A Jew, Is A Jew, Is A Jew

It has been 9 days since Danny breathed his last. I remember I was late finding out that a local South Florida resident was victimized on April 17th. I was in Pittsburgh; and Pittsburgh news of course gave a blurb about the bombing; but did not note those involved. I remember when I did find out, I thought that he would surely pull through. So young, such a great spirit, our neighbor! Ok, so Weston is not exactly down the street from me. I've heard that the community out there is thriving. Chabad set up shop and they even built a mikveh. Danny and his family were conscious Jews. Everyone one had Danny on their Tehillim and Refueh Sh'liema list. Terrorism in Israel had hit even closer here, but we were doing the right thing. Very good.

So on Sunday, when the local news preluded the feature with, "...and now, some sad news on a local South Florida teen injured in a suicide bombing in Israel...", I knew right away. A flat 'Baruch Dayan Emes' was uttered by me. I tried to find some emotion but felt pretty empty at that point. Like it was some sort of dream...

9 days after hearing the news of Danny's death, I have finally decided to think about it; blog about it. Why? Who am I? I did not know Danny. I am not the best champion of any cause. In 13 days, I leave for Eretz Yisrael myself, and terrorism is the last thing I want to be thinking about (but hey, it's never healthy to delude yourself). So why torture and tax myself? Why play the horn when I know I..."suck".

The reason is because it made me see another aspect of myself. You see, Jews in South Florida are not contiguous - in fact, they are quite a disjointed bunch. I think the official numbers are 650,000; but we have every type of Jew from all over (well, I don't know if we have any Ethiopian Jews). And unlike the New York Jews, they don't seem to interact much outside of their respective communities. Come to think of it, no one else in South Florida does either (the Jamaican community is the same - must be the humidity kills the need to be social). Anyway, here I am living in my shteble. Hardly worried about Jewish suburbanites living in cul-de-sacs in Weston. I'm to busy trying to find cholev Yisrael muenster cheese for a Shavous quiche, hello? But somehow I found a way; many Jews found a way; to work Danny into their lives and make his recovery a priority.

And for me, that is astounding.

Not to paint me as being callous or anything. But I grew up such an "intellectual hard-ass" (please excuse my French!). Yes there was pain and suffering in the world; yes, bad things happen to good people. But I always found a way to 'rationalize' it. Step outside of the emotion. You know that bumper sticker "$h!+ Happens"? Well, I never owned it, but that could have been my mantra.

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I've told a couple people that since I decided that I wanted to be a Torah observant Jew, things have happened that I would have never imagined happening. Not obvious things, but internal things. For example, I always thought that marriage was a hinderance and more trouble than it was worth. You lost your freedom, yeah, who wants that? Besides, wouldn't you get tired of sleeping with the same man for the rest of your life? Another one is haughtiness/conceit. A favorite past time was rolling my eyes at people and looking for an excuse to get away from them. And G-d? I use to think he was out to get me; to make me suffer for some unknown sin I committed as a toddler or something. I was his mistake and he has the nerve to make me suffer for it!

I feel like one of those eggs that had the shell that you would chip away at to get to the chocolate inside (those may be too old school; they probably don't make them anymore). Daniel Wultz chipped away a big hunk of that shell. You can almost see the glimmer of an awesome neshama in there. I am so sure I'm not the only one. As more and more of the pieces of my shell are shed, perhaps I can reciprocate chipping away at the shells of others like Danny and so many others did for me. I try to anyway...

So Danny, I hope to meet you in Olam Habah one day. I'll be a good looker by then, B'ezras Hashem.