Category Archives: issues of morality or ethics

Liberation Theology

In the summer of 1776, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the Great Seal of the United States should depict Moshe Rabbeinu at the Yam Suf, his staff lifted high and the Mitzriyim drowning in the sea.  Jefferson urged a different design: Klal Yisrael marching through the Midbar, led by amud ha’eish and amud he’anan, the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke.

American slaves in the 19th century famously adopted the imagery and language of Yetzias Mitzrayim to express the hopes they harbored to one day be free.  In one famous spiritual, they sang of “When Israel was in Egypt land… oppressed so hard they could not stand,” punctuating each phrase with the refrain “Let My people go.”

Similar references to our ancestors’ liberation from Mitzrayim informed the American labor and civil rights movements as well.  In his celebrated “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, Martin Luther King pined to “watch G-d’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt… on toward the promised land.”  And he sought to assure American blacks that “the Israelites” suffered much before gaining their freedom, and so neither should his listeners give up hope.

It says much that so many have modeled their aspirations on the Divine extraction of goy mikerev goy, “a nation from the midst of a nation” (Devarim 4:34).  To the Western world, the account of our ancestors’ release from slavery is the mother of all liberation movements.  And, at least in a way, one supposes, it is.

But the reading of freedom as mere release from repression is sorely incomplete.  Because after Shalach es ami, “Let my people go,” comes a most important additional word: viyaavduni – “so that they may serve Me” (Shmos 9:1).  Klal Yisrael wasn’t merely taken from slavery to “freedom,” in the word’s simplest sense.  We were taken from meaningless, onerous oppression to… a different servitude, the most meaningful kind imaginable: serving Hashem.

The Hebrew word for freedom, of course, is cheirus, evoking the word charus, “inscribed,” the word the Torah uses to describe the etching of the words on the Luchos, the “Tablets of the Law.”  Chazal see a profound truth in the two words’ similarity, and teach us: “The only free person is the one immersed in Torah.”

What in the world, others might ask us, does immersion in an intellectually taxing corpus of abstruse texts, subtle ideas and legal/ritual minutiae have to do with freedom?

They would claim to feel most free lying on beach chairs in their back yards on a day off from work, sunshine on their faces and cold beverages within reach, with nothing, absolutely nothing, to do.  And, to be sure, there are in fact times when we all need to relax, to recharge.  But that’s not the meaning of freedom, at least not in the Torah’s view.

In the words of Iyov, adam l’amal yulad, “Man is born to toil” (5:7).  What we simplemindedly think of as “freedom” is not true cherus.  We’re here to labor, to study, to control ourselves, to apply ourselves, to accomplish things. Our “freedom” is release from the meaningless servitude some pledge to a master like money, chemicals, or this or that transient pleasure; and entry into meaningful servitude to something transcendent.

Truth be told, the freedom touted by “the velt” doesn’t even yield the fulfillment it promises. Or even happiness.  Winning the lottery and moving to Monaco to indulge one’s whims may be a common daydream, but, as countless accounts have borne witness, release from economic straits and the embrace of hedonism have yielded more suicides than serenity.

True freedom, ironically, comes from hard work.  Applying ourselves to our Divine mandate liberates us from the limitations of our inner Egypts, and brings true fulfillment, true joy.

Yesh chachmah bagoyim, Chazal tell us.  Listen to the words of the Indian poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore:

“I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free.

“But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it, and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.”

What a perceptive mashal, and how inadvertently apt.

Because when our forebears were released from Egyptian bondage, as they prepared to embark on their path to viyaavduni, they paused to sing a song, Shiras Hayam.

© 2016 Hamodia

Routing Rote

“Please don’t bring your toys into my kitchen, young lady!” the busy mother warned her loaded-up little daughter.  The child’s response: “Well, it’s MY kitchen too!”

Her parents had a good laugh over that “memorable kids’ pronouncements” moment, and it returns to us this time each year, when parashas Metzora comes around.

Because of the miraculous malady called nigei batim that existed when our ancestors entered Eretz Yisrael and afflicted the walls of houses.  Such discolorations, we are taught by Chazal, result from tzarus ayin, literally, “narrowness of the eye” – the Gemara’s term for stinginess.

That cause is evident in the requirement (Vayikra 14:36) that the homeowner remove all of his possessions from the house before it is pronounced menuga.  The reason for that, the Torah explicitly states, is to prevent the possessions from being rendered tamei (as tumah only affects the house and its contents when the kohen renders his judgment).  So the Torah is pointedly demonstrating concern for protecting the homeowner’s things, a concern that is the antithesis of tzarus ayin.

What is more, Chazal point out, the rescued vessels sitting on the homeowner’s lawn reveal to neighbors who may have sought to borrow such items but were told by the tzar ayin that he hadn’t any, that the reality was otherwise.

And, finally, the hint the Gemara (Arachin [Erechin] 16a) sees as identifying tzarus ayin as the cause of the negaim is the phrase “and the one to whom the house belongs should come…” (Vayikra, 14:35).  The Torah is conveying that the homeowner’s perception of his house and other possessions – the idea that they are actually his – is what the nega is meant to explode.  In the Kli Yakar’s elaboration:

“The reason Hashem gave him an inheritance, a home full of good things, was to test him, to see if he would use his possessions to do good for others as well… for all that a person gives to others is not of his own, but rather from what the ‘Heavenly table’ has provided him…”

There are few, if any, communities as committed to tzedakah as ours.  The amount of charity that Orthodox Jews donate to help others is truly astounding.  Might there, though, still be room for improvement in our recognition of “whose house” it is?

Chazal created a specific vehicle for us to reflect on the reality that we aren’t the owners of what we tend to think is “ours”: birchos hanehenin – the blessings we recite before eating, drinking, or smelling fragrant spices, bark or flowers.

Such brachos state that what we are about to enjoy is a gift, not a birthright.  As the Gemara notes (Brachos 35a), the passuk that says that “To Hashem is the earth and all it contains” (Tehillim, 24:1) does not contradict the one that says “And the earth He gave to human beings” (Tehillim 115:16): “One [verse] is [referring to] before the brachah [is recited]; the other, after the brachah.”  Once we acknowledge the gift, recognizing that it wasn’t truly “ours”, we are permitted to enjoy it as if it were ours.

The impact of that truth only happens, though, when we think of what we’re saying. If we, for instance, pronounce the nine simple words meant to thank Hashem for the beauty, tastiness and nourishment of an apple as a string of slurred semi-words (the first three as “buchatanoi”), taking two seconds rather than the five or six needed to actually say all the words clearly and focus on their meaning, we’re missing the point.

It’s an occupational hazard of observance, of course, to become so accustomed to a tefillah or brachah that we don’t give it the attention it requires.  It’s what the Navi Yeshayahu describes as mitzvas anoshim melumadah (29:13), rote observance of mitzvos.   But occupational hazards are hazards all the same; and just as the construction worker needs to secure his helmet, we need to secure our mindfulness when saying the words that permit us to partake of blessings.

There’s irony in the fact that as materially blessed a generation as ours may need a renewed focus on brachos.  But we would do well to emulate true talmidei chachamim and nashim tzidkaniyos (and baalei teshuvah), who manage to rout rote.

The little “MY kitchen!” girl has a family of her own today.  She is not only a paragon of politeness but an inspiring, delightful parent.  She and her wonderful husband teach their children – as, with her innocent bluntness decades ago, she taught her parents – just Whose kitchen it really is.

© 2016 Hamodia

And The Winner Is…

“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser,” the famous, and famously blunt, General George S. Patton declared in a 1944 speech.  “When you were kids,” he explained, “you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers.”

A few years later, UCLA Bruins football coach Henry Russell (“Red”) Sanders effectively concurred with the general.  “Winning isn’t everything,” the coach told his charges, pausing a moment for effect, “It’s the only thing.”

Fast-forward to today, when presidential candidates seem tireless in trumpeting victories and portraying themselves as winners.

It’s not just wishful thinking that impels coaches and politicians to promote their winning ways. They know there is practical value in that self-portrayal.  Namely, the “bandwagon effect” – the fact that winners tend, by their very victories, to pick up fans.

And indeed, while correlation isn’t causation, Donald Trump’s popularity seems to have risen at about the rate at which he has labeled himself a winner, and other people losers (among them an 87-year-old woman who sued him over a real estate venture, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer and Senator John McCain).

Politics, though, are just politics.  And sports are only sports.  There is, though, also these days a very different example of the allure exerted by “winning teams.”  That pull, unfortunately powers not only mundane enterprises but some of the darkest evils that humanity (using the word in its broadest sense) has to offer.

There’s no doubt that Islamist groups whose members exult in killing and maiming men, women and children who pose them no threat are manifestations of what is implied by pereh adam: utter barbarism.  Terrorists revel in violence for violence’s sake.

But the mayhem that such groups spawn and celebrate also serves to garner them new recruits.  It might seem confounding to civilized people that terrorists’ carnage advances their recruitment goals.  Sadly, though, it does.

“My brothers,” enticed a French-language social media message sent to young people’s phones in the immediate wake of the recent terror attacks in Brussels, “why not join us in the fight against the Westerners, make good choices in your life?” Don’t you see, the message seems to be saying, how successful we’ve been?

To be sure, psychological frailty, vulnerability to radical politics or theologies and even boredom play parts in leading some young Westerners to join barbarous organizations.  But those who study terrorism confirm another factor in those decisions: a perception of the sociopaths as “winners” in some malignant Monopoly game, in which the board pieces are human beings and the currency is destroyed lives.

Through would-be recruits’ loony lenses, the civilized world, by virtue of its inability to eradicate the evil players, would seem to be a “loser.”  The crowded bandwagon these days is the wicked one.

There is no word for “winner” or “loser” in Tanach.   To be sure, there are advances and retreats, as when Yisrael is “gavar” – gains the upper hand – and when, chalilah, Amalek does; and military gains and defeats.  But the word we use in Hebrew for victory, “nitzachon,” seems to date only from later times.

In fact, the closest nitzachon-relative in Tanach, used repeatedly in Tehillim, is menatzeiach, as in “lamenatzeiach,” where it means “leader” or “conductor.”  The implication of the word isn’t power or victory, but, rather, example-setting and facilitating.

Maybe that’s a lesson about how to understand true success.  Yes, there are indeed enemies to be fought, like those who threaten innocents today.  And even an irredeemably evil one, Amalek, to be utterly destroyed in the future.  But, here and now, our success lies in our being the best specimens of a tzelem Elokim we can be: not “winners” in any temporal contest but examples of dedicated service to Hashem.

As to the “loser” called civilization, it in fact cannot effectively prevent people bent on murder from acting on their evil urges.  But an eventual vanquishing of all evil does, nevertheless, await, ready to arrive with the geula shleima, may it be soon.

There will then be a true nitzachon over evil, exemplified in what the Navi Yeshayahu (11:9) foresees and relates in Hashem’s name: “They will not harm nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Hashem, as the waters cover the sea.”

That victory may still lie in the future, but it will be an ultimate, permanent one.  The root of nitzachon, after all, is netzach.

© 2016 Hamodia

Blame Terrorism, Not Songs

Some politicians and pundits – including several writers in Haaretz – seem misguidedly intent on extending blame for Jewish terrorism across Orthodoxy, even to the charedi community and its Torah educational system. And several have pointed to a song played at Jewish weddings as Exhibit A.

I recently shared some thoughts on the matter with the readers of Haaretz. The piece is here and here.

 

Trumping Terrorism

When the Obama White House and Dick Cheney agree on something, it’s worthy of note.

What united the two – along with a conga line of Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and world leaders – was Donald Trump’s latest gambit to garner attention.  That would be the candidate’s announced desire to effect a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States until elected leaders can “figure out what… is going on.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Mr. Trump’s position “disqualifies him from serving as president.”  Mr. Cheney said it “goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”  The others all echoed those sentiments.

Leaving aside, though, what America stands for, there is also what Israeli journalist Chemi Shalev noted, namely, that “ISIS dreams of an Islam-hating America that isolates its own Muslims; Trump is busy making their dreams come true.”

President Obama made that same point in his December 6 address to the nation.

He demanded that Muslim leaders “decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda promote,” but also warned that “We cannot [let] this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That… is what groups like ISIL want.”

What’s more, there are more than a billion Muslims worldwide, and the vast majority of radical Islamists’ victims are Muslims. The average Muslim may not support Israel, but neither is he a murderer.

Had Mr. Trump just urged special scrutiny of visa applications from certain countries, it would not have raised very many eyebrows very high.  But, of course, it’s eyebrows and outrage he’s after.

A more dignified and wise approach toward Muslims came from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, in an address to a gathering at a Virginia mosque.

After speaking out against “the discrimination, vilification and isolation that American Muslims face in these challenging times,” he reminded his listeners that “terrorist organizations overseas have targeted your communities. They seek to pull your youth into the pit of violent extremism.”  And he challenged the Muslim community to “Help us to help you stop this.”

Depressingly, though, instead of publicly exhorting their followers to seek out and uproot the germs of evil seeking to infect their communities, some American Muslim spokespeople chose instead to just kvetch.

“We would never ask any other faith community to stand up and condemn acts of violence committed by people within their groups,” complained one, activist Linda Sarsour.

Ms. Sarsour might consider that, were Presbyterians or Mormons regularly killing innocents in the name of their faiths and celebrating the carnage, they would surely draw similar attention to their co-religionists.  There, too, condemning an entire religion for the acts of some of its evil actors would be wrong.  But equally wrong would be reluctance on the part of the religions’ leaders to shout their condemnation of the evil from the rooftops and to call on their followers to be help root it out.

Instead, here, we have de rigueur, lackluster statements of disassociation from terrorist acts.

And, more depressing still, we have “moderate” sentiments like those of the male San Bernardino mass murderer’s father, who revealed that his son had expressed support for ISIS and “was obsessed with Israel.”  The father explained how he counseled his son to “Stay calm, be patient, in two years Israel will no longer exist… Russia, China, America too, nobody wants the Jews there.”

How prevalent such “moderation” is in the Muslim world can’t be known.  But it, too, is part of the rot that infects immature minds and can fester into violence.

Sympathy is in order for innocent Muslims who are portrayed by dint of their faith alone as potential terrorists.  It may be fear that prevents them from speaking out more loudly, engaging in concrete and effective acts to undermine Islamist ideologies and partnering with law enforcement to prevent terrorism.  But all that is their moral mandate; the proverbial push has come to shove.

Following the recent knife attack at a London subway station, where the attacker reportedly said “This is for Syria!” before proceeding to stab commuters, a video recorded the voice of an onlooker with an Arabic accent shouting “You ain’t no Muslim, bruv!” several times.  The phrase, happily, has been widely seized upon as an expression of how most Muslims feel.  And it likely is.

But still, it’s puzzling, and perhaps telling, that the shouter, despite the fame and adulation his words have garnered, has yet to come forward to present himself to the public.

Maybe he’s just modest.

Or, less laudable, he’s afraid.

© 2015 Hamodia

What We Build and What We Are

As the 93rd nears, the 78th comes to mind.

Agudath Israel of America’s national conventions, that is.

The 93rd gathering opens tomorrow and will, over four days, feature a constellation of topics and speakers, include the presence of Gedolim, Rabbanim and askanim, and a host a host of us simple folk, seeking information, inspiration and guidance.

There are always greatly worthwhile thoughts shared by those who address the various sessions, particularly the plenary ones on Thursday night and on Motzoei Shabbos.  (The public is welcome, free of charge, to all sessions.)  But a speech that was made on Motzoei Shabbos fifteen years ago made a particularly deep impression on me.  And it remains, I think, as timely as ever.

The speaker, the final one of the evening, was Rabbi Shimshon Pincus, zt”l, the Rav of Ofakim.  His address that night would be the only one he would offer at an Agudah convention.  He, along with his Rebbetzin and one of their daughters, were killed, R”l, in a car accident in Israel mere months later.

Although over ensuing years, I, like so many, were edified by the collections of Rabbi Pincus’ lectures that were posthumously published, at the time, I had not known much about him.

The backdrop of his speech that night included the brutal lynching, weeks earlier, of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, and a slew of Islamic Jihad and Hamas (yimach shemam) car bombings that killed or injured scores of Israeli civilians.

Rabbi Pincus acknowledged the crisis at home, but took pains, to stress that “tovah Haaretz meod meod.”  He exulted over the proliferation of yeshivos and shiurim, over the fact that Jews once alienated from their heritage were returning to it and that the populace is not unduly fearful. “The real crisis,” he contended, “is not in Eretz Yisroel per se, but in the entire Jewish people – Eretz Yisroel is but its heart.”

And he suggested that an important message to Klal Yisrael lies in the fact that the strife in its heart is not a battle between governments but between peoples, and the threat is not so much against a country as against individuals.

He noted the wonderful efforts and projects that Yidden were involved in, the building of yeshivos, kollelim and mosdos chessed.  “There is a contrast,” though, he added, “between what people build and what they are.”  Perhaps, he suggested, we need to more carefully apply to ourselves as individuals the very same concern that we so strongly translate into community efforts.

“The bnei Yishmael,” he explained, “are claiming that it was their ancestor, not Yitzchak, who was chosen as Avraham’s heir, the son Hashem called ‘yechidcha.’   We must all act as miyuchadim to Hashem.  No matter how old, each of us is His ben yachid.  Our behavior as such will prove that we are deserving of that honor.”

There is great merit, he explained, in all the special things we do, whether building Torah institutions, establishing social services or, for those of us who aren’t of sufficient means or talent, donating what we can to such efforts, attending shiurim, reciting Tehillim.  The power of such things, whether large or small, cannot be overlooked.

But they must not allow us to overlook even more basic, if more difficult, pursuits – like our efforts to work on our middos and personal observance.  How we conduct ourselves in public, and in private; how we interact with our spouses, our parents, our children and our friends and, especially, people who are none of those things; how we daven, how we make brachos, how we think – these are, or should be, the most important foci of each of our lives.

And, oh, how easily such “minor” things can be obscured by more “weighty” ones.

Although I have yet to achieve what Rabbi Pincus set forth as the proper goal of a Jew, his reminder has remained with me, and likely always will.

After his tragic petirah, many accounts of his actions and interactions were told.

One concerned a “selling of aliyos” on a Purim morning.  The gabbai had announced, “Fifty shekels for pesichas haaron,” for opening the ark.  Rabbi Pincus, it was recounted, ran to the bimah and amended the nature of the bidding.

“Pesichah,” he announced, “for reciting asher yatzar word-by-word for one month!”

Bidding ensued, and the winner pledged to undertake the practice for three years.

I would be surprised if the winner stopped even then.

© 2015 Hamodia

Musing: Opinions Gone Wild

I’m greatly pained by much of the reaction in the Orthodox community to what has come to be called the Iran Deal.  To be sure, there are elements of the agreement that are less than ideal. And there is nothing remotely wrong with pointing out those things, even without acknowledging the deal’s positive elements.

But there is something wrong, terribly wrong, tragically wrong, in assuming that anyone who dares to see the positive as outweighing the negative is ipso facto “anti-Israel” or, if Jewish, a “traitor” or “sellout.”  That opinions other than one’s own are not just misguided but evil.

And there is something particularly ugly about ads – like those that an unnamed person or persons placed in several Orthodox newspapers – that stoop to the basest sort of character assassination (aided by Photoshopping a Congressman’s face to make him look like an ogre), and are reminiscent of how true enemies of Jews have portrayed us all in centuries past.

Similar ads demeaning elected officials who are opposed to the deal would be no less obnoxious.  The issue isn’t what “side” one is on.  It is how a Jew expresses himself, as a mensch, or as something else.

At this introspective time of the Jewish year, I hope that the person or people behind “American Parents and Grandparents Against the Iranian Deal” and the papers that hosted its offensive ads will give some thought about whether name-calling and insults are the Jewish way to express a political opinion, even about an important issue.

Musing: Atticus and the Yomim Nora’im

The American 1960 classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” was in the news this summer, the result of the publication of an earlier version of it, a sequel in reality, that its author, Harper Lee, had written, and which was apparently only recently discovered.

Millions have found the 1960 book inspiring, and it is indeed a rare work.  It wonderfully captures Southern American life in the 1940s, and deals thoughtfully with themes like racism and friendship.  What’s more, it is suffused with subtle humor.

And it has provided American culture with a hero, in the form of “Atticus,” as the father of the narrator, a little girl at the time the novel takes place, is called.  Atticus, a lawyer, is a paragon of honor, rectitude and compassion, and, although a mere fictional character, has been an inspiration to many a living lawyer and judge.  The Alabama State Bar even erected a monument to him.

Were I a literature teacher and had assigned the book to students, a question I would ask them would be to identify Atticus’ most heroic act.  Some might point to his acceptance of the legal case at the heart of the book, defending a black man against a white accuser.  Others to his standing up to a crowd intent on a lynching of the suspect.  Some might even respond with his facing down of a mad dog, which he kills with a single rifle shot.

My own answer to my question, though, would be something very different.  At one point in the book, it is recounted how a character, Bob Ewell, a wretch intent on seeing the defendant found guilty and executed, approaches Atticus on the street and spits in his face.

Atticus, who has every reason and ability to lay the scoundrel low, instead, in the words of the woman recounting the incident, “didn’t bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat.”

In Hebrew, the closest word to “hero” is gibor, often translated as “a strong man.”  And its definition is provided us in the fourth chapter of Pirkei Avos:  “Who is a gibor? He who conquers his evil inclination, as it is said: ‘Better is one slow to anger than a strong man, and one who rules over his spirit than a conqueror of a city’ (Mishlei 16:32).”

Heroism and strength in Judaism are evident not in action but in restraint, not in outrage but in calm.  Something to think about as the Days of Judgment grow closer.

Exhibit A: Us

It’s not his name but I’ll call him Yochanan, after R. Yochanan ben Zakkai, who, the Gemara tells us (Berachos 17a), was first to greet anyone, Jew or not, he passed in the street.

Yochanan and his wife – we’ll call them the Sterlings – have long used the services of a car repair shop run by an Egyptian Coptic Christian.  We’ll call him Samir. Another of Samir’s customers is Pinchas.

Pinchas related to me last week that he was at Samir’s repair shop recently and that Samir asked him if he knew Yochanan and his wife.  He did, he said, quite well.  And then Samir spent the next ten minutes singing the Sterlings’ praises.  They always smile at him, he related proudly, and ask him about how things are going with his business.  They never argue over charges.  They show an interest in him and make him feel valued.  “Some Jews I don’t like,” he admitted to Pinchas, “but people like them are the real deal.”

Coptic Christians, although they are Arabs, have been attacked repeatedly and savagely by Islamic radicals in recent years; many have been viciously murdered.  So Jews and Copts today share a common enemy. But Eastern Orthodox Churches like the Coptic one have their own long histories of Jew-hatred, and it persists today among many in contemporary Eastern Orthodox communities.

Samir, though, despite his religious background, is enamored of Jews, at least Jews like the Sterlings (and, I suspect, Pinchas).  He has no choice but to accept the evidence of his senses.

And yet, according to Google, the most asked question about Jews is why they are “so rude.”

We don’t have Nevi’im today; and if we did, Google would not be among them.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t, or shouldn’t, take to heart the yield of its logarithm.  To be sure, some of the belief that Jews (and that likely means “identifiably Jewish” Jews) are less than friendly surely emerges from dark places, from hearts polluted with senseless Jew-hatred.  But some of it, too, likely comes from us.

Not that we’re, chalilah, intentionally impolite.  But, unlike in centuries past, we live in open societies these days, and the sort of laying low and ignoring those around us that were sensible staples of Jewish life in other lands and times strike some of our non-Jewish (or Jewish but less observant) fellow citizens as aloofness and off-putting.

We have no choice but to face the fact that each of us today is a walking Jewish billboard, an advertisement for Torah.  A case can even be made that the Gemara’s admonition that a talmid chacham must act in an exemplary fashion at all times applies today, when most Jews are estranged from Torah, to all of us, learned or not, who embrace the Jewish mesorah.

That means, of course, eschewing not only rudeness but even the appearance of the same.  When entering a building or room, holding a door open for someone behind you isn’t a big deal to do, but it can be quite a big deal for the person behind you.

When facing a cashier (no less a human being, no matter how grumpy, pierced or tattooed, than any other one), a sincere “thank you” is in order.

And when driving, signaling one’s turns and lane-switches, not shooting into traffic and not double parking when it impedes others are signs of simple civility. And unless all your car windows are heavily tinted, you can rest assured that anyone you cut off or tailgate will take note of your appearance and draw the indicated conclusions.

Then there is the thing that won’t take any toll on anyone’s time, doesn’t cost anything and is easily within the reach of us all: the sever panim yafos, or smiling countenance, of Avos 1:15. We are to greet, in the Mishnah’s words, “every human” with it.  It involves eye-contact and a smile – a sincere one, acknowledging the humanity of the other.  That is an imperative in its own right, the proper conduct, according to Chazal, of a Jew.  But it also serves an auxiliary purpose, and it’s not a small one.

Last week, I noted the Rambam’s guide to attaining ahavas Hashem, contemplating the wonder of the world around us.  Chazal also tell us, though, that the mitzvah has another dimension: that we act “so that the name of Hashem is beloved through your hand” (Yoma 86a).

That might seem like a difficult thing, but it’s really not.

Just spend some time with Samir.

© 2015 Hamodia