I was driving east down Olympic Blvd yesterday afternoon when I noticed a Jew in a yarmulke in a crap car waiting to turn into my lane. I stopped and let him in. If he hadn’t been wearing a yarmulke, I would not have bothered.
I treat Jews with more care and consideration than I do non-Jews, and I treat Orthodox Jews with more care and consideration than I do non-Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews are part of my intimate community. Everybody else, including Conservative and Reform Jews, are outside of the core of my life.
There’s a holy streak to my life where things matter much more than they do in the secular side of my strivings.
I’m an Orthodox Jew first. That’s my primary identity. That’s the group I’m most concerned about. Conservative Jews can ordain gay rabbis for all I care (I’m still opposed to that but hardly lose sleep over it).
