If I Am Not For Myself? If I Am Only For Myself?

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Friday, January 19, 2007

In his latest book, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain recounts the following story.

One Friday afternoon, a friend of his was driving along the highway to join his family for Sabbath—the Catskills were where many New York Jews had holiday homes. He saw a motorist stranded by the roadside, his car immobilized by a flat tire. He was wearing a yarmulke.

Naturally the driver assumed that he too was heading for the Catskills and was concerned that he might not be able to change the wheel in time to reach his destination before the Sabbath began.

He stopped, and helped the man change the tire.

As he was parting, the owner of the other car removed his yarmulke and put it in his pocket.

“Why are you doing that?” said the first. “Don’t you wear it all the time?”

“Oh no,” said the other. “You see, I’m not Jewish.”

“Then why were you wearing a yarmulka?”

“Simple,” he replied. ‘I know that if someone is in trouble and is wearing a yarmulke, a Jew will stop to help him.”

The actions of the man with the flat tire seem crass, but in some ways his decision to put on a kippah was very bright. After all, Jews have a long history of helping their co-religionists in times of need.

The Talmud is full of praise for those who redeem or pay ransom for Jews who were imprisoned or kidnapped. The rabbinic literature makes it very clear that the responsibility to redeem Jewish captives rests not only on one’s family or even home community, but on all Jews, whether or not they know those being held.

In more recent times, Jews helped their co-religionists escape the captivity of poverty by creating free loan societies. These societies, since before the start of the 20th century and continuing into the present, offer low or no interest loans to Jews in need, particularly those who have recently immigrated to America.

Other examples, from a seemingly unending list, include Israel’s rescue of Ethiopian Jewry in Operation’s Moses and Solomon, the URJ’s support of congregations in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and of course the support, financial and spiritual, offered to Israel this summer by Jewish communities around the world.

I think most of us would support these acts of kindness and assistance offered by one Jew to another. After all, as the saying goes, “charity begins at home.” Or as one sage put it, Kol Yisrael Avarvim Zeh vZeh, All of Israel is responsible for one another.

Rabbi Hillel, one of our tradition’s most honored rabbis, supports this notion when he asks in the first chapter of Pirkei Avot, “If I am not for myself who will be for me?” But Hillel’s questioning, does not end with this first query. It continues, “If I am only for myself, what am I?

If we as a Jewish community are only concerned with ourselves, then what are we? We are certainly not living up to our covenantal responsibility to be a light unto the nations. Nor are we doing all we can to complete the work of tikkun olam.

If we are to repair our world and live according to darchei shalom, ways of peace, then we as individuals and a congregation must prove the motorists perception of the Jewish community to be wrong, we must reach beyond the boundaries of our religious community.

The Talmud makes this point clearly when it states,

For the sake of peace, the non-Jewish poor should not be prevented from gathering gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and corners of the field. . . Our masters taught: for the sake of peace, non-Jewish poor should be supported as we support the poor of Israel, the non-Jewish sick should be visited as we visit the sick of Israel, and the non-Jewish dead should be buried as we bury the dead of Israel. (Gittin 59a-61a)

Bringing this teaching to life, in the days following Hurricane Katrina and the breaching of New Orleans’ levy system, the Reform Movement opened the URJ’s Henry S. Jacob Camp in Utica Mississippi to not only 75 Jews evacuated from New Orleans, but also the residents of the Louise Davis Developmental Center for Adults with Cognitive Disabilities.

The Jewish community has also led the way in raising awareness about the genocide in Darfur. Knowing all too dearly the cost of what happens when bystanders don’t speak up, the Jewish community has been at the forefront of organizing rallies, letter writing campaigns, and holding events, like the one which took place in this sanctuary during the fall, designed to educate people about the atrocities of what is happening in East Africa.

I recently had the pleasure to hear Ruth Messenger of the American Jewish World Service describe for an hour and half the great work that her and other Jewish organizations are doing around the world. The projects she described are amazing and inspiring. But at the end of her talk I couldn’t help but think that there is more that can be done. More than can be done by the Jewish community; more that can be done by our Jewish community; and more that can be done by us as individual Jews.

Two upcoming opportunities we have to help others as a synagogue community are the Health Fair on April 29th and Shir Hadash’s Action of February 12th which will focus on bringing health coverage to our neighbors. I hope you will join us at both of these important events. And I hope that you will seek out other ways you can help make our world a better place.

Rabbi Hillel’s famous series of questions: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?” concludes with a third and perhaps most important question. “If not now, when?” May this coming week and every week be the time for acts of tikkun olam.

Shabbat Shalom