March 1995

MY FRIEND OMAR

It was thirty years ago. We
had been in our new building for some time already but without much success in
finding a reliable and competent super. We must have tried at least three or
four. None of them worked out until Izzy Schachter o.b.m. one day brought in a
young Moslem who had recently emigrated to our country from a region astride
the Turkish-Russian border. He had been just hired as a super in a building on
Knox Place across the street from Mr. Schacter's o.b.m. house. Who could have
imag­ined that out of these unlikely circumstances would emerge the kind of
friendship, loy­alty and devotion that took hold almost from the very start and
would endure for three decades - to be sundered only by the terrible finality
of death.

There are a thousand and one
kindnesses and gestures that were done naturally and without fanfare. But I
suppose what will be longest impressed on my mind was his unfailing sense of
responsibility. Whether it be the Succah he

built on our roof that withstood
the howling winds that would blow away lesser Succahs all over the city, how­ever
sturdily built. Sometimes his busy schedule didn't allow him to start on the Succah
until late in the afternoon, an hour or two before the festival set in. But we
were never disappointed.

For nearly all that time I,
and my father o.b.m. before, and the Bais Din we convened for this purpose,
sold the Chometz entrusted to our care to Omar. It is not an easy trans­action.
A less serious man - not taken by the transcendent power of faith could have
mocked the whole procedure and put the sale into serious question causing not a
little bit of agony of soul for anyone under the rigorous thrall of the
prohibition of Chometz on Passover. I recall Omar calling me near
midnight on the eve of Passover one year. Rabbi I'm in the shul waiting for
you. I suddenly remembered that year after year although I set a time for him
to come on the morning of Erev Pesach to buy the Chometz, I used to ask him
also to come the night before, so I could begin the sale then to cover those
who were

going to spend the holiday in
Israel where Passover begins 6 or 7 hours ahead of us and it would be too late
to sell their chometz in the morning. One year, I almost forgot. But Omar
didn't.

However, it was more than a
small event or a series of events which defined our rela­tionship. To be sure
what happened and what he did was the echo of that relationship, even as it
forged it. But there was much more. There was a kinship of spirit, unspoken but
none the less deep and unbreakable. And it is precisely because Omar was not
one of us religiously and not one of us culturally and, particularly in times
of sectarian stress and conflict, that gave this friendship overriding
significance. For it spoke to the com­mon humanity that can or ought to bind
all people in the best of all worlds.

One of the most difficult
Biblical imperatives for the Jew to assimilate is the com­mandment to blot out Amalek
- man, woman and child. Nonetheless, though we may instinctively recoil from
the unrelieved and horrific sweep of this commandment - even while
acknowledging that Amalek was the starkest incarnation of the frightening capac­ity
of the evil that lurks in man - we dare not presume to a higher morality than
G-d's. But, what is of especial significance is that immediately after this
commandment which could be construed, and properly, as a call for genocide
against a whole people - root and branch. We read the Torah portion called Yisro
(Jethro) after Moses' father-in-law. At first glance this Is absolutely
remarkable. Yisro, after all, and for the most part, served as High
Priest of the prevalent religions of idol-worship of his time. Nonetheless, he
was given the signal and almost unique honor of having a Sedra - A Torah portion
-carry his name and what a portion! Yisro records the story of the
giving of the Ten commandments - the high point of human attainment. He merited
this incalculable tribute because he rejoiced in the triumph of Moses people
and because it was he who wisely laid down the blueprint for an encompassing
judicial system that would fairly and efficiently enable the practical
implementation of G-d's code of justice here on earth.

In this way, the Torah
demonstrates at once and to the whole world, and for all time, the fierce and
unyielding recompense that awaits unprovoked evil and no less that intre­pid
generosity that is the reward of the doers of good from whatever quarter - Jew
or gentile.

Omar, my friend, was
indubitably cut from that rare and wonderful cloth of the Yisro of old.

Rabbi Zevulun Charlop