Seidemann: Being different, but staying on message

From the other side of the bench

by David Seidemann

Issue of June 25, 2010/ 13 Tammuz, 5770

When the Amalekites met the Jewish people in the desert, they changed the way they spoke. They spoke like the Cannanites, figuring that when the Jewish people heard them talk they would pray to be saved from the wrong nation and the Amalekites would triumph.

Unfortunately for the Amalekites, the Jews were not fooled. While the Amalekites changed their manner of speech, they kept their unique mode of dress. Their cover was blown and the children of Israel prayed to be saved from all of their enemies — both the Cannanites and the Amalekites.

Where did the Amalakites get this idea to fool the Jews through disguise? It sounds eerily familiar.

The Amalekites’ ancestor Esav was fooled by his brother Jacob, our forefather, who disguised his own dress to appear like Esav in order to receive the blessings from their father. But Jacob kept his voice. Generations later, the Amalekites, the descendents of Esav, would do just the opposite: change their voice, but maintain their dress.

Coincidence? I think not.

For the nations of the world who fashion themselves after Amalek with their unabashed anti-Semitism, talk is cheap. What they say at 9:00 is meaningless by 10:00. They live by a double-standard and remain silent as genocide creeps from one part of the world to the next, yet they always condemn the Jewish nation for defending herself. Their spoken word is meaningless, foreshadowed many years ago by Amalek who changed their speech while maintaining their mode of dress.

For the Jew, however, the challenge is to maintain his speech and his message even if the mode of dress has changed. Even if we are living on foreign soil where the natives dress differently and expect us to dress like them, our message must be the same. For the Jews no matter how society tries to dress us up or dress us down our survival depends on our message of survival.

Our survival depends on our unity: unity between Ashkenazim and Sefardim, religious and non-religious, and charedi and non-chareidi. The moment disunity creeps through the door so does Amalek.

How gratifying it is when a true message of unity emerges amongst our people. The following story was related to me by a friend.

As part of his job detail, an Israeli chaplain visited a secular police sergeant in his office in Israel. The chaplain was surprised to see a picture of a religious family on the sergeant’s desk and asked him about it.

“That’s my family,” said the sergeant. “I had just finished my first eight months as a police officer and was scheduled for my first vacation. I slept late only to be awoken by a call from my superior telling me to immediately report to duty at a protest in the religious neighborhood that was spinning out of control. I was furious as, on my first day off, I had to police a bunch of religious Jews.”

The sergeant continued: “I arrived at the demonstration with my billy club in hand. It was one of the hottest days of the summer. There we stood with policemen on one side of the street and the charedim on the other. We were ready for battle if we had to. A religious woman approached me and I warned her to retreat. I told her that if she took one more step she would risk bodily injury. She kept coming. I began to swing my billy club and warned her again that I would not hesitate to use it if I had to. She defied my warnings and kept on advancing.”

“I raised my club in my right hand and was about to strike her when she said ‘Hit me if you will, but it is 100 degrees out here and you need to drink.’ And with that she handed me a bottle of water.”

“The irony is that for two years before that incident my daughter had been begging me to enroll her in a charedi school where one of her friends was studying,” the sergeant said, “I refused, telling my daughter that they were all nuts. I learned that day, over a bottle of water, that I was wrong. The very next day I enrolled my daughter in that religious school.”

“The rest is religious history,” said the sergeant. “That picture of the girl with her head covering is my daughter, the man with the beard is my son-in-law and the two boys with them are my grandsons.”

“I myself never became religious,” said the sergeant, “but we all love each other, respect each other and know that our survival depends on our mutual recognition of each other’s place at the table of our G-d.”

To elaborate on the story would cheapen it. The lesson is profound. I leave it to the reader to understand. And when you do share this with that “other Jew” try to share it with the Jew who is different than you. For once, let being different be something to build upon.