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Jewish World Review June 4, 2008 / 1 Sivan 5768 A different sort of ‘religious broadcaster’
By
Jonathan Rosenblum
An observant Jew's actions are constantly scrutinized. It's an immense responsibility that pays an equally high reward
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When a radio transmitter transmits sound waves, there is no way of knowing
who will receive the signals. To pick up the radio signals, the recipient
must have a radio and the radio must be tuned to a particular frequency.
We are all in the same situation as that radio transmitter. We are
constantly sending messages — some verbal and some through our behavior.
With respect to the messages conveyed by our behavior, we often have no idea
as to who will pick up the messages. That depends on who is watching, and
more importantly who has an eye to see.
Of those messages that we are transmitting perhaps the most important are
those that convey what it means to be a Jew whose life is shaped by Torah.
Every moment, we have the potential to make a Kiddush Hashem, to sanctify G-d — or the
opposite. Heightening the awareness that we are always broadcasting deepens
everything we do as a Jew.
A grade school teacher once asked a class of eight-year-olds what is a tzaddik, a truly righteous person. One answered that a tzaddik is someone who fasts every Monday
and Thursday; another that a tzaddik is someone who immerses himself in religious studies through the night.
Finally, one little girl piped up and said, "My tatte [father] says a tzaddik is someone who does what is right."
That last definition encompasses a great deal of wisdom. For one thing, it
implies that every moment there is always a right and wrong thing to do.
Each moment presents us with an opportunity to go up or go down on the spiritual ladder. But there is no standing still — ever. If we start to view
life in this fashion, we become reflective human beings, and not just
creatures of habit.
In a similar fashion, an awareness of the potential ramifications of
everything we do makes us more alive, thinking beings. For that reason, I
make something of a hobby of collecting stories that demonstrate the immense
impact of seemingly innocuous actions.
Recently, I received a sermon-ette from Rabbi Yitzchok Eisenman of Passaic, New Jersey. His subject that particular morning was a woman whom he had accompanied on her journey from Leilani, a young woman from the Philippines, to Leah. That
journey began with a chance encounter as she left the public library one day, just as three yeshiva [rabbinical] students were walking by the library.
The behavior of one of the budding scholars so piqued her curiosity that she was
filled with the desire to understand why he had acted as he did. On the
spot, she turned around and went back into the library to learn something
about Judaism.
What had the yeshiva bochur done that made such an impression on Leilani?
Did he greet her pleasantly? No, he ignored her, or, to be more precise, he
quickly averted his eyes and turned the other direction as they passed one
another. By the standards of the world, there was nothing out of the
ordinary about Leilani's dress. But by the Torah's standards of
tznius, modesty, her attire fell short. And that is what caused the
rabbi-to-be to turn to the side.
His gesture did not pass unnoticed, precisely because it was so far from
anything Leilani had ever experienced. As an attractive young woman, she had
never before had someone make a deliberate effort to avoid looking at her.
That particular rabbinical student will have no idea, until he reaches the Next World of the spiritual tumult he set off with that one gesture. He will
go through life never imagining that he, like the patriarch Abraham played a
major role in bringing a neshoma under the wings of the Shechinah.
No less important to remember, of course, is that the potential for doing
good is inevitably linked with a corresponding potential for the opposite.
Recently, I was speaking on this topic in the Bais Yaakov high school of Los
Angeles. I told a story of how the lives of three brothers and two friends —
today all respected Torah scholars — took a totally unexpected turn as a
consequence of the impression made on one of them by a family coming out of
the Los Angeles Kollel after Sabbath morning prayers.
I pointed out that had the religious father been giving his young son a
slap at the exact moment he passed in front of a local bistro
instead of holding his hand and smiling, five Jews and all the subsequent generations that will come out of them would likely have been lost. When I had finished, I repaired to the office of the principal Rabbi Yoel Bursztyn, who shared with me a story from his days as a post-graduate rabbinical student, which emphasized the point I had made.
He told me about a neighbor of his from those days — an elderly, non-religious Jew. On one occasion, Rabbi Burzstyn's neighbor agreed to help make up a minyan, religious quorum, in a shiva house. Afterwards, he told him the following story about his youth.
He had been born in Europe, and his mother passed away when he and his
sister were very young. Eventually, the family immigrated to Philadelphia.
They were extremely poor, so poor that the brother and sister had to walk
miles each way to school because they did not have the nickel fare for the
trolley.
One day, the young boy went to synagogue to recite the Kaddish mourning prayer on the anniversary of his mother's death, yahrtzeit. After services, an elderly man came over to him, and asked him
whether he had yahrtzeit. The boy nodded. "So where's the herring and
schnaps?" the old man asked, questioning why he hadn't fulfilled the local custom of providing food in the departed soul's merit and memory. Having assured himself that no food would be
forthcoming, the old man told him, "This you call a yahrtzeit? Pheh."
The boy was too humiliated to say anything, He rushed home and threw himself
on his bed sobbing. His father passed by his son's room, and saw how
distraught he was. When the boy related what had happened, he added a vow,
"Father, I swear to you, I will never set foot in a synagogue again." And he never did.
Can any of us begin to fathom the joy of discovering for the first time in Heaven that we provided the impetus for one journey to Truth? Or, for that matter, the shame of learning that because of an unthinking, offhand remark of ours a Jew never again set foot in synagogue?
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JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is founder of Jewish Media Resources and a widely-read columnist for the Jerusalem Post's domestic and international editions and for the Hebrew daily Maariv. He is also a respected commentator on Israeli politics, society, culture and the Israeli legal system, who speaks frequently on these topics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His articles appear regularly in numerous Jewish periodicals in the United States and Israel. Rosenblum is the author of seven biographies of major modern Jewish figures. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School. Rosenblum lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.
© 2008, Jonathan Rosenblum | ||||||||||
