Have you ever been out in public, maybe at a baseball game, and you see a guy with long peyos, a beard, tzitzis hanging out… and a baseball hat. In his mind, that baseball hat is somehow preventing everyone else from knowing that he is Jewish. In his mind, despite his black pants and white shirt, that baseball hat allows him to magically blend in. He is no longer Yoily from Boro Park; he is Bob, Bob O’hare from Arkansas.
I’ve always laughed at “that guy.” But last Shabbos, “that guy” was me. I was walking down El Camino in Palo Alto dressed like this with this on my head (put on baseball hat). I wonder if they noticed the OU symbol on the side of the hat…
I think I’ve shared with some of you in the past that I am not very good at hiding my Jewishness. About twenty years ago, I was backpacking through Europe, trying very hard to blend in and look “not Jewish,” with a baseball hat. One day, I was standing outside the Coliseum in Rome about to take a picture with these big hulky guys dressed as gladiators when one of them took his sword, placed it by my waste, and said, “Hey chabibi! Ata rotzeh od brit milah? Do you want another circumcision?” I could be wearing a stormtrooper uniform and they would take one look at me and say, Jew.
The reason I was wearing this baseball hat in Palo Alto and trying to not draw attention to my Jewishness is not that funny at all. A few days earlier, in California, we bumped into some friends from Baltimore who shared with us a harrowing story. They were staying not too far from where we were, and they took an Uber. When they got in the Uber, the husband was not wearing a kippah, but after having a nice conversation with the driver, he felt comfortable enough to put it on. At that point, the driver pulled over his car, in middle of nowhere, and told the couple to get out of his car. Antisemitism is alive and well on the West Coast. Hence, my baseball hat.
Now I know if Meimei would have heard this Uber story, she would have not only not worn a baseball hat, she would have grabbed her IDF sweatshirt and worn it with swagger. Meimei Polun goes to a school with a bit of an anti-Israel bend, and yet, that does not stop her from being loud and proud about her support of Israel. And the truth is, as I was walking down El Camino, I thought about that, and decided I was done wearing a baseball hat. The next day we went to Stanford University, home of some of the vilest antisemitism, and I wore my kippah without a hat, thanks to you.
My experience is fairly emblematic of the experience of many Jews living in the US since October 7th. Watching what has transpired on the streets of major cities or on college campuses has triggered fear causing many Jews to recoil and hide. And then, like me, many of these people have decided instead of hiding, we are going to be loud and public about our Judaism; kippot, necklaces with a Magen David, Israeli flags, dog-tags with the names of hostages, ‘I stand with Israel’ swag, you name it. We want to look like Jews.
It’s nice, maybe even beautiful, but the truth is, it’s a little superficial. What does it mean to ‘look like a Jew?’ Yes, the gladiator outside of the Coliseum may have picked up on something, but do I really look Jewish?! As I was writing this, I googled pictures of Hungarian people. Guess what? That’s what I look like. We’ve spoken about this so many times but it’s worth repeating – If I were to go back in time to our ancestors in the desert on their journey from Egypt to Israel, I, and many of us would stick out like a sore thumb. Or to be more accurate, like a white thumb on a brown body. Our ancestors were from the Middle East, they were dark skinned. The one exception was Moshe’s wife. She was black. There was not a single white person in ancient Israel! Jews are not defined by their looks; there is no Jewish look. We are defined by something else entirely.
In one of the most exciting passages in the Book of Bereishis, Yaakov poses as his brother, Eisav. He covers his arms with a lot of hair, and he tries his best to impersonate Eisav. Yitzchak, his blind father, who Yaakov is trying to trick, falls for it. But Yitzchak is also confused. “Hakol kol Yaakov, v’hayadayim y’dei Eisav. Your hands feel like Eisav, but your voice sounds like Jacob.” Rashi explains that Yaakov and Eisav sounded the same. When you called their home and one of them would pick up the phone, you would not know who you were speaking to. What Yitzchak meant when he said that the man in front of him sounded like Yaakov, he was not referring to Yaakov’s voice but his mode of speech. The man in front of him said, “please,” he spoke softly, he spoke humbly, he invoked G-d, he used words of refinement. What distinguished Yaakov and Eisav was not their looks, it was their speech.
The Medrashim tell us that this is why the king of Moav hired Bilaam to come curse the Jewish People. He wanted to attack the Jews with a dose of their own medicine. “Ein kochom ela b’peh. The strength of the Jewish people is their mouth.” Speech is our defining feature.
And so instead of asking ourselves if we look Jewish, I think we need to ask ourselves if we sound Jewish? And no, I do not mean if we sound like Fran from the Nanny. You know what it means to sound Jewish?
A Jew does not gossip. A Jew does not use foul language. A Jew humbly acknowledges G-d. A Jew compliments and lifts people up. A Jew uses his or her words to connect, never to destroy.
Some people say that Shabbos – taking a break from technology and the rat race – is the greatest gift that the Jewish People can give the world in this century. I disagree. The greatest gift we can give the world today in 2024 is positive and refined speech. Research has drawn a direct line between hateful rhetoric and seemingly random acts of violence. We may not ever know why Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to kill former President Donald Trump, but we do know that the words we use to describe people make an impact on how they act; violent rhetoric leads to violence. In Nazi Germany no one woke up one day and said, “Kill the Jews.” They said the Jews are ruining our society, and then they said the Jews are subhuman, and then they said the Jews should be put away, and yes, eventually, they killed 6 million Jews. Words are powerful. Words can destroy.
And that’s where one of Judaism’s greatest contributions to society comes in – Judaism elevates speech to the highest stratosphere. The very first time a sentence is uttered in the Torah, they are words of positivity; “Vayehi ohr, let there be light.” The first Jew to live among gentiles, Yosef, is described as constantly invoking G-d’s name whenever he spoke; “To commit adultery,” he said, “is bad in the eyes of G-d.” Or when he stood before Pharaoh and took no credit for his dream interpretation, “It all comes from Hashem.” When the Torah describes animals that are not kosher, instead of saying, ‘dirty,’ the Torah chooses the more refined term of ‘not clean.’
Let me share with you a story. There is a high-end investing firm that does very well and is run by an observant Jew who lives locally. He recently sent a letter to his investors after an exceptionally good quarter. And I quote: “After November’s strong performance the question remained the same: what are you doing differently that the fund has such a strong month of performance? … the answer to the question … [is] Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
We have been doing nothing different throughout this whole period. We have been … sticking ever so closely to our strategy and research process… It was because G-d made us outperform. It was not me, not my partners, not the traders, nor being super smart, nor all the hard work.”
In a world filled with so much bluster, so much ego, aren’t this man’s words music to the ear? Yes, I just made you rich, but G-d runs the world, not me. Think about the impact those humble words have on his investors who look up to him for his brilliance.
Or take Ari Schonbrun, former Chief Administrative Officer at Cantor Fitzgerald – that’s a big position in a big firm. He decided at one point in his life to no longer use any four-letter words. Ask anyone on Wall Street and they’ll tell you that’s like deciding to speak in Cantonese. Everyone curses on Wall Street. And yet, when Ari is at a meeting, not only does he not curse, but no one curses in his presence. Think about the impact his refined speech has on his coworkers.
And then there are the beautiful laws of Lashon Hara; a prohibition against gossiping. What a world it would be if people kept their opinions to themselves! Think of all the drama we could avoid if only we would stop ourselves before saying anything, and asking, “Do I sound Jewish?”
And to be clear, not speaking Lashon Hara does not mean we cannot criticize politicians. We need to learn how to disagree with someone without dehumanizing them. Not speaking Lashon Hara does not mean cover-ups for people engaged in poor behavior or lying to people asking about a shidduch. Not speaking Lashon Hara does not mean being naïve, it means being refined.
Dog-tags, Israeli flags, kippahs, they are all great. But if we really want to look like a Jew, if we really want to be recognized as a Jew, let’s use our Jewish voice. Do I sound Jewish?
Meimei, your name Meira means light, like the first words out of G-d’s mouth. May you and all of us be a light onto the nations, not only through what we wear, but by how we speak because speech is our true superpower. Hakol kol Yaakov; we are the people of the voice. A voice that does not use foul language, a voice that refrains from gossip, a voice that is humble, a voice that elevates and connects. That’s how we fight back against antisemitism and that’s how we change our broken world.