Seidemann: Put me on the welcoming commitee

Posted

From the other side of the bench

by David Seidemann

Issue of November 13 2009/ 26 Cheshvan 5770

The following conversation did not take place although I wish it had. It is not meant to disparage any one particular individual. It is not meant to discredit the efforts of wonderful people who open their homes and hearts to various guests from outside of our community. Nor do I mean to imply that recent visitors to the Five Towns were anything other than lovers of all Jews. To do so would be patently wrong as I do not know how to read people’s hearts.

Rather, after a weekend when the community hosted different types of Jews, I am simply using this opportunity to make a point I wish to impart to my children.

It’s 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night and my phone rings.

Hello? Mr. Seidemann? Hi, Max Feibisch here. How are you this evening? Fine, thank you, and you? Great, thanks. Mr. Seidemann, may I call you David? Sure. May I call you Max?        Of course.

Before I begin, he says, I just want you to know that I read your articles every week and they are very good. My wife thinks you’re a genius. Tell her I think she’s a genius too, I say. (I have now evened the playing field so that if he asks me for a favor I will feel free to ask him for one in return.)

I say to him, I recognize your name as well. How is it that your name is so familiar to me? Oh I’m in the paper every week also, he replies. Really, I say, what’s the name of your column? I don’t have a column. I’m on the welcoming committee. Which welcoming committee? I ask. Oh it doesn’t matter. Every week, I’m on a different welcoming committee. Whichever Rebbe, yeshiva, or institution is coming to town, I’m on the welcoming committee.

What exactly does that mean? Not much. Make a few calls like this one. It’s just good to have one’s name on the welcoming committee. It’s good for the rabbi, it’s good for me. I have daughters and sons of marriageable age, you know.

So having your name on every welcoming committee for every rabbi, every yeshiva and every institution helps you in shidduchim, I ask? Of course, he responds. Don’t you want your name associated with every dignitary that comes to town?

Not really, I respond. Not unless I really know who the rabbi is, where the yeshiva or the institution is, or what the cause is all about. Not unless I know at least a little bit about their philosophy, what they teach their followers, their attitude towards women, towards Israel, etc.

You would investigate all that before you would be on the welcoming committee? Yes, I respond. And I would hope you would as well. After all, didn’t you say you have sons and daughters of marriageable age? And isn’t who you associate with important to you?

Well let me ask you this, says Max. If you had your choice of hosting a big rebbe on one hand or an Israeli soldier on the other hand, who would you host? I’d have them both, I answered. Well, what if the rabbi said, “It’s me or the soldier.” What would you say then? I would host the soldier, I replied. And what if the soldier said, “It’s me or the rabbi,” he asked. I’d have the rabbi, I answered.

Actually, I would spend as much time as necessary with the rabbi convincing him to embrace the soldier and as much time as necessary with the soldier convincing him to embrace the rabbi. It is inconceivable to me that after a little bit of time together, that each would not embrace the other.

Max continues. But if for some reason you could only have one guest, wouldn’t it be better to expose your children to the big rabbi? I’m not so sure, I answer.

Why’s that? Max asks. Simple, I say. My children already know how much we respect and admire rabbis and acknowledge their contributions to our people. But my children might not know how thankful we need to be to the soldiers who risk their lives for Israel. And even if my children are aware of the sacrifices our young soldiers make, I think it would be so important for those young soldiers to know just how much we worry about them, cry for them, and pray for them.

So, to regroup Max, if I really want to educate my children properly, if I really wanted to help them with shidduchim, I would have at my Shabbos table individuals who are open to embracing others who might not be their cup of tea, or who might be a bit different. I would have had my Shabbos table individuals who need to know just how special they are to us. I would have at my Shabbos table not just rabbis from afar but people from my own neighborhood who need a pick me up or a Shabbos meal, a single father or mother, a person down on their luck, a person with financial difficulty. I would feed their ego and not mine. You see, sometimes when you host a dignitary you feel important, but it’s better to have a guest at your table and make the guest feel important.

I would have at my table the most diverse crowd I could assemble so that my children will learn the lesson of inclusivity. That, my dear new friend Max, is the welcoming committee that I want to be on. I would ask the rabbi to bless the soldier but I would not have to ask that soldier to defend Israel for all Jews. Because one thing I know for sure: While not every Jew embraces the state of Israel as presently constituted, every soldier who fights for the land of Israel does so for every Jew, of every stripe, of every belief, in every and any corner of this world.

There is no such thing as an Israeli soldier saying, “I will fight this battle only for Jews who are just like me.” Such a notion is absurd. So while we sit here in America or in Israel or in any other part of the world and condition our support for Israel and support for her soldiers on certain philosophical and/or religious principles, no such line of demarcation exists in the mind of a young Israeli man or woman who leaves his home to defend our country, without any assurance that he or she will return.

And I know this for a fact because I spoke to an Israeli army officer this past Shabbos who is visiting our community. I asked him why he came to America and he told me to let American Jewry know that he and his brothers and sisters are fighting for all of us. And he carried this message over the last two weeks to communities far and wide, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and unaffiliated. To them there is no difference. He is part of a group of people that risks their lives for all of us. In his eyes we are all one unified camp, one nation, one people. What a powerful lesson.

Next time the soldiers come to town put my name on the welcoming committee.

David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein.  He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds@lawofficesm.com.