At around 3:00 p.m. on Purim day, a few hours after closing on our new center, as I was driving around town with four of our kids delivering mishloach manos, I received a call from someone asking if we sell kosher chicken. I told him that we do and that I’d be home in an hour. When I pulled into my driveway, a nice fellow by the name of Colin awaited me. I handed him a chicken and added a challah to the mix as a Shabbos bonus. We chitchatted as I walked him to his car, and he mentioned that he’s Muslim, not Jewish, and the only place in the area he could find halal/kosher was at Chabad. I loved it! I took a selfie with him, chatted about the recent Middle East peace deals, and he went on his way with a huge smile.
Why did I love it?
We live in a world with so much division, too much animosity, and friction wherever we turn. We need more moments of togetherness, more opportunities to get close to one another and focus on what can bring us into the same circles. Living in a bubble of any sort isn’t healthy or productive and doesn’t impact the world in the way Hashem wants. That doesn’t mean we will agree on all issues, and it doesn’t mean we don’t fundamentally disagree about important aspects of the life/G-d experience, but Hashem never intended for human beings to walk the earth and just find reasons to bash others and zoom in on everything that is wrong with the “others” and everything that is “right” about us.
This week is Shabbat Mevarchim, when we bless the new month of Nissan. In just over two weeks we will be celebrating Pesach, ruminating about our collective freedom from Egyptian exile and our incredible journey to Sinai and on to Israel. Following the Exodus and 35 more times afterwards, Hashem forewarns us to be kind to the stranger, to love the convert, to make those in vulnerable situations not feel like “outsiders” or unwanted.
Most times, we don’t mean to be haughty; we don’t want to make people we don’t know, who don’t look like us, speak like us, or pray like us, feel alienated from us, but, subtly, we do it all the time. There is “us” and there is “them.”
Colin and I smiled for our selfie, and we genuinely felt like we had so much in common. He asked me to send him the picture and he messaged me later saying, “Blessings! Shalom! Assalamu Alaikum!”
In 2018, Chavie and I took our family on a trip to Paris, Spain, Gibraltar, and Morocco. Upon our return, I wrote an article for the Huffington Post titled “Julio, Mustafa and Chaim.” In it I wrote as follows: “We stood at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, overlooked Puente Nuevo in Ronda, Spain, stood at the top of the monkey swarming Rock of Gibraltar, and rode camels in Tangier, Morocco. Our apartment manager in Marbella was a local Spaniard, Julio, who was one of the most polite, helpful, and kind people I’ve ever met. When our Airbnb experienced power outages, he went above and beyond to ensure that we were cared for. In Tangier, our guide Mustafa and our driver Mahmud were delightful. Despite being in a predominantly Muslim country, I felt at home and they made sure of it. We strolled through the marketplace, bought way too many souvenirs, all while being warmly welcomed.”
I really think we would do ourselves a favor if we could start trusting others more easily and allow ourselves to see them from their perspective on occasion.
Pesach is a time for us to think about how hard it must have been for our ancestors to live in a land that didn’t welcome them, amongst people who looked down at them, and in a time when Jews were considered the “intruders.” I think often about my Zayde, Reb Shimon Goldman, who escaped Poland, lost his entire family to Hitler, may his name be erased, and who was alone in a scary world that didn’t want or care about Jews. He was living in Vilnius, Vladivostok, Kobe, and Shanghai, not knowing if he had one living relative left and whether he’d ever make it to the goldene medinah of the United States.
Loneliness even among one’s own community is hard—how much more so when one is in a foreign land. The more we ponder this, the more we are careful not to mistreat others. Whether black, Hispanic, Asian, Sikh, Pakistani, and so on, all the diversity that exists in New York, of which we have very little in Montana, needs to be embraced and we must grow that human interconnectedness.
The Divine rules embedded in Shulchan Aruch about Jewish cooking, Jewish baking, kosher wine, and Jewish milking were created to ensure that we don’t get too close on a personal level with gentiles and create intermarriage scenarios and idolatrous choices. They are vital to our survival and should be followed to the minutest detail, but we can’t let that get in the way of being a mensch and truly finding the commonality of all those who seek a better world, a more refined human condition, and, yes, those who serve G-d. It is said that the Ba’al Shem Tov only hired a coachman who would go to church on Sunday, knowing that the man’s devotion to G-d, albeit misguided, is a sign of a person on a journey to be better.
In this week’s double parashah, Vayakhel-Pekudei, we read about the chief architects of the Mishkan, Betzalel and Oholiav. Betzalel was a member of the Moses family—a great-grandson of Miriam, grandson of Chur—but Oholiav was a regular layman from the tribe of Dan who was good at his artisanship. Hashem wanted to ensure that we don’t associate religion, certainly not His beloved Torah, with elitism, leaving out those we have a tendency to look down upon, even though it’s not malicious, chas v’shalom. We need to make an overt effort to create more unity moments amongst ourselves and, by extension, the rest of the world.
In Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, we are taught by Ben Zoma: “Who is wise? One who learns from every person.” It doesn’t mean that we should learn only from fellow Yidden, but that each of us, in every interaction with every human being, Jew or gentile, should find something positive to learn from that person that will enhance our life and our mission to better ourselves and the world around us.
Om Malik, the tech expert, once wrote, “Finding your soul begins by discovering our ability to listen! Alternatively, by sharing a smile, a laugh, and just by being human to everyone—from friends, colleagues, family, and especially strangers, including those who are not from the same station in life as you.”
He’s right. Hashem wants His world to be a garden, a garden in which His children are there for each other.
Rabbi Chaim Bruk is co-CEO of Chabad Lubavitch of Montana and spiritual leader of The Shul of Bozeman. For comments or to partner in our holy work, e-mail rabbi@jewishmontana.com or visit JewishMontana.com/Donate.