For Your Consideration

Once there was the guy. He was non-Jewish, but he had been studying a bit and liked what he saw. So he thought he'd check it out a little more in depth. He thought that what he say might be for him, but he wasn't really sure. So he decided he'd come up with a little test to see if he could get straight down to the root of what Judaism was all about. At the time, there were two great Yeshivas. One was run by Shamai, and the other was run by Hillel. He went to Shamai and said "I am highly interested in what the Torah is all about. What I've seen so far jives with what I think. But I have a question for you; I'm not entirely sure what the root of all of it is. If you can tell me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot, I'll convert." Shamai, not being the most patient of men, promptly threw him out. He went to Hillel's yeshiva and went through the same conversation with Hillel. Hillel however was a much more patient man and had the following answer for the man. "Treat everybody the way you would want to be treated. Everything else is simply filler."

Famous story, right? Fairly simple message, right?

I spend about 95% of my time working among and interacting with non-Jews. They are my co-workers, some of them I consider friends. These non-Jews have had an extensive exposure to frum Jews. Unfortunately, we have come up wanting. These non-Jews have tale after tale of how we Jews have acted arrogantly, rudely, towards non-Jews. Just last week I listened to a co-worker while she told me how she had been working and this completely random guy had come up to her and scolded her for singing happy birthday as she approached a table. Her only desire was to brighten up somebody's day. Yet she was scolded for this, something that not only was the gentleman wrong to scold her over, as the volume of singing would have been way below general hearing, but he was wrong for another reason; Kol Isha is the prohibition against hearing a woman sing b/c we are afraid that we men may become physically attracted to a woman upon hearing her voice. A little old fashioned perhaps, but the prohibition is against a man hearing a woman sing. There is no prohibition against a woman singing. This gentleman had it completely backwards. This incident, along with many others which I hear about, are all chillul hashems. They give people the wrong idea of what Judaism is all about.

Friday evening is the start of Rosh Hashanah. This marks a period of time where we beg Hashem for forgiveness for all the sins we may have committed over the past year. It culminated in Yom Kipur, where we pray to G-d that we should have a good year. One of the customs of Rosh Hashanah is to ask for forgiveness from all the people we may have wronged over the year, and to look for ways to better ourselves. For most people, this will result in an effort to daven more, or try to learn more. This Rosh Hashanah, perhaps we should look even deeper. This Rosh Hashanah, instead of trying to stregthen our relationship with G-d, let's try to stregthen our relationship with our fellow man. Let's try to be more considerate to what others may need. There's a concept that you should always greet somebody with a happy smiling face. The idea is that when you're confronted with a smile, it's a natural instinct to smile back. Misery loves company, but at the same time, joy inspires joy. This Rosh Hashanah, let's try to make the world a better place through the simple act of treating our fellow man a little better. If we try to treat everyone the way we would like to be treated, or even better than we would like to be treated, then perhaps we will soon be able to experiance the world-wide glory of the coming of the Messiah.