Skip to main content

Our Diversity is Our Strength


I was riding the subway with my husband.  We were headed towards Penn Station, returning home after seeing a Broadway show in Manhattan.  It was rush hour, the subway was crowded and I was lucky to get one of the last seats.  It was amazingly quiet for such a crowded car.  Most people were looking at their phones or listening to a device.  There were quite a few pairs of wireless earphones on people.  Their heads nodded slightly to the beat of noiseless music, or their eyes glazed over as a mystery book played in their ears.  There was a rich variety of humanity on that single car- multiple ages, ethnicities, races, ages and income levels.  I marveled at the diversity and the peaceful coexistence in this tiny piece of New York City.
My eyes glanced over to the man sitting next to me.  He was holding a book and reading it very intently.  Reading an actual book is a relatively rare occurrence these days, but what truly caught my attention was the unusual print and the magnificently beautiful font of the letters in the book.  I had never seen anything like it in my life.  I tried to unobtrusively get a good look at the page.  What could this language be?  Dare I ask this stranger?  I felt badly about interrupting his concentration- he was reading with so much focus.  Yet, I knew my stop was coming up and my curiosity was peaking, so finally I leaned over and asked,  “Excuse me, what language is that?”  The gentleman, a middle aged brown skinned man, smiled broadly, turned to me and said, “Tamil, an ancient language, one of the oldest in the world.”  I needed him to repeat it several times and to even spell it for me.  I had never heard of it.  Our train stop had arrived, and we jumped off the train.  His smile continued as he told me that he was studying the language at Harvard just before he disappeared down the stairs.
I immediately Googled Tamil.  Tamil is spoken in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and parts of India.  More people speak Tamil than French.  It is quite ancient, at least 2000 years old.  Today, you can find numerous websites in Tamil and there are close to 2000 newspapers published in Tamil.
I am astonished at my ignorance.  I am so grateful to this gentleman for not ignoring me and for teaching me something brand new.  This experience convinced me of what a cloistered world I live in.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my community, yet some days I spend my time solely with people who look like me and act like me.  They have the same education, background and interests as me.  My trip to Manhattan reminded me of how much diversity adds to enrich and color our lives. 
The story of Noah and the Ark is often mistakenly taught as a children’s story.  I often see great wisdom in it.  Look at the animal passengers on the ark.  They were not screened before entry, all animals were included- big and small, smelly and mild, ferocious and meek.  They were diverse and that is precisely the point- each had a purpose and each will contribute to the world. 
Our strength as a people comes from our diversity as well.  It is important to nurture our separate communities, but we must never forget the strength and richness we get when we join together in harmony. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Make even these days count

One of the most popular features on a local newscast of a small TV station is something rather surprising. It is a feature called- “The Day of the Week”.  Today is…….. Monday!  The station put forth this as a kind of joke at first, but it was so popular that it became a regular daily addition to the morning newscast.  Apparently, so many of us have lost track of what day it is that we need a reminder. During this stay-at-home time, every day seems to blend into the next.  It is truly difficult to remember how many days we have all been quarantined at home, what the date is and what day of the week it is.  Many of us have a few markers that help- jobs that pause for the weekend, celebrations of Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays- special days of worship.  But even with these, the days seem to bleed into each other like a striped shirt washed in hot water. The period that we are in right now in the Jewish calendar is ironically, a time of counting. A time w...
Post a Comment
Read more
Compassion On the radio a few days ago there was a piece about refugees arriving by boat to the shores of a country that in the past had been welcoming, but this time people were yelling angrily and running into the water to block the boats from landing.   The boats were full and there were children on board. The turmoil and anger in the crowd was audible. I don’t speak their language, but the reporter said that people blocking the boats were shouting “Go back home. We don’t care about the babies.” I was repulsed. I could not stop thinking about it. “We don’t care about the babies.” What would it take for me to say that? For my friends to say that? My neighbors? Horrible thought, that people I know might be moved to yell at desperate people “We don’t care about the babies.” I started to ask myself how that could happen, what it would feel like to push away needy people and shout “I don’t care about the babies.” Please don’t stop reading when I tell you that suddenly my...
Post a Comment
Read more
I did not want to write about this virus-time. I did not think I could.  Another piece was in my mind this week, not quite yet taking shape. But when I sat to write, the virus took my attention and I could not wrest it back.   There are useful and funny memes online, and stories of good will and good works, and words of inspiration and comfort. And terrible stories, too.  Mostly at a distance, we have been sharing dance and art and music, facts and opinions, cautionary tales and fairy tales. We miss hugs and doing projects and working and learning together in person. Sometimes we are in a bubble for a while that lets us just be, free of anxiety or fear.  Sometimes we cannot get out of bed.  Sometimes we cannot sleep.  Sometimes we eat all the chocolate and sometimes we eat nothing.  We who are privileged live like this.  We are grateful to the people who work at the jobs we need to have done even in t...
Post a Comment
Read more