Casting My Vote

“Let me tell you, David, I respect Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. How she pulled herself up from being a bartender to a congresswoman. How she had to really fight for respect as a woman in a man’s world.” My co-worker continued.  

“Wait a minute”, she said tepidly. 

“Yes?”, I smiled.  

She took a good look at my velvet black kippa and asked,  

“Are you okay with what I am saying?” 

Smiling, I said “Yes.” 

Then I realized why. 
No president, prime minister, congresswoman, or Knesset member is worth a single impulse of hating another Jew. Period. 

Lately, I have been forcing myself to see the good in every Jew. No matter what they say, what they do, or whom they voted for. I am willfully blinding myself to everything about them except their positive traits.  

Since then, a new world has opened up. Hundreds of people in my life that I previously wrote off as “secular,” “progressive,” even “too cosmopolitan” have suddenly become sources of light in my life.  

Their innate Jewishness rushes to the surface. The light that has surrounded them all their lives is suddenly clear for me to see.  

Along with living in a Garden of Eden of Hashem’s beauty expressed in His sky, His flowers, grass, animals, leaves, clouds, and changing of the seasons, I am inspired by His greatest creation: The Jewish People.  

Even George Soros Has a Nice Smile 

On the surface, it’s not easy to look at every Jew and see the light. Read the paper and one of our brothers will say or pledge to do something that will make our blood boil.  

Rav Arush teaches us that to fall into anger is to fall into idolatry. Can George Soros prevent a single Jew from performing a mitzvah? Can Charles Schumer stop a Ketubah from being signed or a Brit from being performed?  

Do you think Avigdor Lieberman can harm a single hair on one Torah Jew?  

These men are the kings of the world. We are the children of the King Who rules over kings. Before we say this three times a day in the Aleninu prayer, we say Blessed is He who says and does. Blessed is He who decrees and fulfills. The Chovot HaLevavot is clear: If Hashem decrees something to happen now, heaven and earth cannot postpone it. If He decrees it will not happen now, no power on earth can hasten it.  

The only power in this world comes from God – our King.  

He blessed Moshe, who loved every Jew. When the Jewish People gave Moshe the ultimate reason to see the bad in us – our involvement with the sin of the golden calf – he could have seen us all as a “George Soros”.  

Moshe would have been right. Nothing this man can do would equal what we did.  

Moshe refused to see anything but the good in us. Hashem blessed him with a revelation – an intimacy with Him – that was greater than any man has ever known.  

Moshe only saw the good in us. He was the greatest Jew that ever lived. When the dead come back to life, he will be the greatest Jew alive.  

That is how important it is to love every Jew.  

He redeemed the entire nation from the pit of destruction in both the sin of the golden calf and the sin of the spies.  

The Only Vote that Counts 

One man refused to see nothing but good in his brothers and sisters. In that merit he saved klal Yisrael – twice.  

In our generation, we are faced with the same test.  

We can reaffirm our support for Bibi, or Trump, or Ben Gvir. . .  

Or we can act to merit the world all of us want. The same world that those who love Yair Lapid, Barbara Streisand, and Tamir Zandberg desire: 

A world of health, peace, and justice.

We will bring it about with our vote. A vote for merit. To merit that every Jew knows the pure joy of serving Hashem. To merit that every Jew feels the absolute happiness of being infused with a life of Divine meaning and real purpose.  

Every act of baseless love we perform petitions the King of the Universe for a world we all want. For that, we must make ourselves blind to everything except the good in every Jew. We need to force ourselves to a point of humility that we are not perfect and that every Jew has a spark of Hashem in him.  

All it takes is for one of us to fulfill Hashem’s commandment in Vayikra Love your neighbor as yourself, and the Jewish People can be redeemed.  

Just one act of seeing the good in someone we disagree with, even complimenting them on their Divine desire for a better world for everyone, can tip the scales of judgment in favor of the Jewish People for all time.  

It can come from any one of us.  

*** 

David Ben Horin is the writer and trader for Endurance Investing & Trading Daily. He lives in the Jezreel Valley with his wife and children, lots of Jews, Arabs, and the occasional shepherd.