Dr. Brian Goldman, an emergency room physician, speaks with The Canadian Jewish News about the importance of empathy:
Empathy is the ability to put one’s self in the place of another human being and act accordingly. To empathize with somebody is to understand what it’s like to be that person.
That’s different than sympathy. Sympathy is a gesture of concern towards somebody else that comes with no particular understanding of what it’s like to be that person.