Promoting Empowerment: “Give Me Your Hand” – Whose Hand/What Goal?

Dealing with painful suffering is discussed in a passage featuring an interchange between several rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud. As part of that discussion someone says, “Give me your hand.” Who speaks that phrase, and what is the purpose behind this request? What practical lessons can this passage teach us today? The explanations offered here propose an alternative understanding to the conventional explanation of who initiates the action. I suggest that it is the sufferer who speaks, thereby achieving self-empowerment.