This week, my four-year-old son, Shloime, and I were in the doctor's waiting room, waiting our turn. Nothing serious, it's just that the cold weather is starting and children are the first to be affected.
Anyway, we were chatting about life, and one question led to another, and the conversation drifted to kosher and non-kosher animals. We quickly identified the signs that make them suitable for Jewish consumption: cloven hooves and ruminants. Of course, a four-year-old doesn't know what the word "ruminant" means. After a brief, educational explanation, we started identifying which animals met the criteria: the cow, the goat, the sheep...
Just then, as I was trying to remember to name another animal, the woman sitting across from us, who was bringing her daughters to the doctor, asked excitedly, "And how many stomachs does a camel have?" "Only one," I replied, "it's not kosher." And Shloime and I continued, "The deer, the giraffe...""
It should be noted that the woman in question was Jewish. I later learned that she even lived in Israel and then returned to La Plata.
The Baal Shem Tov says that we should learn something from everything we hear and see in our service to God. What do we learn from all this?
There is an innate interest and pleasure in Jews for participating in our heritage, our customs and traditions. The fact that people don't express it is because they have never had access to it. While one may be only slightly (or not at all) involved in the practice of Judaism, as soon as one is confronted with our precious treasure, the soul awakens and leads the person to want to connect with what is engraved in the deepest part of our being. It is like returning home after a long and tiring journey.
We can wait until we happen to meet the rabbi on some "chance" occasion—because there is no such thing as chance—or we can seek him out. It's up to each individual.