Q:
What should a person think when they’re walking down the street and surrounded by goyim? What should your thoughts be?
A:
When a person walks in the street surrounded by goyim? What do you think when you’re surrounded by trees? It’s trees. You don’t want to knock down the tree for nothing. Trees are important. Goyim are important. This goy is a bricklayer, this goy is a bus driver. We need them. We need goyim. We need trees. But of course you’re one. מי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ. You’re the only one in the world that Hashem is interested in. Goyim we need.
Now you have to practice on goyim good middos. If you practice good middos on goyim, you’ll practice good middos to Jews too. But if a person is insolent and fresh to goyim, he’ll do the same to Jews too.
So use goyim as a middah, as a means of practicing good character. Say to goyim please and thank you, and then you’ll say please and thank you to your father and mother too, maybe. When your father gives you a suit for Pesach and your mother makes you supper, you’ll say thank you. And then you’ll say thank you to Hashem. If you don’t thank your father and mother, then you will never thank Hashem sincerely. You’ll be fooling yourself.
So when a father gives you something, gives you money to spend, and your mother gives you food to eat, if you don’t thank them, then you surely won’t thank Hashem.
(April 1996)
