Rabbi Dr. Rachel Posner, Beth El Synagogue, "Compassion: A Jewish Path Towards Acceptance"

Compassion: A Jewish Path Towards Acceptance

—Rabbi Dr. Rachel Posner 

        Psychological flexibility is a cornerstone of mental health. It represents a kind of freedom, a graceful way to be in this world.  The skill of acceptance lies at the heart of psychological flexibility. Yet acceptance is one of the most misunderstood psychological concepts. Acceptance does not mean we approve or endorse behaviors that are misguided or abusive; it does not mean we enjoy our suffering, or glorify our pain. Acceptance does not mean that we give up working for positive change in ourselves and in the world.  Rather, acceptance means allowing and acknowledging what is. Acceptance is a way of gracefully being with the truth, of allowing ourselves to open up to reality as it exists both inside ourselves and in the outside world. Struggling against reality helps no one. 

        Acceptance may be particularly challenging as a therapeutic concept for Jews because of Judaism’s optimistic stance on humanity’s capacity to improve and change. Rabbi Shai Held describes this as “Judaism’s ‘possiblism’ about human nature.” Accordingly, humans are not inherently flawed; rather, we have the capacity to make good choices, even if in practice we often fail. Judaism views humanity as God’s partners in creation, and throughout the Bible we find examples (e.g. Abraham, Moses) of individuals who question God in their quest for justice, rather than just accepting God’s world as it stands. On the surface it appears that Judaism is, at best, ambivalent about acceptance. 

    In Hebrew, the word for compassion, rachamim, has its root in the word רחם /rechem, or womb. Compassion means, as Rabbi Jill Hammer has taught, being connected and separate at the same time, which allows for the possibility of witnessing the other.  Hence the connection between רחם / womb and רחמים / compassion. Part of giving birth, and of parenting, is mastering the art of holding on and letting go at the right times; of constricting oneself to allow room for the other. Parenting is naturally great practice for working on the skills of compassion and acceptance. But even those of us who are not parents can of course understand what it means to practice these skills. If compassion means being connected and separate at the same time, which allows for the possibility of witness, what does this mean for self-compassion? Self-compassion forms a cornerstone for self-acceptance. It means that when we want and need to change something about ourselves, we must start by treating ourselves with the same compassion that a parent has for their child. We must begin with acceptance, and practice gently turning our mind towards acceptance over and over again. 

Perhaps the first character in the Bible to demonstrate psychological flexibility through acceptance is God. God changes God’s perspective on humanity over the course of the flood narrative (Genesis 6:9-9:17). When God decides to destroy the world with the great flood, the justification given for the destruction is the evil of human kind:

“God said to Noah, 'I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.’” (Genesis 6:13)

God seems to want a “do-over,” a chance to destroy God’s work and start again. However, after the flood, when God vows never to destroy the earth again, God says:

“Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21) Remarkably, God’s explanation for never destroying the world again also appears to be about the evil of human kind! God destroys the world because of humanity’s wickedness, and God vows never to destroy the world because of humanity’s wickedness. How can we reconcile this apparent discrepancy? One explanation is that God changes God’s mind.  In other words, God turns God’s mind toward acceptance of reality: humans have a capacity for wickedness. Despite this reality, God make a commitment to stick with us. In this, God shows an increased capacity of complex thoughts and emotions, the ability to contain a large messy truth: humans are flawed but beautiful. 

God evolves, changes God’s mind. God learns to accept. In short, God becomes more of a realist. This allows for God’s compassion to flow towards God’s creations. We might imagine that Divine acceptance also allows God to feel Self-compassion: sometimes our creative work does not turn out as planned, but that must not stop us from continuing to create, and to nurture our creations. Thus, through the flood narrative, the evolution of God’s personality - God’s ability to grow and develop - gives us inspiration to do the same. God accepts that human beings have ugly, aggressive impulses and decides to love us anyhow. God marks God’s commitment to accepting humanity by placing a rainbow in the sky (Genesis 9:12-17). Rainbows are our reminder of our covenant with God, of God’s commitment never to destroy God’s creations, to accept humanity. Part of that covenant involves the capacity to make needed changes, to not remain static in the face of new information. The rainbow thus symbolizes not only God’s compassion, but also God’s flexibility, and the ability that each of us have to change our minds to accept difficult realities. 

Rachel Posner is a licensed psychologist and Associate Rabbi of Beth El Synagogue in Durham, NC.

 1) Shai Held, Judaism is About Love. (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2024)

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