Here is a heavier question: how do you deal with feeling hate? Ever since visiting the West Bank in Palestine I have struggled with it from a spiritual and mental health perspective. I know that Hashem wants us not to hate, and that hate and anger are bad for my mental health. But when I see what Israel is doing in Gaza, when Israeli soldiers pointed guns at my Arab friends, those feelings rise up.
And they lead to a third emotion: guilt. Guilt that I can’t do more, guilt that I can’t be there, guilt that I am (relatively) safe and comfortable in the USA.
So I would love to hear your perspective on how you try to handle these emotions.
For Hatred : I think the best way to overcome it is to remember the humanity of the other side, even the criminals. We should keep in mind that most of human beings are the resulta of the environment they grew up into and are highly aaffected by it, misinformation, brainwashing, ingrained national narratives, etc are always parts of deciding who we are. We can pretend to be free thinker however we want, but the reality that most humans are influenced by things they didn’t choose to have is real. So, from there, we can imagine why the people who do bad things do it. I don't believe that there are a lot of intrinsically evil people out there. If we or the people we love were born into a settlement in the WB, I don't think we would have been so much different from the settlers we hate. This doesn't take off their agency. They are responsible for the bad deeds they do. It's just a way to remember their humanity and not to reduce them into mere political bad actors.
Anger : I think that anger is just a highly emotional reaction that's nearee to human physiology than psychology. It's perfectly normal to feel it. But we shouldn't allow it to blind our consciousness from choosing the right thing to do. And it's also related to hatred, so I think you can deal with it the same way.
Guilt : I think most of us here feel the same and more. Our brothers and sisters are being massacred in an unmaginable intensity, and we can not do anything. I think we also take more guilt since Gaza is just an episode in a very bloody era. Before, we had Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Yemen, and Sudan. I personally deal with it by reminding myself that the current situation on the ground is the result of centuries of power dynamics and won't really change overnight, and our capabilities to change it are low. But honestly, this often fails to cool down my guilt flame. So, I eventually remind myself that being sad won't help anyone, and I should try to do all I can to help however low it seems.
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u/conscience_journey Oct 27 '24
Here is a heavier question: how do you deal with feeling hate? Ever since visiting the West Bank in Palestine I have struggled with it from a spiritual and mental health perspective. I know that Hashem wants us not to hate, and that hate and anger are bad for my mental health. But when I see what Israel is doing in Gaza, when Israeli soldiers pointed guns at my Arab friends, those feelings rise up.
And they lead to a third emotion: guilt. Guilt that I can’t do more, guilt that I can’t be there, guilt that I am (relatively) safe and comfortable in the USA.
So I would love to hear your perspective on how you try to handle these emotions.