The Toxicity of Toxicity: 

The Too Frequently Used Qualifier is Taking our Sacred Values off of the Table

After reading last week’s piece in the Atlantic, Why Empathy Is Now ‘Toxic,’it gave me pause. 

Now, we can add one of the most important traits and values that we hold dear, empathy, to the list of words that we have to be careful of, and that we have to qualify, before embracing.

We already know that “toxic” is making its way around. There can be toxic productivity, when your  preoccupation with being productive, there can be toxic positivity, when your positive outlook is damaging and there can also be toxic masculinity, where traits such as strength and bravery, toughness, ambition and power can be damaging. 

This idea is not new. 

Long before our time, although he did not use the word toxic, Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, talked about the dangers of extremes. 

He wrote: "Every virtue carried to the extreme, is a vice and "Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.. The Rambam also echoed this concept when he said each middah has שְׁתֵּי, two extremes, קְצָווֹת הָרְחוֹקוֹת זוֹ מִזּוֹ.It is not a good path nor appropriate to go according to these extremes.

שֶׁבְּכָל דֵּעָה וְדֵעָה אֵינָן דֶּרֶךְ טוֹבָה  

 He should return himself to the 'good path' and go in the good way which is the straight path. (Hilchot Deot 1:3)  

לַמּוּטָב וְיֵלֵךְ בְּדֶרֶךְ הַטּוֹבִים וְהִיא הַדֶּרֶךְ הַיְשָׁרָה   

Kohelet also shares the importance of holding on to both ends when in 7:18 he said, ט֚וֹב אֲשֶׁ֣ר תֶּאֱחֹ֣ז בָּזֶ֔ה וְגַם־מִזֶּ֖ה ׃ It is best that you grasp the one without letting go of the other. (7:18)

Even the most sacred values taken to the extreme can be harmful not only to oneself but to others.

Taken to the extreme, productivity can become an obsession as workaholism has led to so many ignoring the importance of family and community.  Yet, as pointed out in Shemot, the Torah tells us that is a mitzvah to work hard and produce, as it says "six days you shall work" is שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד  (Exodus 20:9).

Taken to the extreme, positivity can be naive. One can ignore real threats when only looking at things with rose colored glasses. Yet, we are a people that has always embraced  the idea of dreaming of a better  world as we learn from Tehilim and we recite each chag and Shabbat “we were as dreamers” הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים (Ps 126:1)

Taken to the extreme, the masculinity of unchecked power, oppression and violence, is dangerous. It has certainly been lethal to humanity as it can release some of the most powerful elements of what we can be when the yetser hara rules the day. At the same time,  the traits that are associated with masculinity have brought out our best. When channeled with the yetser hatov, (Avot 4:1) they have led to strength, productivity, bravery, innovation, development and have saved humanity and our people throughout history.

And then there is empathy. Rabbi Heschel beautifully pointed out that ”there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings.” And still, one must live a balancing act when it comes to how we act on this concern. Hillel famously brought up the quandary thousands of years ago, when he said, in, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I?  (Avot 1:14)

So, if we need a qualifying word for these values, and I am not sure we do, let’s trade toxic for holy. 

Because when people overemphasize the possible toxicity of these important concepts and minimize their value, it leads to conversations of  defensiveness and threat, perpetuating a world of polarization and fracture. 

But when we strive for the holy embodiments of these concepts, we all can hold dear, it can lead to the world of holiness, of kedusha, a world we all want to see. 

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1-Marcus Aurelius in his meditations, pointed out that he learned most from his brother Severus, “not to be a pessimist”.

2-Interestingly, Rabbi Sacks makes a distinction between hope and optimism. “Optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It needs no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to hope. The Hebrew Bible is not an optimistic book. It is, however, one of the great literatures of hope.” To Heal a Fractured World, p. 166