The Short Vort
Sign up for The Short Vort and our other email lists
The Short Vort- “So You Are Also A Victim (1/16/12)
The Short Vort
Good Morning!
Today is Monday the 21st of Teves 5772 and January 16, 2012
So You Are Also A Victim
I have known Dominic for about two years now.
He is the substitute mailperson in the neighborhood around the Shul.
He is an Italian man about 50 years old.
He is a little rough around the edges; however, he is good hard working man who raises his children to be good and moral citizens.
Often, when I see him delivering the mail we exchange a few words of conversation.
I recall one Friday afternoon as he was handing me the letters, he commented, “Rabbi, you are here in the office late today, don’t you have to get ready for Shabbos?”
I looked at him with surprise and amazement and before I could say another word, Dominic added, “I grew up in Boro Park, I was the Shabbos-Goy for a number of Orthodox families. I had to turn on their lights, turn off their lights and sometimes I even opened their mail for them; so I know all about getting ready for Shabbos.”
From that day on, Dominic and I would always kid around with each other on Fridays about my getting home in time for Shabbos as he would deliver the mail.
This past Friday, as I walked into the Shul office, Dominic was placing the mail in the box. I happily said, “Hey Dominic, what’s doing?”
Dominic stopped sorting the mail and looked up with a sense of seriousness and said, “So I see you are a victim too?”
For a moment I thought that Dominic was confusing me with someone else; I looked at him and asked, “What did you say?”
However, Dominic knew exactly who he was speaking to and what he was saying.
“You are a victim too!” He stated in a matter of fact tone.
I struggled to make sense out of what Dominic was saying and asked again, “Me, a victim? A victim of what?”
Dominic then reached into that famous deep blue satchel that all mailmen carry and pulled out a copy of newspaper. As soon as the paper emerged from the bag I saw the screaming headlines: “Molotov Cocktail Thrown Into the Home of a Rabbi”.
Dominic was referring to the attack at a Shul about a mile from my own home and my Shul (which was the also forth attack against a Shul in less then a month in Northern New Jersey).
As I glanced at the paper I nodded indicating my knowledge of the attack.
Dominic looked up and said simply, “Rabbi, they attacked a Synagogue and a Rabbi just like you, no? Aren’t you folks all connected and related? When they threw the Molotov cocktail at his house and his Synagogue isn’t that the same as throwing it at you and your Synagogue? You guys are all sort of interconnected, aren’t you? So Rabbi, that makes you a victim as well!”
I looked up at this simple non-Jewish mail carrier and realized that precisely in his simplicity he understood the secret of Jewish unity and oneness.
He had captured the true sense of Jewish wholeness as he knew that when one part of our collective body is in pain, the entire body aches.
He understood that an attack on any Shul wherever it may be in the world is an attack on every Rabbi and shul in the world.
And he realized that if one Jew is targeted and is hurting than all of us have been targeted and we are all hurting.
I looked up at Dominic and just said softly, “Yes, Dominic you are correct, I am also a victim.”