Part and Apart

There is nothing more frustrating than finishing a presentation or speech and realizing that you forgot to include an important part. You can’t really get up and say, “Wait! Just one more thing!” So you are instead left holding this idea of urgent importance. And this anguish is amplified exponentially, obviously, when the presentation is given at a major forum such as the Agudah convention.

Well, that is the frustration I am currently feeling, so if I may beg your indulgence of just a few minutes, please allow me the use this forum to add that missing piece. It will be ever so cathartic… for me, at least.

I was delivering a presentation on “Orthodox Optics,” on how we present ourselves to the world at large. I noted a clear contrast between the two paragraphs of Aleinu.

The first celebrates how we are distinct and unlike our neighbors: “shelo asanu k’goyei ha’aratzos, v’lo samanu k’mishpechos ha’adamah; shelo sam chelkeinu kahem….”