Handling a problem is different from solving a problem.

There are many different ways of getting something done or of having somebody do it. They include:

• Convincing
• Explaining
• Just doing it
• Using "teacher methods" of motivating or getting children to act
• Educating
• Discussing

Some of these methods actually do solve problems. They give the recipient the feeling that the situation is better. In other cases the recipient has the feeling of being handled or used, and this causes the recipient to feel resentment.

Some of these methods are irrelevant to the problem. A child who scrapes her knee may be given a lollipop. Although the lollipop is irrelevant to the knee, it may distract the child for some time. As the child grows older, her treatment for a problem should be relevant to her situation. This is important. If the treatment is not relevant, then the girl may indeed stop demonstrating the pain, but she will suffer from feeling handled, and this is a poor thing to do in the long run.

Thus, although a child may be young enough or foolish enough to accept the lollipop as an occasional solution, you should not do it on a regular basis.

Similarly, if some Israeli children throw stones at drivers, then you may build a road for the cars to avoid the area where the children throw stones. This does not correct or solve the problem. This handles the problem. Those children have not learned that they should not throw stones. To the contrary, they have learned that they now have the power to keep other Israelis busy by making unnecessary roads. They have been given the wrong message.

Similarly, Israelis may build a wall to keep Arabs from infiltrating certain areas, but that does not solve the problem. That handles the problem. When a problem is merely "handled," then that problem remains.

It is much easier to handle a problem rather than to solve it. The person who handles the problem can always point to his quick fix and say, "Look, everything is better now."

He is right, from a political point of view, or from the point of view of a bureaucrat who has to demonstrate that he acted. In the short run, his solution has been helpful.

However, in the long run it is a disaster. The problem is now worse. The real problem has festered, increased, and intensified. The person who inherited his position now faces a greater and more expensive problem.

Problems should never be handled. They should be analyzed, corrected, solved, reversed, or wiped out.

Unfortunately, as we look around us, we very often see the results of problems that were swept under the carpet. They were handled.

Our generation suffers from many immense problems. Perhaps that is because we allowed problems to be "handled" in the past.

We are suffering from those problems today.