If you had a magic wand in your hands just for one second, and could fulfill any wish in the world, what would you wish for? I know exactly what I'd ask.
I'd want all people to magically acquire the ability to judge others favourably. So when you're asked an innocent question, you won't assume you're being attacked. So when someone cuts you up in line, or on the road, or acts selfishly, you'd be able to see the child in them. To see their pain, worry, or at the very least imagine them. To see that they're doing all they can with their lives, their behavior, their connection with God and other humans. So that every person could see beyond themselves, even if it's only as far as the person sitting next to them on the bus.
Can everybody, please, lower the volume and thin their skin just a little bit? And just live and let live? I call that being an adult.
This morning I watched a secular bus driver get into a heated argument with a Chassid in the front seat over absolutely nothing, total trivialities, and I could almost see the bubbles of their thoughts:
-I had fought for you in Lebanon! What an ungrateful, selfish brat! Son of a %^&*)_!!!!
and the other one:
- I learn Torah day and night, and keep myself holy, to save you from Hashem's decree! What an ungrateful selfish brat! Unholy chiloni, sheiketz!
And all I could see were two little boys shoving each other, saying , my brother is bigger than yours! or something else equally powerful. Can't they SEE that the other one also has a point?! That the other one isn't a parasite, or a shekietz, but just a human?
Treating others with respect, just because they're human is perhaps the only subject we really need to teach, to make this world perfect.
Somebody wants to marry a person of the same gender? Sure. You know why? Because it's not hurting me in any way whatsoever. Or anyone else, for that matter. They are adults, and I'm not God's representative. And if someone sees themselves as one, here is a Russian joke for them.
"A man, sitting on a bed in a psychiatric ward, keeps on screaming out," I'm Jesus! God sent me to save you"! A voice from another room answers, "Crap! I didn't send anyone!"
So, if you think God has sent you, please check if you could be admitted. The only person whose behavior you can control is - that's right! - you. And absolutely nobody else. Not your spouse, your grown up kids, your neighbors or anyone else. Or the gay community, the workers Union, or the boy scouts. Their issues are between them and God, and nothing to do with you. Let them be. Become an adult, own your life and no one else's.
When I walk on the street, it looks as if every person is encapsulated in their own glass cube. When they try to communicate, half the time they can't get the message across, because it gets lost or distorted on the way. The walls between people are just too high.
Can we please teach communication skills in schools? So my students stop throwing chairs at each other for lack of words and ability to get the message across? If not in schools, then a chug, a course, anything. In college, in the matnas. Don't give them a ticket into adult life without it. Gosh, how we need it. I think it could even lower crime rates, because if people were trained to talk instead of pulling out the knife on the spot, lives would be spared. How can we possibly talk to Arabs when we can't even talk to each other?!
