Dear Chaim,
As always, I hope that all has been well with you and yours. A few questions for your consideration this week:
1) How do you manage not to get flustered when discussing or fighting against Jew haters? I find that on YouTube, there are so many disgusting pieces of Jew hating refuse, that I easily lose my cool. Either that, or I can't wrap my head around how someone could be so incredibly dumb. How do you deal with this when you encounter it?
2) I recently drove by the local Chabad in my city and saw what I thought was a swatstika on the door. I had never seen this before on this building, so when I passed by it again, I looked closely. They, or someone, had taken the swatstika and added lines to it, thereby making into a box. I notice this Chabad never seems to have anyone in it or so it seems. It's a large, empty appearing building, but there are occasionally some cars there. With my last name, I almost always pass as a Christian, I wonder if this is bad for my soul to be 'passing' in this way. This building reminds me of the status of Jews in the Galut: alone, defenseless, and ineffectual (why not remove this swatstika??), a caricature of the Jew who suffers in silence, bearing his burden. Am I wrong in thinking this? Am I being unobjective? Perhaps I am being the bad Jew by not stopping in to see if I could help. There is so much anti-Semitism in this city, that while I always stand up against anti-semitism verbally, maybe I should be doing more.