Universal Jewish connectedness is a theme I see over and over in my work within the community.
Last
week's men's minyan and class at the J was a prime example. Our minyan
was compromised to begin with, because I had a bris that morning, and
had asked a friend of mine, Rabbi Goldbaum, to take over with the class
and that I would join for the minyan. Well, when Rabbi Goldbaum tried
to start his car that snowy morning, it wouldn't start. We were only
nine men for the minyan.
I
went out to the hallway at the J to see if I could schlep anyone in for
the minyan. My first recruit was an older gentleman, and as he
approached, I asked him if he was Jewish and if he would help us in
forming a minyan. "Oh, no, I don't do that kind of thing," he scowled,
and left in a huff.
I
waited some more and we did some other parts of the service for which a
minyan is not required. I went back out and looked around for another
minyan recruit. I spotted a middle-aged guy and asked him if he was
Jewish and if he had five minutes to help us say Kaddish, as we had nine
people in the room. He got pretty emotional and said that he would
love to help. "I know what it's like," he said, "I have to go to a
meeting with my personal trainer, but I'll come in and help you." He
came in for a few minutes, and when we reached another part of the
service that required a minyan to recite, I found another guy, Alan, who
came in happily to help us.
So with our "random" rotation of strangers, we were able to do many parts of the service with a minyan.
That was Tuesday.
The next morning I taught my weekly class at Agnon. I'm teaching them concepts from the philosophical work The Kuzari
and had shared with them that there was one particularly strong
argument that convinced the non-Jewish king of the Khazars to convert to
Judaism. I'd told them that rather than divulge what that argument
was, my homework for them was that they try to guess what argument might
be so compelling that a non-Jewish king would choose to convert to our
faith.
One
student, Gabriel, said, "Rabbi, I think the strongest thing I can think
of is community. No matter where a Jew is or what his level of
observance, if he can find a fellow Jew, he will always have someone who
will help him out and on whom he can rely. We're all one family."
While
that wasn't the argument that convinced the King of the Khazars, his
message hit home. I was struck at these two events that had occurred
back to back. While not every Jew will be open to helping his fellow, I
do believe that a fellow member of the tribe can be found who is
willing to help. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you might be called
upon to be just that fellow Jew for someone else.
PS Can you guess what was the argument that convinced the King of the Khazars?
