Rabbi's Corner

Yudele was a young Yeshiva bachur who was getting ready to spend Pesach (Passover) with his family in Poland.  Normally Yudele would go home via a horse-drawn wagon, a grueling week-long journey.  However, this time his family treated him to a ticket for a new mode of transportation: a locomotive train.  Yudele had never seen a train before and was very excited about being able to travel this way.  He arrived at the station early and followed the other passengers to the train.  He found himself in a small passenger car with many non-Jewish passengers.  At one point during the journey, a man wearing a uniform boarded the train and walked through each train car.  At the sight of the train conductor, many of the passengers hurried off to other parts of the train, some hiding under tables, others locking themselves in the restroom.  Yudele was scared not knowing what was going on or what he was supposed to do.  He again "followed the crowd" and hid under a table near the back of the car.  The conductor immediately spotted Yudele and grabbed him by the collar.

"You Jews are no different than anyone else!" he shouted.  "Thief!  You need a ticket to be on this train.  Since you clearly do not have a ticket (after all, Yudele was hiding under a table), you need to get off the train now!"  Being confused and frightened, Yudele explained to the conductor that he indeed did have a ticket.  With shaking hands, he pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to the conductor.  The conductor was flabbergasted as he stood there and looked at Yudele's ticket.  Not only did Yudele have a train ticket, but it was a first-class train ticket!  Apologizing profusely to the Yeshiva bachur, the conductor promptly escorted Yudele to his own private room in the First Class car and offered his service to Yudele for the rest of the journey.

In this week's parashah, Parashat Re'eh, we read: "You are the children to HaShem your G-d...For you are a holy nation to HaShem your G-d, and HaShem has chosen you to be a treasured nation from all the people on the face of the earth. (Devarim 14:1-2)  From these verses we see that we, the People Israel, have a unique characteristic that no other nation on earth has and that no other nation can replicate.  The problem is that the majority of our people do not appreciate our unique role in this world and, because of this, we look to other peoples and cultures for satisfaction.  We need to remember that we are the earthly representatives of HaShem, and this should cause us to behave accordingly.  As the Torah tells us, we are indeed a "treasured nation!"  Not because we are born a  people better than any other people, but because we are born into royalty as the children of the King of Kings.