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August 14, 2021
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parshat Shoftim
August 14, 2021 – 6 Elul 5781
First Worst Impressions
with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
“You’re gonna drown like that.”
I was standing on my tip toes, trying to hold a tarp above our tent while Solomon adjusted the rope tying it to the tree above. We were racing to get our camp set up before the rain.
“I’ve got lots of experience here—that’s never going to work.” A man was walking towards us. He was muscled and his chest was covered in tattoos, wearing just a pair of shorts and a baseball cap. He stopped at his truck, pulled out a power drill, and started drilling anchors into the trees around our camp site all the while explaining to Solomon how to hang the tarp so water wouldn’t get in our tent. We thanked him for his help, introduced ourselves, and then went back to unpacking the car as quickly as we could.
He walked away, but a few minutes later, came back. “Solomon, you said your name was?” We both looked up. “What’s your background? What culture is that name from?” I started to get an uneasy feeling. Why the questions? Why the interest? Solomon went over to talk with him and called back after a while, “honey, we’re Ashkenazi, right?” And I’m thinking this is literally the last conversation I want to have. I just want to be another anonymous camper. This man kept coming back, and kept making comments. Making a fire slowly must be the “Jewish” in us. The way we organize our belongings—is that the “Jewish” in us? The way we stack our wood?
Every time he mentions “the Jewish in us,” the hairs on the back of my arms rise. I’m asking myself whether this is a good choice, whether we should go down to the camp office and ask about a different site, I’m wondering why he keeps showing up. I don’t like him. There are some things you just don’t say.
But Solomon kept saying he believed this man was genuinely kind and well-intentioned, reminding me that he likely hadn’t ever interacted with Jews before in a real way. And by the way, Solomon said, his name is Jeff. He’s quite the character.
Jeff came by our campsite all the time that first day. He wanted to know if we brought portable chargers, if we brought ingredients for s’mores. Every time he came over, he identified a way he could help us. He told us his truck was always open and on, that if we needed to charge something we could just climb in and plug it into his system. He invited us to join him for s’mores after dinner, telling us he had three sizes of marshmallows. He wanted to introduce us to his son. Did we need anything in town? He was going out to buy ice. He offered us wood, access to the best part of the beach through his campsite, dinner if we needed it.
I started to warm to him—it was hard not to. He was relentlessly kind and kept showing up with more generous offers. And questions too. He was so curious about Judaism, so curious about how we do things and why and what food was kosher and especially wanted to know what beer could be kosher.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I had misjudged him. My own fear, my own worries about Anti-Semitism, my own concerns about our safety when we travel—all of those fears clouded my vision. I saw this man, covered in tattoos, driving a truck, wearing just shorts and a baseball cap, and I didn’t really see him. I saw white supremacists in the newspaper. I saw inappropriate comments. I saw an Anti-Semite. I failed to see him.
That night, after dinner, we went over to Jeff’s campsite to hang out. Sitting there with an array of vegan and regular marshmallows (did you know Walmart carries vegan marshmallows?), Jeff shared with us about his life story. At age eleven, he was thrown out of his mom’s house because her new boyfriend didn’t want to have a kid around. He ended up in a group home run by the state. That home wasn’t a nourishing or supportive environment. The other kids were getting into trouble and encouraged him to join them. At 16, friends convinced him to participate in an armed robbery. The way he explained it, he was just there, not even holding a gun, but when they were arrested, he was charged as an adult and sent to prison. At 16.
He became a man in prison. Learned about the world and about himself. And when he got out at 20, he discovered how challenging it can be to re-enter society with a criminal record. Every time he applied for a job, every time he filled out an application, he had to check the box. Have you ever been convicted of a felony or served time in prison or in jail? Every time he checked that box, as he was required to do by law, the employer explained why they could not hire him. They were looking for someone with more experience. They had already filled the position and forgot to take down the sign. They were only looking for someone who could do X or Y or Z. It was demoralizing. No one saw past his record, no one saw him. All they saw was that one bad decision. A decision he made when he was a stupid teenager. Even his friends, when he saw the woman of his dreams across the room at a party, introduced him as “my friend who just got out of prison.”
A couple of days later, Jeff’s wife, Marissa, joined him along with their adorable 20-month-old daughter. I asked him my favorite question—how did you decide you wanted to spend your life with Marissa? He talked about that party, about how he saw her and knew that he was going to marry her one day, and about how afraid he was when his friends introduced him as a guy that just got out of prison. But Marissa didn’t seem to care that he had been in prison, she didn’t judge him for his past. She just saw him and loved him. And they’ve been together ever since.
The way Marissa related to him, that was special. Listening to him talk about his life, I realized that’s the opposite of what he normally encounters. People usually respond to him the way I did. They write him off. They find out about his past and treat him like a criminal. They see him working construction and figure that’s all he’s good for. They don’t give him the time of day. Jeff expects that. And instead of being bitter about it, instead of giving up, Jeff made the conscious decision to be kind and generous and thoughtful. That’s his strategy for life.
This week, we celebrated the start of Elul. This is the month of preparation before the high holidays. The month when we do our work of teshuvah, the work of repair. We are taught that we should go to those we have wronged and ask for forgiveness. We are taught that we should examine our behavior, the patterns that held us back, the behaviors that kept us from realizing our best life. This is the month to make changes. To do better. To make goals for the coming year.
But there’s something else we need to do this month, something that rarely gets any press. It’s easy to think about what we’ve done wrong, easy to ask others to see who we really are. Don’t think of me as just the jerk who cut you off, don’t think of me as the one who totally forgot my promise. See the real me. The me who cares about you. The me who wants the best for you. See me for who I am and not for my mistakes. We know that we’re better than our worst moments. But do we extend the same graciousness to the people around us? Do we look at the world through eyes of compassion? Do we see past other people’s shortcomings and look for the decency they embody?
We camped for ten days and spent most of that time hanging out with Jeff, Marissa, and their adorable daughter, Peyton. At the end of our stay, we all helped each other to pack up and gathered one last time for a picture before heading back into our lives. We got in the car and started driving home. Two hours later, Solomon got a text from Jeff. “Did you make it home ok?”
It’s time to come home. Time to come back to who we are and all that we can be. We’re better than our worst moments. Everyone is.