Antisemitism - Should I Wear a Yarmulka at Work? Dueling Rabbis Live 2/11/14

[Music] Thank you. Thank you both for enlightening us. Um question. I have a question regarding the workplace. So many of us, especially here in New York, uh work in secular professions. Um we're surrounded by non-Jews or non-religious Jews. Um, you know, we obviously there are there are laws against anti-semitism, against discrimination. We all know that. There are company rules against it as well. But the reality is we can't really know what people are thinking or how they act, you know, what their real motives are. I'd like maybe one or both of you to just give us a little bit of guidance on, you know, that topic. How should we be acting in in the Jewish, you know, as Jews? How should we be acting in a secular workplace? I mean, I know Jews that are religious Jews who come to a secular workplace and they take the yarmakas off when they're when they're working and they go home and they put the yamaka back on just a little, you know, what are your views on that? Okay. So, there there are two points I think. One point was you said that as far as taking off the amaka, but another point is in general how to act. I think that a Jew has to be impeccable. He has to be beyond honest. Even if everyone else is make using the phone in the office to call their wife or to call their children or like everybody does to make copies, a Jew has to be even if everyone's doing it, even if the boss doesn't care so much, a Jew has to be impeccable. They go don't give any excuse at all that somebody should think he's dishonest, that he's not proper, that he's not pleasant, that he's not You have to come in smiling and greet everybody and be pleasant to everybody and be positive to everybody. Should you take off your yamaka? can't really say that's a it's a specific question. You're allowed to. You can if you need to if you feel, but you have to think about how do they look at you when you take off your hammock. How do they look at you? I had a guy was going out, a fellow who's 22 or 23 years old and he started to date and he dates different girls to see wants to find somebody to marry. And it came the time of the year where you don't shave. And he asked me, should I shave because I'm going out. What's he going to look at me like I have a half shaven beard? So I said, depends what kind of girl you want. If you want a girl who respects that you don't shave, she wants somebody to be stringing and strict. So then she's going to the opposite. She's going to look down at you that you're shaving. She's going to wonder how come you why are you shaving at this time? And you could say, well, I thought it would look she's going to feel like you're not so strong about yourself. So really, you have to have standards and you have to stand up for what you feel. And if you feel that if you go to a place where the boss would tell you not to come with the am. So maybe you know if you want that job so much I would feel a little bit personal as my own personal feeling. I'd feel like I wouldn't want to work in such a place. I want the person to respect me for who I am. I'm not flaunting it. I'm not telling them to wear yamakas. I'm not wearing a crazy yamaka that has a thing on top that spins that that stands out like who knows what. I'm a very pleasant person hopefully and I'm respectful and I'm clean. I have hygiene and I respect everybody else's desires and wishes in the office. I I there's a dinner there's a a Christmas party. I come to the Christmas party. The whole office comes. It doesn't mean I have to eat their food. It doesn't mean I have to go to bow down on a floor to say prayer, but I have to be part of the program if I want to be part of the program. So, I would go out of my way to make sure that I'm in perfect in every every area. And that's why I think we owe that not only in the business, in the street when you walk in the street, people look at you, if you represent a Jew, if you wearing a baseball cap. I was a kid and I lived in the cath schools and my parents didn't like like me to wear a yamok in the street because you you're not perfect enough. Put on a baseball cap. So therefore they don't look at you, you know. But if I'm wearing a yamaka, I have to act like I'm wearing yamaka. I wore I wore the Yankees no matter what. It had to be the Yankees and the cats don't count. But you have to act in a way that people look up to you. They don't have any excuse to look down at you. Even if you know I look at people also, I feel weird that why do they do certain things? Why can't they be a little better? They're not they're not thinking so much. I don't look down at them. I don't look at them terribly, but I wish that they would think more. That's also if we thought before we spoke, if we thought before we acted, what does somebody else look at what I'm doing? If I think like that, I'm sure it would be a very good workplace and it would be a better relationship between all the people of the world, which is what it should be. I agree with her ID. That's okay. However, I have two short short stories that I have two quick short short stories to share with you. fellow was going to entering the workforce and um he came to his local rabbi who was the rabbi in Camden, New Jersey, Rabbi Rif, and he asked him for guidance. He was going to work in the some government agency. I think it was a social security administration many years ago. And he said, you know, I'm going to get into situations where I have to where I have to um invite me to the company Christmas party. other situations. How am I going to deal with them? How should I deal with them? How should I either avoid them or how should I deal with them? And the rabbi suggested to him that he dawn a frock and a hamburg. And he behave in a way that's appropriate for that mode of dress. In other words, he behave in as as a rabbi, carry himself as a rabbi, and nobody will and he'll avoid most of the uncomfortable situations. P.S. Yes, that's what he did. When he retired, he took off his frock and his rabbi told him you can't do that. You know, it was 30 years later he was wearing a frock in Hamburg and now he started he said, "I left work. I don't have to wear a frock anymore. I could dress like a regular person." Said, "No, no, you don't do that. You've been dressing like this. This is the way you continue to dress." The other story is the dean of of in Queens was approached by one of his students. All this fellow's classmates had become deans of institutions. They'd become teachers. they'd become very they've began having impact in their communities and he was an accountant in in a firm in Manhattan and he came to this rabbi he said he was all he was all depressed you know he said I'm a failure you know all these guys are out there changing the world and me I'm not doing anything and the rabbi said let me ask you a question he said when you walk down the hall people are talking they're joking around they're at the water cooler do they speak do they generally speak appropriately do they make appro you know clean jokes stuff like that he says no he says when you're around, do they speak the same way as they do when you're not around? He goes, "No, when I'm around, they they don't say off any off-color jokes." He said, "Think about it. Think about the impact you're having. But your very presence being there as a as a as a person who represents ethical behavior, moral behavior, you're an honest person." D said, "This guy was consistent. He did everything properly. He didn't act improperly. He was able, he said, just think about it. You're bringing holiness everywhere you walk. These guys are in the base major. They're in the study hall teaching. They're in classrooms teaching and you're going out there and like Rabi said, we can bring holiness wherever we go, wherever we are, if we act properly. Thank them. Thank them for you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Rabbi Daviditz, Rabman. And uh please join us again next week. Rabbi M will be back. I'm sure we'll have a lot of great stuff.