Erev Ki Tavo
September 19, 2008
The Winter Hat
by David Suissa
I was introduced to the concept of Jewish solidarity when I was eight years old, thanks to a red winter hat. Actually, many red winter hats.
We had just moved from the delicious climate of Casablanca and were now ensconced in the frigid world of the long Canadian winters. As we huddled in our little apartment one night, my father announced, “School starts in a week. You will all be going to Bedford School.”
Bedford School is where I first noticed the red winter hats. You see, we were not the only Moroccan Jews in the neighborhood. Several other families who had fled Casablanca moved at about the same time. And for some reason, all the Moroccan kids in our school wore the same red winter hats.
I remember seeing all this new stuff appear in our apartment: dishes, furniture, clothes, food…red winter hats. So I kept asking my mother, “Where’s all this coming from?” And she would always say: “The Jias.” The Jias? What’s a Jias? I often wondered.
Well, one day, I learned what the Jias was: It was a Jewish organization (whose real name is HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society]) that helped Jewish refugees settle in new lands - taking care of things like plane tickets, apartments, furniture, food, and, when needed…winter hats. It was an organization where the givers were virtually 100% Ashkenazi Jews, helping Jewish refugees who were virtually 100% Sephardi.
It didn’t matter that we spoke Arabic, not Yiddish, or that we had dark skin. All that mattered was that we were Jews, and we needed help.
That was my first lesson in Jewish solidarity: Jews named Schwartz helping Jews named Suissa, with blind love that was clearly visible in little red winter hats.
We spend so much time in our Jewish and secular lives looking for, and of course, finding the differences between us and others. When we find them, we often focus on them, magnifying them beyond what they really are.
There’s a wonderful story that I’m sure most of you have heard, about the Jewish man who has been stranded on a desert island for many years. When he is finally rescued, he takes his rescuers around the island to show them how he has survived for all those years.
He shows them the house he built, the weapons he made to hunt for food, the garden where he grew his vegetables and the oven he fashioned to cook his food. They were extremely impressed by how resourceful he had been.
But there was one thing that confused them. There were two identical buildings right across from his house. They asked him what those two buildings were. Pointing to one he said, ‘This is the synagogue that I worship in every day.’ And then pointing to the other, he explained, ‘And this, this is the one I wouldn’t set foot in.’
* * *
Why is it so easy to see our differences and not our similarities?
Each of us wants to be unique. Psychologists tell us that even the most psychologically healthy ones of us need to have other people who can be our mirrors; who can reflect back to us who we are: what we think, what we feel, what we believe in. Without those mirrors we may find it difficult expressing opinions that others do not agree with. We need a tribe, a group that we can belong to. Some groups can encompass people with many different belief systems; others have more narrowly defined membership requirements.
The problem comes when giving us comfort, finding people who agree with our opinions, is the most important element of our membership in any group.
The dean of my rabbinic school, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson reminded us regularly that being on a true spiritual path rarely involves comfort. The basis of the month of Elul is to push ourselves past our comfort zone to see the kinds of behaviors we want to change; to discover to whom we owe apologies. The comfort of being a part of a group of like-minded people can actually get in our way in this self examination. The conversations we have with other members of these groups could overlook an obvious perspective that we would see if we had a wider view.
As David Suissa says, his first lesson in Jewish solidarity was by being given a red winter hat by Jews, who had almost nothing in common with him. But they gave him that hat just because he was a Jew. We can assume that some of the members of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society had to push past their comfort zones to be able to see the common ground with Sephardic Jews. But the fact that they were able to see commonality and not difference profoundly changed the life of that small child.
It’s important for each of us to see our similarities with all Jews. And as difficult as that may be, it’s far easier than seeing our similarities with those that are not Jewish, to allow ourselves to be open to trusting people who have traditionally not been trustworthy. Rather than continuing to narrow our scope of friendship, let us during this time of preparation for the High Holidays, look for our similarities with all the people with whom we share our city. Let us reach out to someone who would ordinarily be seen as the other and see if we can find the commonalities we share with this person.
As I learned when I moved to Macon after seven years in a Jewish bubble, my life has been immeasurably enriched and expanded by the diversity around me. As comfortable as I was in my bubble, I am more alive and more engaged than I have ever been. My new friendships reflect the diversity of Macon’s residents and, in more ways than I can count; I’m the better for it.
May all of us have this same experience as we stretch ourselves to embrace the other and to let go our need to consistently be looking into a mirror.