The Power of the Team Uniform

Yesterday my family (myself, husband, 5 children) were on our way to Yavneh Academy for a BBQ celebrating the end of the season for the Yavneh Baseball League, in which one of my daughters played (on the same team as Mrs. Herzog’s daughter). While we were getting onto Route 17 from Route 4, a car, which had lost control on a ramp going in the opposite direction, careened across the grass and slammed into the sliding door of our minivan, right where my daughter was sitting. The door was pretty smashed, but baruch Hashem no one in our car was injured (and there seemed to be only one minor injury among the 3 other cars that were involved in the accident). My father, who taught me to drive, always tried to correct my over-cautiousness by telling me “cars don’t fall out of the sky.” The one that hit us didn’t quite come from the sky, but I think it was the closest thing.

The first major mussar I took from this experience is our vulnerability; the idea that our lives can be taken or forever altered in an instant. This idea is always true, but it’s hard to think about all the time and still function. But it is important to think about it when a reminder like this comes along. My daughter is full of plans and potential – she was going to celebrate the end of a fun baseball season, then she was going to babysit, and study for her finals. She plans to go to camp this summer and work as a mother’s helper. Instead, she could have spent last night in the hospital, and the summer and beyond recovering from broken limbs. The accident reminded me to maximize, both bein adam le-makom and bein adam le-chaveiro, the time that we have here.

The second thing I took away from this (still in baseball mode) is the power of the team uniform – team Orthodox, that is. No fewer than 5 cars carrying Orthodox people stopped to ask if they could help us, drive us somewhere, call someone for us, etc., as my family was standing on the side of the road (even though the police had already arrived). Some even pulled off the highway, parked in a nearby parking lot, and walked over to us. I had heard about the phenomenon of strangers stopping to offer help to other Orthodox Jews– there’s even an urban legend about a non-Jew who keeps a black hat and jacket in his trunk in case he has car trouble – but never experienced it for myself. If my husband had been wearing shorts, a T-shirt and baseball cap, and I and my children the same, who would have known we were Orthodox? (The five kids may have been a tip-off, but still…) I felt proud that someone looking at my family could know right away who we are, and that the kinship they felt with us moved them to go out of their way to offer help.