{"id":33199,"date":"2013-08-05T15:56:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T15:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=33199"},"modified":"2013-08-05T15:56:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T15:56:03","slug":"the-royal-baby-and-the-royal-yenta-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/other\/the-royal-baby-and-the-royal-yenta-within\/","title":{"rendered":"The Royal Baby and The Royal Yenta Within"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gossip\"<\/a>This article originally appeared on\u00a0Jewinthecity.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kate and William finally had their much awaited baby, and now the internet is abuzz with news of his arrival. Even the people online who claim to not care at all seem to care enough to tell others just how\u00a0little<\/em>\u00a0they care. Why are we so obsessed with other people\u2019s business? And if you\u2019re not a Royals groupie, how about the people down the block who are adding on an addition or that kid in your kid\u2019s grade who got the highest SAT score?<\/p>\n

There are some of us who take interest in the lives\u2019 of strangers because we\u2019re sincerely happy for them and want to share in their good news.\u00a0But sometimes we look at what the next guy has to compare it to what we have. There is even\u00a0something darker that lurks within of many of us: we are interested in other people\u2019s business because we take a perverse pleasure in hearing when things are not going so well for someone else. I believe it\u2019s that thing that makes us struggle to look away from a train wreck: both the literal kind (i.e. rubbernecking) and the figurative kind (i.e. the latest celebrity scandal that people like to read about, post about, and talk about).<\/p>\n

We all know that jealousy and enjoying someone else\u2019s misfortune feels very wrong and\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0very wrong, yet there must be a positive way to direct our curiosity. According to Jewish thought, everything in the world can be used for the good or the bad.\u00a0So how do we channel our inner yenta for a constructive purpose? As the great Rav Yisrael Salanter (the founder of the Mussar movement) said, \u201cMy spiritual needs are my neighbor\u2019s material needs.\u201d Or in other words, I can be busy thinking about other people, in fact, I am\u00a0fulfilling a spiritual goal by doing so<\/em>, but only if the purpose of my thoughts are in order to help those in need.\u00a0The comedian Louis C.K., who I doubt has ever studied any of Rav Salanter\u2019s works (and has probably never been quoted directly after him!) said something in a similar vein: \u201cThe only time you should look in your neighbor\u2019s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don\u2019t look in your neighbor\u2019s bowl to see if you have as much as them.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s a practical way to start using your curiosity about others in order to care for them? The next time you pass an accident on the side of the road \u2013 as you feel your neck start to bend backwards to catch a glimpse of the destruction \u2013 move your lips instead, and pray for the well-being of the people who were involved. A rabbi of mine once said, \u201cDo you know why ambulances have sirens? In order to alert us that someone needs our prayers.\u201d He instructed us to say\u00a0Tehillim<\/em>\u00a0(Psalms) every time we heard an ambulance pass by. I have been doing that ever since.<\/p>\n

I shared this idea with my kids, and my daughter\u2019s pre-school teacher couldn\u2019t believe it when my daughter, at only four years old, stopped playing in the middle of class one day in order to pray when she heard an ambulance driving by. It may be a royal pain to use your curiosity of others only to help them, but remember, it is the\u00a0noble<\/em>\u00a0thing to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are some of us who take interest in the lives\u2019 of strangers because we\u2019re sincerely happy for them and want to share in their good news. But sometimes we look at what the next guy has to compare it to what we have. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":790,"featured_media":33202,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Royal Baby and The Royal Yenta Within - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/other\/the-royal-baby-and-the-royal-yenta-within\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Royal Baby and The Royal Yenta Within - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are some of us who take interest in the lives\u2019 of strangers because we\u2019re sincerely happy for them and want to share in their good news. 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