The Rabbi's Ramblings:
Jews. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. So it seems to me, at
least.
2 experiences I had this week, and take out of it what you may:
1. Yesterday I had a bris in Youngstown. There were some non-Jews in
attendance, one of whom came over to me to talk. When she heard that my
official name is "Israel," she began talking about how Israel is being
mistreated in the press, about how much she and her family love and support
Israel, and recognize that it is the source of blessing in the world, about how
Israel is so connected to the history of bris and Abraham's role in bringing
morality to the world, and about how proud they are to know Jews who represent
those values and still speak the ancient language of Abraham.
2.Also yesterday, I had the occasion to visit a prison in Grafton, Ohio, where
I run a session for Jewish inmates. One of the regulars became very
religiously and spiritually aware in prison, leading to harassment by his
roommate. He finally summoned the courage to request a transfer, which he was
granted. At the same time, there was another young man in prison (a non-Jew
who had never met a Jew) who, inexplicably, had always felt an affinity to Jews
and had actually prayed to G-d to allow him to meet a Jew.
Guess whose cell our friend was transferred to? The latter is so honored to be
sharing a cell with the former and respects and facilitates his religious
observance in any way he can, actually accompanying him to my class, which is
how we met and I came to hear this story.
The headlines tell a different tale. Iran's nuclear ambitions, the flotilla
debacle, Helen Thomas... As the great Mark Twain once penned, "What is the
secret of the [Jews'] immortality?"
Well, how about our mortality?