Take it Slow

If you see an Orthodox looking Jew driving his little blue Honda at 45 mph on a residential street, and if you then notices three young African Americans riding their bikes in circles, you might want to anticipate trouble.

Where I live, we get nervous when we see these kind of youngsters hanging out in our neighborhood. Before you call me racist, you need to understand that it is based on statistics of events and no racial discrimination. As it so happens, the community has daily patrols to prevent the elevated African American crime rate among the Jewish neighborhood. This arrangements works for all and every so often you will hear about this and this man who saved this and this person from a mugging or a sketchy trespassing.

Back to my story.
 I was curious to see how was this all going to end. Since I was cooling off from a satisfying 4 mile jog, I had plenty of time to observed. As predicted, the teenagers on the bikes started cursing at the speeding car. Mind you, it was a dead end street and the driver wasn't about to run off that fast. The man, obviously upset for being the target of their curse, got out of the car, threatening to call the police if they didn't immediately leave the street. Soon enough, he realized how risky and idiotic it was for him to start up with those three unfriendly strangers. He got back into his car, turned around, and drove off.
I wonder why he had pulled up into that street to begin with....

There could have been a fight, there could have been serious trouble. To be fair, he was speeding and might have even scared them. Heck, he scared me. But they were inappropriately verbal about it, and the man must knew he was in his wrong otherwise it wouldn't have phased him.  Thank G-d things didn't get out of hand although I was blessed enough to hear a whole dictionary of new words I, hopefully, will never use. The boys went from cursing this one guy to threatening the whole community.

What a shame. What a perfect example of small ways we can help with the constant animosity between our communities and people who simply hate us. At least be an exemplary model of conduct; at least not give them reasons to hate us. Why can't the people who seem so entranced with Torah life, why can't they teach the world?