Rock Your World!
Last Friday, while standing on line at the bank, I turned around and
saw standing behind me a middle-aged, African-American man, dressed in
turquoise robes, wearing a Taqiyah (Muslim cap) and sporting a beard,
dyed bright orange. Now I pride myself on being a friendly, outgoing
person, and I always try to be conscious of the Talmud's directive to
greet every man with a cheerful greeting. But here, I have to admit,
my initial, knee-jerk reaction was to just stay focused on the pole in
front of me, count the tiles, anything, just don't turn around and
make eye-contact. Why? I don't know. I didn't want to stare. I
didn't want to seem that I was staring. But finally, I bit the bullet
and turned around to start a conversation. I ended up having a VERY
interesting conversation with my new acquaintance, Mr. Abdullah from
East Cleveland. He was soft-spoken, respectful and intelligent, and
what really surprised me the most was how many shared values we
actually had! Now, I never did muster up the courage to ask him about
the orange beard (although I did ask him about the significance of his
robes and headgear!), but I did learn an important, albeit subtle,
lesson, beyond the more obvious "book by its cover" one.
It got me thinking about the importance of getting out of my comfort
zone. I really was inhibited in starting that conversation. It was,
at least initially, "socially uncomfortable." Just mind your own
business, dude... will you?! Sound familiar? We all have areas in
life where we prefer to just stay put. However, complacency is not a
Jewish value. The Torah teaches us (this week's Parshah!) that Moshe
was catapulted to greatness because when he saw the burning bush, he
"turned to look"!
So, how's this for a New Year's resolution, at least a general one,
but one that can be applied to so many different areas of our lives:
Rock your boat some more this year... You never know where it'll lead
you... You might just end up rocking your world!
