Upgrading Our Inner Security System: Why Visible Jewish Pride Is Our Greatest Deterrence

Jewish Pride in the face of adversity, hatred, and bigotry is not merely a form of resistance. It is a teachable moment demonstrating the ancient but timeless Jewish capacity for survival against all odds.

That being the case the current escalating zeitgeist of Jew Hatred offers a unique opportunity to match and even surpass our ongoing investment in all the best external security systems and measures necessary to secure our Jewish institutions, with an equally vociferous pledge to renewing/vastly improving and upgrading our commitment to the core internal collective “Jewish security system” and life infrastructure called the Torah.

I want to to suggest that the potential for psychological damage

as a result of widespread libellous slanderous accusations that have become de riguer motifs circulating all around us—are as critical to address as is our Physical safety.

Given this premise, how best can we tend to our collective mental, spiritual, and emotional Jewish state?

How can we reinstall THAT security system?

Here are a few.

Jewish learning.

Now more than ever in our history it is incumbent on us and our communal leadership to engage and invest in qualitative and meaningful Jewish learning opportunities.

We need to rev up the engines of Jewish life. In particular we should focus on Jewish observances that are by their nature tactile and visibly Jewish such as wearing a Kippah or Tzitzit.
We should be seriously exploring the particular symbolism of our Jewish names. That’s right. The ones on our Ketubah, baby naming ceremony, or Hebrew school graduation. By reactivating our Jewish Names we actually tap into a highly potent personal resource of power and pride. In fact the sages teach that it was in the merit of retaining their Jewish names, even while subjected to the original antisemitism of Egyptian enslavement that the Jews found the fortitude to begin advocating for their release and dreaming of their freedom!

You might respond with incredulousness. “Now in THIS climate, Rabbi Yossi is suggesting that we make ourselves more rather than less Jewishly conspicuous?”

My response?

The target has ALREADY been painted on our backs AND NOW THE WORLD IS WAITING TO SEE HOW WE REACT.

If we cower it will play right into the under developed brain of the average hater who will be certainly encouraged to step up the scope and inflammatory nature of the rhetoric, thus setting the stage for continued violence and bodily harm to Jews everywhere.

Their reasoning is a simple one as be fits a simpleton. “If they are scaling back their Jewish identity we must be right about how wrong they are and this is their embarrassment and shame in finally internalising the “truth about the Jews.”

By doubling down on our Jewish identity, we send the opposite message!

A renewed posture of Jewish pride is not merely a reinforcement of our inner psyche. It telegraphs the very Jewish Power that has sustained us for thousands of years. The (all lower case) tuckers, owens, and fuentes crowd thrive on Jewish self reductionism and read it as meekness and innate cowardice.

However, when the Jew is blazing with the passion of our “Sinaiatic nerve” and our full on Covenantal Soul, they got nothing— instead their fundamentally pygmoid nature and reduced mental and emotional stature and capacity is exposed for all to see.

Regardless, this is not about them. They are not originals. They hail from a long tradition of highly insecure, unimaginative people who conceal their mediocrity by fabricating lies and putting down others through manipulative and dishonest peddling of propaganda and misinformation.

To hell with them.

This is about us.

When we are afire, burning with the adrenalized determination that is built into the goals, dreams, and aspirations of our collective ancestral destiny— we project a mental fortitude and an overall formidability that is the GREATEST DETERRENCE to those that would consider harming us in any way whatsoever.

Like the story of our ancestors in Egypt who proudly displayed a sign on their doorways prompting even the angel of Death to “Passover” their homes.

The very Judaism that some would hope we might abandon to ensure our safety IS our greatest asset and source of protection. It is a badge and a shield. A Mezuzah! It IS the sign painted over the doorway of the Jew that warns the Antisemite to Pass Over.

Our open and proud Jewish identity is the very thing that signals the depths of our relationship with the Creator, giving pause and hesitation to those who would do us harm.

The ritual accoutrements of our faith, themselves— function simultaneously as powerful resistance accessories signalling the extent of our protective alignment with the God of Israel. It’s like a Wayne Alarm sticker for the soul.

King David said it most accurately in the Psalms “Behold the guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers.”

Sending Much Love!

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yossi Lipsker