We vacationers have an added responsibility

It seems that wherever you turn, in any vacation spot in the world, you’ll meet some fellow Jews. You might ignore the non-Jews all around, but they’re not ignoring you. This summer, every move counts

It’s a month into summer vacation, and many families are spending their time in greener pastures.

Tempting advertisements beckon from the pages of your favorite publications: Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and other exciting corners of Europe and the world. Wherever you go, you’ll surely meet up with other members of the Tribe, along with their wives and children, kein yirbu, happily filling those vacation spots.

But we vacationers have an added responsibility in addition to soaking up the rest and relaxation of the Swiss or Austrian Alps. We must also fulfill the obligation of kiddush Hashem — meaning that wherever we go, in addition to enjoying the vacation, we also serve as emissaries of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

It’s no secret that anti-Semitism lurks in every corner of the world. This is not the platform to discuss its resurgence, but suffice to say that even the friendliest Europeans might have another agenda. But who wants to risk business over something as trivial as ideology when there are thousands of summer homes in the Alpine villages to be rented out? There’s an Austrian joke wherein an Austrian gentile is asked, “Are you an anti-Semite?” and he replies, “Not during the summer.” Hatred of Jews exists in some measure or another, like a burning ember, but it tends to stay dormant during a season when it can harm business interests.

But despite the genteel veneer, there’s a certain tension in some of the venues where the two populations — religious Jews and local gentiles — come into contact. Every time I’ve arrived at a vacation spot in the Swiss or Italian Alps or in other places, I’ve encountered unpleasant situations where a non-Jewish manager could hardly control himself at the sight of intolerable behavior by his chareidi guests, who seem to believe that paying customers are allowed to get away with everything.

Of course, I’m talking about a very small fringe of the greater chareidi community. Yet this minority plays a vital role in the relations between us and the gentiles, because we must remember, whether we like it or not, that we are constantly in a state of ambassadorship — even on a Swiss country lane. We are ambassadors who represent something beyond simple vacationers.

A Jewish child with peyos who throws candy bar wrappers on the ground, even on narrow mountain paths, is not just a child who is acting playfully and enjoying himself. He is executing a chillul Hashem and bears the weight of the resulting hatred of Jews. The gentile who sees him immediately tags him with his stigma regarding Jews. And when we witness an outburst of fury by a loathing non-Jew, we will never know how many small incidents that we ourselves are scornful about, have accumulated to form a mass of hate in his heart. (“What’s the big deal about what I did?” the little boy cries when he is forced to pick up the piece of paper that he threw on some remote path.)

Another small action by a Jew, another unbecoming remark in a hotel, only intensifies the stream of anti-Jewish emotions already present in the non-Jew’s heart.

That means that somewhere, each one of us might contribute, even with the most minor of unintentional acts, to the world’s mounting anti-Semitism. This is the fine line that defines our relationships with the nations of the world. It’s a fine line between chillul Hashem and kiddush Hashem. It’s a line all of us shomrei Torah u’mitzvos must stand on and are obligated to guard carefully; we must always remember the role that we play in the greater scheme of things.

It is told that Rav Yehudah Segal ztz”l, the mussar giant and rosh yeshivah of Manchester, once visited Vienna. One of the purposes of his trip was to visit the kever of the Chortkover Rebbe ztz”l who had resided in the city.

When he was asked why he wanted to make the trip, he related that he had heard that the Rebbe once was walking in a city park with another chassidic rebbe who had come to visit him. After walking for a while, they sat down on one of the benches. Suddenly, a woman sat down next to them. The visiting rebbe’s first reaction was to rise immediately, as he didn’t want to be sharing a bench with a gentile woman. But the Chortkover Rebbe stopped him from getting up so that the non-Jewish woman shouldn’t feel insulted or rejected by this obviously Jewish man. Rav Segal said he wanted to visit the kever of this rebbe who had taken heart to make a kiddush Hashem among non-Jews and not offend that anonymous woman.

So there you have it, my dear vacationing friends. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has granted you — aside from a precious period of fun — a valuable mitzvah of sanctifying His Name through your interaction with and around non-Jews, down to the smallest details.

May you have a pleasant and mitzvah-filled vacation!

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 770)