As we prepare for Tisha B’av, our focus inevitably turns toward one central question: how can we finally uproot Sinas Chinam from within our midst? We talk about building the Beis Hamikdash, about unity, about love. But practically, what can we do to change? How can we grow?
Let me share with you an observation that might help reframe the entire issue. The term Sinas Chinam is, in truth, a contradiction. Have you ever met an intelligent, rational adult who hates another person for no reason? Every time someone shares a story of conflict or pain, it comes with reasons. “He said this,” “She did that,” “You don’t understand what happened.”
So what did Chazal mean by Sinas Chinam?
The answer is that yes, you have reasons. But Chazal are telling us: your reasons are baseless. They feel valid and they seem justified, but perhaps they aren’t.
To understand this more deeply, I’d like to share a psychological study that, I believe, holds the key to transforming not only our Tisha B’av but our relationships.
In 1990, Elizabeth Newton, a Stanford University student, ran a clever experiment. She divided participants into two groups: “tappers” and “listeners.” Tappers were asked to tap the rhythm of a well-known song—say, “Happy Birthday” or “The Star-Spangled Banner”—on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song.
The results? Only 2% of listeners guessed correctly. But here's the fascinating part: the tappers predicted that their listeners would guess right 50% of the time. That’s an astonishing discrepancy.
Why such a gap between perception and reality?
Because as the tapper taps, they can’t help but hear the melody in their own head. To them, the rhythm is crystal clear. “How can you not hear it?” they think. “It’s obvious!” You can even see video footage of frustrated tappers throwing up their hands in disbelief. “How do you not get it?”
This, Newton explained, is called mind-blindness: the inability to recognize that someone else doesn’t know what you know, doesn’t hear what you hear, doesn’t feel what you feel. It’s the mistaken belief that your inner experience is universal. That your reality is the reality.
And if you look closely, you’ll find that at the core of almost every conflict in your life, there was some form of mind-blindness.
Think about it. “I assumed you knew how sensitive I was about that.” “I thought you understood what I meant.” “Everyone knows this bothers me.” “How could she not realize how hurtful that was?” In our closest relationships—between siblings, spouses, friends, co-workers—so much pain arises not from intentional cruelty, but from unspoken assumptions.
Take a wife who sends her husband an emotional text during the day, longing for support. He’s swamped with work and forgets to respond. She reads silence as indifference. He reads silence as survival. Or a husband hears his wife tell something private to her sister, and feels betrayed. She sees it as natural: “I tell my sister everything.”
Both feel wronged. Both believe the other should have known. And both are operating out of the blindness that their emotional experience is universal.
So what’s the solution?
It’s deceptively simple. It begins with two words: That’s strange.
The next time someone says or does something that stings—pause. Take a breath, and say to yourself, “That’s strange.” Why would someone usually kind act so harshly? Why would someone normally thoughtful behave so carelessly?
That’s strange.
When you respond that way, something powerful happens. Instead of reacting with judgment, you lean in with curiosity. You begin to wonder: “What am I missing? What might they be experiencing that I don’t see?” And suddenly, the world opens up. Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t understand. Maybe it wasn’t meant the way I received it.
With those two words—that’s strange—you climb out of your own mind and begin exploring someone else’s. And when you do that, the hurt dissolves and the anger fades. There’s no longer a villain in the story, but just a human being who sees things differently than you.
If you truly want to change your Tisha B’av this year, try this exercise. Think of any person you’ve had a falling out with—a sibling, a friend, a spouse, a neighbor. Go back to that moment. Examine the story. And I guarantee you: somewhere in that story, someone assumed something. “She thought I knew.” “I thought she understood.” “He assumed I didn’t care.” Behind the friction, there was mind-blindness.
And here’s the great irony. Sinas Chinam doesn’t mean hatred with no reason. It means hatred built on reasons that don’t hold up. Stories we tell ourselves that aren’t rooted in reality. Assumptions we never challenged. Narratives we spun out of pain or ego or fear, and then believed to the point of war.
But if we could just pause and ask, “What else might be going on here?” so many arguments would dissolve before they begin. So many rifts would never turn into rivalries.
This, I believe, is the true path to healing Sinas Chinam. Not dramatic acts of unity. Not grand gestures of reconciliation. But a quiet, personal willingness to say: Maybe I don’t know the whole story. Maybe my experience isn’t the only one. Maybe I was mind-blind.
And if we can do that, perhaps this Tisha B’av won’t require mourning. And if we do fast, may it be our final one in exile.
