Unity and Peace

From the OU


למען אחי ורעי – Elul 5784
Greeting Every Person With a Smile and With Joy
Within the OU and its departments, we intend to focus meaningful effort
on considering and addressing the issue of sinat chinam, providing both
food for thought and practical action points that can help us begin to
demonstrate care for each other and ameliorate our nation’s divisions by
adjusting both our thinking and actions. We invite you into this process
in the hope that you may find it meaningful and helpful, add your own
energies to this effort, and be in touch to contribute your own thoughts
and ideas.

Rosh Chodesh Elul is when we begin to undertake serious reflection on
the challenges of the past year and the opportunities and goals of the
future. The current discord and rifts within Klal Yisrael pose a huge
challenge, undermining our fundamental identification as goy echad
ba’aretz and visibly affecting our ability to work together, benefit
from each other, influence each other, and stand together as a unified
community to confront our many external challenges. Seeing what is
happening, some have gone so far as to say we are choosing to
self-destruct, Heaven forbid. And those are just the issues that grab
the headlines, the dramatic discord bringing protesters to the streets
and segmenting our communities.

It does not end there – and it may not start there. We have no
boundaries within ourselves; what we do in the public sphere we will
also do in our personal relationships. A respected Rav once took an
accounting of the time he spent counseling and supporting the members of
his community and discovered that most of the issues he was helping them
with were not heaven-sent occurrences of illness and death but man-made
conflicts between spouses, relatives, neighbors, and colleagues. Moshe
Rabbeinu bemoaned the fact that the interminable quarreling that we
engaged in necessitated the appointment of a judge for every ten people
(see Sforno Devarim 1:12). Too often we hear that it is hard to work
with or do business within the community, that we may be insufficiently
fair or gracious. We are voluntarily introducing difficulty and
suffering into our lives.

The second Beit Mikdash was destroyed even though Jews were engaged in
Torah, mitzvot, and acts of kindness, due to the prevalence of sinat
chinam, vain hatred. That hatred was manifest in matters both communal
and personal, in the sectarianism that corrupted Jewish life, the
political divisions between the peacemakers and the war-mongering
baryonim, and the petty interpersonal arguments such as the infamous
wedding invitation mistakenly sent to Bar Kamtza (Gittin 55b). Once we
make the critical decision to embrace conflict, we will find it everywhere.

It is therefore worthwhile to shift gears away from arguing and towards
caring, to become students of Aharon who loved peace and pursued it,
loved people and brought them closer to Torah (Avot 1:12). We need to
grapple with the big and the small, refining how we deal with both the
big picture ideological and political rifts as well as our personal
relationships and interactions, understanding that improvement in one
will enhance the other.

I, for one, plan to start small, by putting away my ear pods when
walking in streets and hallways and noticing and acknowledging the
people around me. This seems like a good first step, an opportunity to
demonstrate and authentically feel some of the love for people that is
characteristic of Aharon’s passionate pursuit of peace.

As a communal Rav, I developed a conscious and simple habit. When
visiting hospitals and nursing homes, grim and busy places, I tried to
smile at everyone I saw in the halls, whether medical staff or
orderlies, patients or their family members. While some were too busy to
notice or had their own earphones in, it was wonderful to see the impact
on others of simply being noticed and acknowledged and it deepened my
own care for others.

There are two similar statements in Pirkei Avot, Shammai’s teaching
(1:16) that one should be “mekabel kol ha’adam b’sever panim yafot —
greet each person with a pleasant face,” and Rabbi Yishmael’s teaching
(3:12) that one should be “mekabel kol adam b’simchah — greet every
person with joy.” Which is it? With a pleasant countenance or with joy?
Rav Leib Nekritz of the Novardok school of Mussar explained beautifully
and simply that the pleasant face Shammai directed us to put on is to
gladden and uplift the other, while Rabbi Yishmael guided us to feel the
happiness of seeing a fellow Jew and to let the greeting bring us
authentic joy.

That is my first commitment to action. Rather than resolve the national
debate over a hostage deal, I will start small, focusing outside of
myself so I can try to notice and care for others a bit more. It cannot
end there. There are serious issues that cannot be avoided. But perhaps
by beginning to passionately pursue peace and show love for others, the
greater peace we all seek will get a bit closer.

And please, do me one favor. If you see me walking around with my ear
pods in, I would appreciate if you would smile at me and remind me to
take them out.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Moshe Hauer
Executive Vice President