The Dancing Rabbi 

As you might imagine, the experience didn’t particularly endear that community to me. I never completely forgave these boys or this community. Though I try to be accepting, loving, and open-minded to all kehillos and mesoros, I had developed a cynicism toward this particular group. I really tried — and still try — to rise above it. Let old gripes die, move on — no one is perfect. And ahavas Yisrael is so important. But…

One evening a few years ago, I was at a family wedding, and I noticed the chassan’s rosh yeshivah dancing with him. This rosh yeshivah clearly belonged to the same community as my yeshivah classmates. He was dancing energetically, surrounded by his students, but there was no mistaking the grimace on his face.

The cynic inside me latched onto that. For all this rosh yeshivah’s apparent love for his talmidim, his show of dancing in the chassan’s honor, the prospect of a distinguished person like himself dancing for a young “shnook” pained him. He could pretend to dance with enthusiasm, but he couldn’t prevent his true feelings from showing. So insisted the voice calling out from a wounded place deep inside me.

Fast-forward several years.

One day , the tragic news hit the Jewish community: A respected but relatively young rosh yeshivah had passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer. It was the rosh yeshivah I had seen dancing a few years prior. To be honest, I didn’t identify very strongly with him, his yeshivah, his standing in the frum world, or the loss of his passing. The whole story occupied a peripheral space in my consciousness, at most.