Years ago – my husband and I traveled to E”Y right before Rosh Chodesh Ellul. As you can imagine the flight was packed with frum people. When it was time to daven shacharis – there was a line by the bathroom for people to wash negel vaaser – and I guess it was too long for some people to wait – so they just started taking water from the galley and washing their hands right onto the floor. It was such a Chillul Hashem. I was mortified. Then sitting next to us was a man making Aliya with his wife and 9 kids. The kids were running up and down the aisles. When we were approaching the airport – the sterwardess asked the man to please make sure his kids were sitting down and strapped in. He told them ‘At home they are my responsibility but on the plane they are your responsibility – you get them to sit down if you can!’ In my entire life I was never so embarresed to be frum. The stewardesses were talking very negatively about the people on the flight – and you know – they were right about what they said.
We are constantly taught that we are Am Hanivchar – but that doesn’t mean that we should walk around feeling that we are better than everybody else and act like we expect them to recognize it. Yes Hashem chose us – but we are supposed to be a light unto the world – in Middos and in Torah. We have an extra responsibility to make a Kiddush Hashem wherever we go and B”H a lot of us do – but many of us fall short.
I think that when people are from a small town and have more exposure to non-frum people they tend to understand that they are just like us – people whom we have to respect and act nicely to.
When people are from a large frum community and very insolated – they tend to demonize the non-frum and non jews – and this breeds negative behaviour towards them.
We have to be careful to teach our children that just because a person is not frum or not jewish – does not mean that they are trash. I am not talking about just talking nice to them – I am talking about teaching our children to recognize and respect their good qualities. There is good to be learned from most people – we just have to look for it and recognize it.
I feel that a lot of people today don’t have empathy for people who are not like themselves – and I understand that this might be a holocaust mentality – which is understandable – but it’s time to change that.