Menachem Bluming Deliberates on What Makes Jews Unique


One of strange things Jews sometimes do is the wide-spread practice of "credit combing."
Many Jews have a habit of flipping through the credits at the end of a movie, searching for Jewish names. At each discovery they shine with pride:


Look! Assistant Staffer.......Marvin Goldstein! Catering Consultant........Beth Cohen!

This odd habit comes from a very deep place in the Jewish psyche. All Jews feel a spiritual bond with each other. If I meet a Jew somewhere in the world, there is an immediate connection, a kinship, a sense of oneness. We are like one happy family, and even closer than that.

When Jews are spoken about in the media, we each take it personally. When Israel is under fire, we feel the pain wherever we are. When a Jew takes home a bronze medal in croquet, we all share the victory. And when we see a Jewish name in the credits, we get heated up.

Maybe other nations do this too. I doubt it. This profound sense of connection makes the Jewish nation unique from other peoples of the world.

This is the reason why figures cannot apply to the Jewish people.  No Jew is merely a person standing alone. We are a collective soul, a section of something bigger than ourselves. We may be a tiny blip on the screen, but we don't work by the normal rules of demography. Our power is not measured by our numbers, but by our unity.

The destiny of the Jewish nation is to be a strong voice of goodness and morality among the other nations. When we unite with our community and dedicate ourselves to the shared vision of our people, then we are a formidable existence. Not because we are have one billion individuals, but because we are one.

Menachem Mendel Bluming, Rabbi Moss and Chabad.org

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