Every year we like to “wow” our friends and family with our creative mishloach manos. But what about the Jews on the other side of the fence? Wouldn’t a smiling costumed youngster bearing a box of goodies be a gesture of warmth of caring of saying that we’re all really on the same side after all?

This year let’s try something different for Purim something that will reach our Jewish brothers and sisters who have drifted far from authentic Judaism. Something that’s important now more than ever.
Years ago Aish HaTorah initiated the concept of sending at least one of our mishloach manos to a Jewish acquaintance from outside our Orthodox community. Every year we exchange mishloach manos gifts with our friends family and associates. Let’s break out of that familiar pattern and widen the circle a bit to include the mitzvah of kiruv rechokim alongside the mitzvah of mishloach manos. Let’s pick out a nonobservant acquaintance and fulfill the mitzvah b’hiddur. It might be a neighbor a coworker a business contact a tradesman we deal with… anyone will do as long as it’s a Jew or a Jewish family who hasn’t experienced the pleasure of this mitzvah before and with whom we haven’t been on terms of real friendship up until now (beyond the exchange of services or a polite hello). The idea so simple really has the power to trigger a turnabout in someone’s life.
Both Aish HaTorah’s archives and my own memory are filled with astounding stories of what this simple act can bring about. In many instances a mishloach manos gift catching the recipient by surprise has melted away years of pent-up resentment. It’s incredible how walls of hostility have been knocked down at one go and how longstanding sour relations between neighbors have been put on a new footing by the power of a Purim gift by the sudden appearance of a costumed child at the door of an unaffiliated Jew bearing an attractive mishloach manos from his parents.
It can work wonders. The “magic” comes from the natural phenomenon described in that pasuk in Mishlei (27:19) that readers might recognize as one of my most commonly evoked verses: “As in water where a face reflects a face so is the heart of a man to a man.” Yes I mention it often and that is because it is truly a key to transforming human relations for the better. Allow me to refresh your memory by quoting once again from the explanations of the Vilna Gaon and the Ohr Hachaim.
In his commentary on Mishlei the Gaon says: “As in water where a face reflects a face — like water that shows a person’s face as he shows himself to the water. If he twists his face the water will look that way too. So is the heart of a man to a man — if one’s heart is well disposed toward another person that person will be well disposed toward him even if he doesn’t know what is in his heart.”
The Ohr Hachaim in his peirush on the Torah comments “Human hearts will discern what is hidden and know whether to love or to hate for according to the way a man readies his heart to love his friend likewise his friend’s heart will think to love him….”

This act of reaching out in friendship would befit Purim every year but this year in particular after the massive prayer rally that took place last Sunday in Jerusalem. We should make an effort to include this project in our plans. True the rally asserted our presence strengthened our identity as Torah Jews and expressed our protest and pain over the foolish attempt to give primacy to secular law over the Divine and eternal Torah which can never be dwarfed by any man-made edict.
But on the other hand the rally frightened the secular public. It heightened their fear of a future “chareidi takeover” of the Jewish State especially since their alienation is so deep that very few of them understood why we took to the streets. What’s the problem? they thought. Just because the government wants to treat every 18-year-old boy equally and make the same demand of him to serve in the army they have to scream to high heaven?
In newspaper columns radio and television programs and statements by politicians and other public figures all sorts of political and manipulative reasons were attributed to the rally but none of them mentioned the simple true and explicitly stated reason for the mass tefillah rally. It was a crying out from the depths of the Jewish heart against the chillul Hashem involved in the new law. For the first time legislation on the subject of conscription of yeshivah students has entered the realm of criminal law. This message has been drowned out amid all the noise and misunderstanding and as a result the gulf of alienation has widened the atmosphere of suspicion and animosity thickened.
It’s an unfortunate painful fact according to recent surveys: A majority of secular Jews believe that the chareidim hate them with a deadly passion and dream of seeing them wiped out. And therefore they feel the same toward us. Ask chareidim in the general workforce about their experiences with nonreligious coworkers and they’ll tell you about it.
And I too can share with you my own recent experience in my attempts at rational dialogue on the subject of the draft. I’ve spoken with media people and with representatives of the Jewish nation on all levels of sophistication. I’ve explained that the demonstration wasn’t against the army but in favor of upholding the honor of Torah yet nobody has been capable of understanding mainly because they feel no desire to understand. They show no willingness even to entertain the thought of trying to understand of making some kind of switch in the thought process. It’s a huge emotional block where logic doesn’t enter. And an emotional block can’t be removed by rational discussion.
How then can we remove such a formidable obstacle?
It’s really not that hard if you think about it. There’s a hatred-removal system that works. It enables us to penetrate a barrier of disgust and animosity with a message of caring and respect. But first we have to open our own hearts to make room for the other kind of Jew — not for his way of life chalilah but for him as a person and a fellow partner. The mishloach manos we send him must not be a tactic for getting him to embrace Torah and mitzvos but a simple demonstration that we’ve opened our heart to him in the spirit of Shlomo Hamelech’s pasuk. If done in that spirit our gesture will be reflected back to us as a change in heart on his side as well.
Think about it: For $25 or less each one of us can make another Jew at the very least feel less hatred for chareidi Jewry and more respect for the Torah we represent. And the more we attach ourselves to this mitzvah — the more we feel a sense of shlichus to make this kiddush Hashem — the longer our reach and the more we can bring about a change in our fellow Jews’ feelings toward us. One mishloach manos from each of us with its inherent message of friendship can bring the hatred level down significantly and the Jews will have that much more light and joy this Purim. —