What's the difference?

Somewhere along the way I lost the mockery. I stopped judging. Or rather, I tried to understand.

A parent should (and I stress should since not all parents do) teach their children to have an open mind and view the world without judgement. But alas, we are human, and children especially are prejudiced. If you are different than me then clearly you are wrong, you are strange. Acceptance doesn't come easily to children, it must be taught.

And what of adults? Some adults never learn either.

When I look at someone who is different, oh so different from me, I try to see where they are coming from. How their customs differ from mine. Take me and you out of the equation and we are one and the same. Maybe some things you do are right and I am wrong. Maybe I find your code of conduct strange or your standards way too high. But that is not my business and it is not my place to judge.

I feel different because of the way I dress, think, speak, because of the type of music I listen to, the books I read, the shows I watch. I wonder if you will look at me and see me with the same open-mindedness that I try to see you. Do you condemn me for being different than you, or do you try to understand? Do I even exist to you, or do you try to hide me behind a curtain and pretend that I am not there?

Some things you wear or do I see as oppressive. The funny thing is, these are the same things that the non-Jews see as oppressive, only to them you and I are the same. In Mitzrayim, during the Spanish Inquisition, in Russia, during the Holocaust, in Persia, in Syria- we were the same. We were all Jews and there was never a distinction. They tried to change us because they didn't want us to be 'different'. But we are different. We are different from them. We keep the Torah.

So why make a distinction between you and I?

Maybe we will never talk, maybe we will never dine together, I will never dress the way you do, you will never listen to the music that I listen to. All this is true. And once upon a time I used to think that you were too sheltered, underprivileged, that you were missing out on 'my world'.

But now I realize that my world and your world are one and the same. Maybe the color is different. Maybe the outside is different. But they make no distinction, and neither should we.

I see you waiting at the corner and I wonder if I should offer you a ride. Will the fact that I am a girl make a difference? The fact that I am Lubavitch? Or will you see that I am just trying to do a mitzvah and help out a fellow Jew?

One day it won't matter. We will all be united with the coming of Moshiach, may it be speedily in our days.