On Empathy, Smoking, and Suicide the Week of Parashat K’doshim During the Omer

This post began over a year ago, and has sat in my drafts folder awaiting the time to be edited and posted. Both due to lack of time in my life for any writing, and also due to the difficulty of dealing with this topic. This week, two things are happening that I feel are very important. First, this week is Parashat Kedoshim, the weekly Torah portion in which we read one of the verses which for me is what the Torah and all of human rights stands upon:

“do not stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is shed “

I discussed this just a little bit a few years ago, but as I was also standing on one leg, probably hopping over a stumbling block, I did not have time to go into any details, then. The idea of not doing to your neighbor what is hateful to you, and also of not standing around allowing others to be harmed, goes together with not putting a stumbling block before the blind: they are things that anyone with empathy does not do to other human beings. We’ll get to the smoking and suicide after mentioning the second important thing going on this week.

That second thing is that this is also the period of the Omer. Now, the Jewish community is counting the days (even if some of us have lost the official count, already!) between the seven weeks from Pesach to Shavuot (Passover to Pentacost), and many are contemplating the official 7×7 grid of days within days of concepts around the Sphirot. I mentioned those official ideas (each week being nested in one of either gvurah/strength, chesed/merci, etc in the traditional view) in a post some years ago, and I also mentioned in that post my own personal 7×7 concept of non-official ideas:

1. empathy

2. housing

3. health care

4. transportation

5. hope

6. libraries

7. free legal consumer education for ending poverty-related debt traps

What would be your seven concepts, Thoughtful Readers, for each week (and thus each day having your two concepts for your own 7×7 grid)?

Now, applying all of this to the problem of smoking and suicide, connecting the dots for those who have fewer allergies, here is how putting the stumbling block of body triggers in front of the life-blind, aka those who struggle with suicidal thoughts regularly, works. A non-empathetic smoker knows that a neighbor is allergic to smoke, but continues to smoke near the windows or doors anyway. That neighbor has then to deal with sudden intense heightening of the constant suicidal thoughts, every time smoke enters his or her space. If that smoke-allergic suicidal neighbor has no strong support system, this is a serious problem. For those with no family support and, such as those in the foster care system, orphans, or even people with nominal family, but who are effectively emotional orphans, such as children of addicts, children of narcissists, and children from abusive families or abusive family systems, there needs to be a way of replacing the nuclear and even immediate extended family with healthy support systems that act as family. That is where Phase II of Project Do Better comes in, with the Serving Adults who volunteer to find and support all of the vulnerable people, children and adults who want that help, by helping to deliver the necessities of life and also connect everyone with others seeking to build connections. Phase I, of course, works earlier on building up the existing public health care infrastructure, which is partly where this issue must be dealt with on the front lines, from smoking and vape prevention, to suicide counseling, to dealing with the physical traumas caused by the substances being put into the air by those smokers and vapers.

For all of these important reasons, Project Do Better aims to contribute tools for current and future use that can help all of humanity reach our collective goals, both as individual people, and as an entire united Homo Sapiens.