I told my neighbor I was having minor surgery. She smiled and said surgery was only minor when someone else was having it. That was true, most certainly if based on the apprehension I was experiencing. Besides, the “minor” terminology was how my medical professional had characterized the surgery. Actually, I came through the procedure quite well. It was a virus - known in hospitals as a noscomial infection, meaning that it was not what brings you to the hospital in the first place - that laid me low for several weeks after.

All of this started me thinking about how short sighted we are about other people’s problems. If you complained to my grandma, her standard reply was “you think you have tzuris?” and then she would proceed to tell you about real suffering from a seeming warehouse full of stories. With all that’s happening in the world today, she would have enough material for a thousand and one nights.

What reinforced my thoughts of myopia, was a book I happened on during my recuperation, written from the viewpoint of a fictionalized slave in the U.S. South. Just before the Civil War, nearly 4 million slaves, with a market value of nearly 4 billion dollars, lived in the South, and their masters received a return on investment comparable to other assets, and so they created rules to protect their valuable property, and some of the practices surrounding slavery are as sophisticated as today’s law and business. A judge wrote, in the decision of a case in 1829, “The power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect.” The criminal law of the time prohibited masters from brutalizing or neglecting their slaves, but prosecution was nearly impossible since neither slaves or wives could testify against their masters.

Four million human beings treated as property, brutalized, raped, mutilated and with no recourse at all. Children uprooted and separated from parents. Four million human beings – is it any wonder that so many African Americans feel as they do? Oh but that was then and this is now. Myopia?

When we speak of the Holocaust, many Jews still feel enmity towards the Germans. Only that was then and this is now, but these are our people – how could we ever forget ? No myopia here.

Ethnic cleansing in Darfur. We click our tongues and try to picture what it means – innocent children, women and families massacred by the Janjaweed. Still, Darfur is so far away – We don’t know these people, we don’t really understand. Their way of life is so different from ours. They’re used to oppression – it’s not something we could ever deal with. Myopia.

Iraqi civilians killed by the thousands. It’s sad, but we lost 3000 people in New York City and it’s their fault. Well, no, it really isn’t, but they went against our soldiers – some of them, anyway. Our people in the U.S. were innocent victims, minding their own business and then a horrendous act of terror took place. It’s so sad to see what happened to our heroic citizens. We still grieve for them. No myopia.

We seem always to need good guys and bad guys. Our family, our friends, the Israelis- the good guys. The Lebanese- Hezbollah – Palestinians –the bad guys. It has nothing to do with Myopia. We see very clearly. If only the rest of the world were as far sighted as we.