*I wrote this about a week after the Mumbai attacks, but the relevance remains.
Every couple hours I get a new e-mail in my inbox pleading me to daven for another Jew who has been stricken with a disease, or has been severely wounded by a terrorist attack, or someone who lost a relative in attack, or a little baby born with severe birth defects, and the list goes on.
And I try to daven and I try to ask Hashem to help.
But then I challenge G-d, "You are the only One who can do anything about this! You caused this! Why do you refuse to heal?!?"
Every day someone dies when they should be stepping on a plane to visit their mother and everyday someone gets cancer when they should be going to school and everyday someone battles lukemia when they should be home tending to their child and everyday someone has a heart attack when they should be stepping into the office to close a deal. And everyday I beg G-d to stop the heartache and the pain, To stop inflicting our people with so many tragedies.
Global scale tragedies sometimes overshadow individual people's personal tragedies. When there is a global tragedy that affects the Jewish people we all pitch in a we daven and we raise money and we do what we can. But how about when we are not being attacked by terrorists, how about when anti-semitism is not on the rise, how about when we don't have to fear our lives when we are walking down the street? Can we stay connected to each other's personal tragedies? Can we connect to people who seem different than us when we are living in safety? Can we help when only we notice another's suffering and not just when the story is covered by every major media organization?
The saddest part of assimilation is that we lose our connectedness as a Jewish people, and that's when trouble starts. The power comes with the unity of a people. When there is a a million voices yelling together the message is much more clear. Assimilation is not about losing a religious Jew. Its about losing a voice, a Jewish voice, a Jewish link.
We, as a Jewish people, are a chain of souls that are intertwined with the destiny of one another. Someone hurts in China, and I feel the pain resounding in New York. The effect is unmistakeably powerful. The purpose of the world is about connection. Connecting to yourself, connecting to others, connecting to every organism and plant on this earth and connecting to G-d. Every action we take and every word we speak can be a point of connection or a point of disconnection.
Every second of every day we need to strive for connection and especially when there are external forces driving us to disconnect. It is times like these that we need to reach out. We need to stop focusing on what makes us different from one another and start focusing on how we are the same.
Most of us pick the community we live in because we share the same values, both external and internal. We like people who look like us, who talk like us, who think like us, and who act like us. But don't be fooled by the externalities. We are all just people. And we are all just Jews.
Every single aspect of this physical world can teach us something about the spiritual dimensions of our existence. We know that this is a transient world. And we know that our bodies will one day return to the ground from which it came. We know that we should not give inherent value to materialistic objects because they are fleeting. Their perceived permanence is an illusion. The same is with humans. We are all just souls clothed in different colors, shapes and sized bodies. There is no permanence to our bodies, so why get so attached to a persons external. If it is temporary how can it be as important as the eternal soul that it clothes.
We lost six holy Jews this last week in the attacks in Mumbai, India and the two souls who's lives have been highlighted in the news are the Chabad Shluchim who devoted their lives to opening their eyes to individual people's pain and struggles and connecting to others and G-d.
There is always so much to learn in this world and when every major media organization is talking about it, it is hard to ignore. So many people have written about taking our pain and channeling it towards goodness and towards bringing more loving kindess in the world. So here I am saying to please open your eyes to the individual pain of others and try to connect to your people. If not for any other reason, do it because Rabbi and Rivka Holzberg can't.
All it takes is stepping outside yourself just a little. Of being a little more "other" aware. Today I was walking up the subway stairs and I noticed an older woman struggling up the stairs and carrying two bags of groceries. So I offered to help and she accepted. As we walk towards her apartment she tells me her name is Sulema Polasky and that her family fled to Cuba in the early 1920's when Hitler was starting to rise to power and then she moved to the United States when she was a young girl. I did not know she was Jewish when I stopped to help her. All it takes is opening your eyes up a little, allow yourself to be a vessel for connections. Look for opportunities.
The world needs your smile.
