Opinion

I have been on the phone with my daughter in Houston this week. The situation there is bizarre beyond words. Houston this time of year is usually either somewhat chilly, at about 40 degrees, or in the 70s. Right now, it is about 16 degrees, with streets frozen and power cut off. Largely, the power outage is due to the eco-friendly, electricity-producing windmills freezing. No power, no heat. This is expected to remain for a few days. Scary.

 Last Wednesday, following the invasion of the United States Capitol by Trump supporters, I posted on a rabbinic chat in which I participate that it looks like the Never-Trumpers have been vindicated. One of the rabbis on the chat, a longtime Never-Trumper, posted in response that he is impressed with my honesty in my admission. I then wrote that it would be nice to hear an admission from Never-Trumpers that he was the best (American) president Israel ever had. Of course, that was not forthcoming and never will be.

 Are you a racist? If you are reading the Queens Jewish Link, I know that you are not. I know the Jewish community, especially   the Orthodox community. It is simply not in our DNA to be racist. Our Torah has taught us to love the stranger in our midst. It has taught us not even to despise the Egyptian, despite having enslaved us for over 200 years, because we were “sojourners in their land” (D’varim 23:8). Incredible! We were subjected to forced labor, had our children drowned, built their cities, and yet we were not to despise our persecutors. We have no tolerance for hate in our persona.

…and Kiddush Hashem

 My father hk”m* was blessed with having incredible daughters, sons-in-law, sons, and daughters-in-law who made sure he was accompanied and cared for around the clock. In the past four years, there was probably not a total of three hours when there was not somebody in the house from the family to care for him.

 The story is told of a preacher in a farming town in the Midwest. The preacher addresses the captive crowd on a Sunday morning and quotes from the Ten Commandments.

 At my father’s l’vayah held in the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills on Sunday, 27 Kislev, December 13, I related that my father did not eulogize his father, my grandfather R’ Shabsie Schonfeld zt”l. My father felt that as a son, he was not adequate to the task of offering an assessment of his father’s life. If it was true of my father vis-à-vis his father, how much more so is that true of me vis-à-vis my father.