JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. ANTI-SEMITISM

The Chain Bridge - Budapest/Hungary

Sunday, Kislev 18, 5777. December 18, 2016.

Shalom! World.

Let's return to the question of anti-Semitism. The non-Jew comes to the Jew and says, "What are you? Explain yourself." What do we respond?

We make uo stories, we make excuses, we start from Adam and Eve, we discuss Noah, and we give a history lesson, but we don't answer the question. Sometimes the question is asked more bluntly: "You are the chosen people. It says so in the Bible. What does it means/" To which we respond, "Chosen? I don't know about chosen, maybe we are a little different..."

The non-Jew can't get a straight answer. Jews don't give straight answer to this type of question because we don't know how to answer. We don't know what we are because nobody ever answered that question for us. We were told we're Jewish, our parents are Jewish, our grandparents are Jewish, so we're Jewish and that's it. But the non-Jew ins't asking, "Who is a Jew," he''s asking "What is a Jew", and we don't know, so we fake it and we make up stories that don't hold water. 

So if there are some Jews in Minsk, for example, he figures the Jews in Minsk are up to something, they're out to do something terrible and they're trying to hide it. What could they be doing terrible in Minsk? THey must be poisoning the well. And when he hears the same thing is happening in Morocco, the Jews there don't tell anybody what they are either, he thinks, "This is a global plot!" What else should he think? And what's a universal global -plot? To take over the world. This actuallly makes sense - what other excuse could there possibly be for people who are supposed to be G'ds chosen people, it says so in the bible, yet won't tell anyone what they're about?

Anti-Semitism obviously has other causes but it also comes about when we behave the way we shouldn't, and the problem occurs because we behave mysterously. We don't  tlak straight or know what to say about ourselves, and they find that hard to believe. We are causing suspicion by not being able to answer their questions. We've seen this over and over again with the Israel State in recent years. When Israel tries to lean over backwards and be super-nice to the Arabs, it's misunderstood. It's taken as a sign of guilt, because if you're right, if you did the right, then you have nothing to apologize for. 

So we say, "We're not apologizing, it's because we're nice, it's because we want peace." But nobody buys that, nobody accepts that. When you win a war, you win a war, you don't give back anything. So they say, "Oh, the Jews give back because they feel guilty for having taken it; they must know that it's not theirs, and that's why want to give it back." 

When we try to be nice and we say, "Look, we're not the chosen, you can be the chosen people, we're all the chosen people, we're not any differnt, we're like you, you're like us, we're just minding our own business, all we want to do is quietly live onn the same street with you, pay our taxes and go to shul in the evening," our neighbors say, "No, that's not what you're all about. We know better. We know you are a Heavenly people because it says so in the Bible. Our grandmothers told us Jews are a Heavenly people, so why are you wlaking around the streets making like you live here, like you belong here? Tell us what you really are!" "Oh, I'm just the neighbor who lives down the street." "No, you're not. You're not from this block, or this neighborhood or this city, you're not from this world! Therefore, tell me, explain what you're here for, what you're doing." "Who, me? I'm the same as you." "No, you're not the same as me! This is my land, my world, my created condition, and you come from some other world, so why are you here?"

So we can't say we're ordinary people like everyone else because they see that we're not like them, we're a Heavenly people, and they want to know why we're pretending to be like them, why we're "stealing" their land.

To give an analogy, if a teacher came into a classroom, dressed like the students, and he sat down on the floor with the students and he said, "Ok what should we do now?" - everyone in the class would hate him. It would be unanimous. If he comes into the classroom with a good lesson prepared, and he's got something to say, a few will be disinterested, a few will be annoyed by the lesson because they don't want to learn, but the intelligent students will be thilled and they will usually be the majority.

Shalom! Aleichem.

Suporte cultural:  Jacob Jr. B.A.C.E., avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Cz.