On my way out of the city on a Friday afternoon, just as I got onto the George Washington Bridge, a warning light flashed across the screen: “Low oil pressure. Stop vehicle.”
It must be a mistake, I thought, because I’d just had the oil changed by a mechanic two days prior. I’m careful to keep up my car maintenance to avoid situations exactly like this one. So I ignored it.
But the light kept flashing on and off, so I took a picture and sent it to my brothers-in-law on Whatsapp. They unanimously told me to pull over immediately, lift the hood, and see what’s going on.
There’s nowhere to pull over on the bridge itself, so I kept driving, albeit slowly and carefully, and pulled into a gas station right off the bridge.
I opened the hood and even a novice like me could tell that there must be a problem. Some kind passersby helped me check my oil, which turned out to be completely empty. How strange! A good friend of mine — who is a mechanic — had just checked my car and given me brand new oil. How could it be empty?
But it soon became clear. He had accidentally forgotten to put the lid back on, so when I started driving, the oil boiled over and spilled everywhere. The entire hood was greasy and smeared with oil; none was left inside.
So I bought new oil, filled the car, put the lid on, and made it to my destination in time for Shabbat.
And I thought to myself, “Wow! There’s such a beautiful lesson here.”
Oil, you see, is a paradox. On the one hand, it spreads quickly and easily, seeping through and permeating anything with which it comes into contact. On the other hand, when mixed with other liquids, oil stubbornly rises to the surface and remains separate.
And so it is with us Jews. We live in this world and go about our daily lives, but we cannot ever fully integrate into the world. Like oil, Jews, too, will often find themselves mixing in a wide variety of circles — social, business, civic, communal or political. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. At the very same time, though, we need to remember never to lose our own identity.
We often feel a strong pressure, whether real or imagined, to conform to the norms around us. But at some point we have to put a lid on the activities of this world, turn away from it all, and focus on our mission — to illuminate the world with Torah and mitzvot.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Uriel Vigler
