September 10, 2026
As always, I wrote a tweet which made everyone upset, this time on the fact that New York requires you to harden your heart to public suffering if you want to stay sane. One faction is upset as they believe that one must not harden their heart or that it is possible not to. The other side claims that my heart is much too soft—why should anyone feel empathy toward the poor, addicted, and insane? Though the second is far more repugnant than the first, the first has a childlike view of the world and also fails to realize true empathy.
Though I may be an outlier in that I spend ~500 mi/month on foot, leading me to see much more public suffering than average, New York seems to have a large amount of it. Less per capita? Absolutely, but the sum total I see is great. If one were to fully comprehend the experiences which leave someone on the streets, they may become just as they are. After all, we never truly experience what it is like to be the other. Some may be more resilient, but experiencing two lives which lead to desperation? I doubt one could stay sane after that. Eventually, if we all felt the experiences of those in need, we would be mad. It is a blessing that empathy goes only so far. This is what I mean by hardening of the heart. On the way to Shabbat services I passed by a man convinced that he was in control of the weather and began to imagine what his life had been like to that point. If one were to practice this for every passerby in pain, it would be a high toll.
The other side claims that one may remain sane if they only consider certain categories worthy of empathy. There may be a distinction between those who truly chose to be on the street and those who are “really” suffering, but both remain in a painful situation. Would you not flinch if you saw someone injure themselves of their own accord? Furthermore, the line between genuinely “down on their luck” versus a position of choice is not so clear cut. Different people struggle with rules. As for the implication that I ought not to care about the mentally ill, I find this particularly distasteful. True mental illness is an uncontrollable force and one ought to feel for those stuck at the whims of it. This does not mean that one should embrace those suffering—danger is always a consideration—but to simply feel empathy is the least one can do. And again, if we were to truly feel what those suffering do, we too would have a more slippery grasp on reality. I hope that those who exclude the mentally ill from those deserving of dignity never experience psychosis.
We exist as separate minds so that we cannot feel what others do; it is natural to harden our hearts. This does not imply that we feel nothing for others or that some groups are exempt from this kindness. Rather, we are commanded to extend our goodwill as far as we can.