I am a proud member of Chabad, but it’s hard for me to do the whole “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” thing. It’s awkward. Plus, I have a fear of rejection.
But the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidism, taught that fear builds walls to block out the light. And Chabadniks are also known by another name: Lamplighters.
So I push myself and do it anyway, for that is the way of the warrior. “Who is a warrior?” the Talmud asks, “One who conquers themselves.”1
One of my inspirations is my brother, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Welton, who often carries his tefillin with him, even on a random grocery run. “You never know who you’ll meet!” he says. But still, I didn’t put his inspiration into action until a couple of years ago. My brain had excuses, but my heart knew the truth: I was scared.
Then my friend Yitzi told me a story that happened to him on a mountaintop while hiking with his wife. The night before, he had attended a farbrengen at a Chabad House where the rabbi urged him to take his tefillin on the hike. “You never know who you’ll meet!” The next morning, at the crack of dawn, on the peak of a random mountain, as he’s deeply breathing in the beauty of G‑d’s world, a stranger approaches him.
“Excuse me, sir, are you Jewish?”
“Of course,” Yitzi says, his yarmulke nestled on his head like a crown for all to see.
“Do you have a pair of tefillin with you?” the man asked urgently. “I want to put on tefillin.”
When Yitzi told me the story afterward, his eyes gleamed. “What are the chances?” He grinned from ear to ear. I laughed. But we both knew the truth. Nothing is by chance; coincidence is G‑d’s way of remaining anonymous.
That was exactly the push I needed to become more like my brother. And ever since, I often take my tefillin in the car when going on road trips. As a father of young kids, I quickly learned what all other parents of young kids know about the word “road trip.” A road trip with kids is just the driving you do in between bathroom breaks. Last year, I made a resolution in my heart: When on a road trip and needing to make an (”emergency!!!”) pit stop at a random gas station, I’ll take out my tefillin. “You never know who you’ll meet.”
But the fear was still there. Fear of being rejected. Of being labeled a religious fanatic. Of being glanced at with a look that would cut down a self-identity I had painstakingly built over decades. Fear of not being cool. Of not being enough.
Then I made a deal with my fear. I would ask one person. Just one. And, for me, that one ask was a push beyond my comfort zone. A push for G‑d. And that’s all that matters.
Over the past year, crisscrossing random highways and destinations across America, I often wouldn’t meet a fellow Jew but a fellow American. So I’d wish them a blessing. “G‑d bless you with long life.” “G‑d bless you with happiness.” “G‑d bless you with … what do you want to be blessed with?” And over the past year, many small pockets of time in small pockets of places became small flashes of unity. Of human-to-human connection. Sparks of light against the backdrop of eternity.
This year, on a road trip to visit my brother, I thought to myself, “It’s a new year. What new resolution will I take upon myself?”
The answer was simple. If last year I asked one person, this year I’ll ask two.
Fear balked and screamed. “You crazy fanatic! You’re gonna waste time and slow down the whole trip.” As every parent knows, a car packed with four kids under ten is basically a nuclear time bomb. Eventually, the whole thing’s gonna blow.
But I’m a Lamplighter. If I don’t give light, who will?
I get out of the car, in the parking lot, straddling one kid in my arms, another kid holding onto my jacket, and my tefillin balanced precariously in my hands. I approach the first person I see: a man sitting in his car. “Excuse me, sir. Are you Jewish?”
“No, I’m not.” He says, eyeing me like I’m a used-car salesman telemarketer parasite from the underworld standing on the front porch of his “DO NOT TRESPASS” farm.
“I’m giving out blessings. What would you like to be blessed with?”
Like a miracle, his whole demeanor changes. He looks relieved, suddenly friendly, as if the fact that a strange Fiddler-on-the-Roof lookalike giving out blessings in a truck stop is the most normal thing in the world.
“World peace. With what’s going on, we need it.”
“May G‑d bless you and the entire world with peace. We’re better together.”
“Amen,” he says. “And thank you.”
I smile at the man whose name I would never know and move on, knowing the next moment is my moment of truth. My eyes settle on a tall man walking briskly back to his car.
“Excuse me, sir, are you Jewish?”
“Yes,” he says.
My heart exults. My spirit soars upwards.
“Would you like to put on tefillin … for world peace?”
“Not interested.”
My spirit comes crashing down. Shame spreads like poison through my nerves. Fear says, “I told you so.”
And then, a miracle.
A lady closing the trunk of her orange SUV behind me turns and calls out, “Leshanah tovah, to a good year!” My mind races. Did she overhear me get rejected and want to make me feel better? Or did she just see two chassidim and their four kids walking through a parking lot in random America and feel that Jewish urge to connect? I never asked, and I’ll never know.
“Leshanah tovah,” I beam back, holding tighter onto the hand of my 3-year-old who is squirming to get free and chase moving vehicles. “Are you Jewish?”
“Yes,” she says. And, pointing to a man walking slowly towards us with a cane, “and so is my husband.”
Three minutes later, the three of us (and their German Shepherd seeing-eye dog waiting patiently in the car) are praying together. (My smart wife took our kids inside. It’s a parking lot, for crying out loud. Safety first!).
Bruce, who is blind, stands proudly wearing tefillin as all three of us sing the Shema. In a parking lot. In random America. And then Bruce cries, his cane leaning against the car, his hands on my arms for stability, and my tefillin and yarmulke perched on his greying cap of hair, like a crown perched on the head of a prince.
I blessed them with health. With happiness. I even blessed the dog. And we departed not as strangers. But as mishpacha, family. The way it’s supposed to be. The way it can be, when fear doesn’t get in the way.
As I drove away heading in the opposite direction from them, a thought popped into my head. This beautiful couple was not my second ask. It wasn’t my ask at all. She had approached me. I smiled as I realized something: I had pushed myself for G‑d. A small bite. A small step. And He rewarded me. With a miracle. In a parking lot.
Miracles happen every day. We just have to see them.
