive him, to no avail.

I was shocked and heartbroken at this unfathomable news. A healthy boy, slightly older than my little one, all of a sudden gone from this world. His parents are kind, sweet, beautiful human beings whose lives are now forever changed—a pain that I can only imagine will weigh heavy on their hearts for the rest of their days. I tried to move on with the day’s activities as usual, but deep down only wanted to hug my children, kiss their faces, pray to G-d not to take them from me. I spoke to a friend about the fear of something like this coming out of nowhere, taking these precious humans from us, and the anxiety that awakens in us. The lack of control. The unknown. The need to believe that G-d has a plan for all of us, because otherwise everything just seems absurd.

I tried to sleep, only to be woken by nightmares, and so I indulged in the bad habit of scrolling through social media. I came across a post telling the sad news of this little boy and could not help but read the comments. What I saw is what finally broke me. Hundreds of comments assuming things and speculating, wondering where the parents were, whether the boy had the flu or not, whether he was vaccinated. Pro-vaxxers asserting that the boy must not have had a flu shot and thus died because of negligence; anti-vaxxers arguing that the boy surely had a flu shot and died because of it. People asserting these tragedies hit charedi neighborhoods harder, and many answering that charedim can’t pay attention to all of their children and so their negligence causes these events. People judging from behind their screens, speaking as if they know better, as if these things happen to “them”, the people who “are wrong”, but not to “us”, because “we know (or are) better”- opinions, and judgment, and criticism, and a surprising lack of compassion.

It is no secret to anyone that Israeli society is struggling with division and hatred. In the aftermath of October 7, we saw a light of hope in those first few months, where it seemed like we finally understood that we are all on the same team. But memory is fragile, and we seem to be back to square one—everyone judging, criticizing, hating those who are, act or think differently. Social media and its algorithm, which only tells us what we want to hear and prevents us from having respectful and productive discussions with those whose perspective differs from our own, widens the gap. And now we are on the edge of an AI revolution, which will see humans replaced by machines in many, if not most, areas of our lives. So I wonder, what will be the thing that saves us? What makes humans better than AI?

This week’s parashah, Vayigash, tells the story of Joseph as he reveals the truth to his brothers. Joseph is overcome by compassion at Yehuda’s act of self-sacrifice—offering himself as a slave instead of Binyamin—and thus reveals the truth to his brothers and ultimately brings the family to Egypt to save them from famine. Joseph had every reason to feel anger and resentment after his brothers sold him as a slave, which led him to endure years of suffering; however, Joseph was capable of seeing beyond the hatred, the resentment, and the desire for vengeance, and into forgiveness, love, and compassion for his brothers.

I believe that in these crazy times, with the threat of AI replacing humans, in the fragile social equilibrium that Israeli society is struggling to maintain, we need to remember that we have the capacity to be compassionate and kind. Let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of our brothers and sisters. Let’s take a moment when we read the news of an innocent six-year-old child who died suddenly to imagine the pain that his family is feeling, and to feel that pain in our hearts as well, instead of jumping to judgments and—many times erroneous—conclusions. Let’s try to copy G-d’s Attributes of Mercy, remembering that what makes us human is that we were created in the image and likeness of G-d—and start acting like it. The change needs to come from each and every one of us. And if we manage to look at things from the perspective of our humanity, remembering that at the end of the day we are all the same, it might not be too late to save ourselves, our society, and our country.