This first Friday in August 2016 we were on the phone with customer service at a utility provider, one of those long calls that were actually helpful. Towards the end of the call, the knowledgeable and thorough company representative at the other end of the line asked for our email address, and when he heard the word “shabbos” in the email, he asked, “What time is Shabbos tonight?” And he ended the call wishing us: “Shabbat Shalom!”
Later that same day we had to run out to Wal-Mart to get a few random last-minute things for Shabbos. We also had some envelopes to mail, and since one of them was to our son in overnight camp we wanted to get it out before Shabbos. But it was Friday and we didn’t have much time to run around, so we asked the person at the door (you know the one who occasionally checks your receipt) if he knew where the closest mailbox was? Most young people don’t know this kind of thing nowadays, but he gave us directions to the closest post office he knew which was downtown on Partridge and Central (way out of our way, but that’s the one he knew). I realized I could find one much closer, of course, but thanked him – and he wished me “Shabbat Shalom!”
I guess in NYC this would be no big deal, and certainly in Jerusalem it would be a no-brainer, but in Albany NY, it is special. It’s all the more appreciated when its unexpected, when you find familiar in the unknown.
It reminds me of when my parents would drive us down to NYC and we’d start seeing people with kippas/yarmulkas in adjacent cars passed Exit 16 on the Thruway, or driving down the FDR. We’d wave enthusiastically to them, only to get blank stares or those “Do I know you?” looks, or maybe a sympathetic sweet smile to kids. We were so excited to see fellow Jews, but to them it was the norm, and nothing to get worked up about.
This education ingrained with me the habit of wishing “Good Shabbos” to every person I came across while walking to the synagogue in Crown Heights Brooklyn, even if it happened to be the 20th person on that same block.
We felt it all over again with these two encounters this Friday: “Shabbat Shalom”. We are one Jewish people, one great big family.