Well, here we are in the midst of another election and once again my neighbor has busied himself sending out e-mails, as he would like everyone to vote for the party and candidates that he, in his infinite wisdom, feels are best for the job.

I don’t know about you, but when I apply for a position, I try and highlight my accomplishments. But I have to wonder, what if, instead of listing my accomplishments, I put down all the reasons why the candidates should not even be considered.

That’s what my neighbor is doing. Not one of his e-mails say anything positive about those he would like everyone to vote for, rather they all spout negatives about the candidates and political party that he is against; and he is rabidly against them.

I did some fact checking and there are a lot of things in those things he forwards that, simply stated, aren’t true. He even earmarks certain ones especially for me and for those who he thinks would have the same concerns that I do. So I get all the ones about how this one or that one is anti-Semitic, or not supportive of Israel. Now, he doesn’t just send one or two; no, I’m talking about multiple e-mails on a daily basis. I have nicely asked him (more than once) to please stop sending them to me, but it would appear each time I do so, it somehow encourages him to send even more.

I’m not quite sure why he thinks behaving in this manner would get me to agree with him. Hammering someone over and over again, well, to me that’s a form of bullying.

Oddly enough, while his goal is to get me to see the world his way, to agree with him, his methods are having just the opposite effect.

And what would happen if he got everyone to see things his way? I can tell you this, if every one of us voted for the same candidate, we would have no need to hold elections. We would have no need for a two-party system. All we would have to do is go to my neighbor and he would tell us who will be our governor, our senator, our congressman and our president.

He was spouting his beliefs at the pool the other day and, at one point, he said that anyone who voted for the other side “was a fool and must hate this country.” And that’s when someone listening said, “We just don’t speak the same language.”

Biblically, we talk about a time where everyone spoke the same language. And, in case you forgot, they began to build a tower, the Tower of Babel. And that’s how I felt about my neighbor’s talk because to me, he was just babbling on. God destroys the Tower of Babel and He purposely differentiated people by making it so they don’t all speak the same language. Do you think for a moment that God did this so that we should hate anyone who speaks a different tongue?

Or maybe, just maybe, He did it so that we could learn to respect one another even though we don’t speak the same language. And, if that’s the case, then maybe we could learn to respect each other despite our differences, our differences in country of origin, skin color, religion and, dare I say it, political leanings.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach where you can hear his uplifting messages during Shabbat Services (Saturdays – 9:30a.m.). The Temple is located one block South of Hillsboro on the west Side of Military Trail.