A few weeks ago, someone named Farhad Mohammadi signed up for our email list.
Although our website is public and anyone can sign up, one of our staff members became concerned when she saw the name.
Given everything happening in the world today, her imagination went into overdrive: Is a spy trying to spy on us? Maybe a terrorist is trying to learn the layout of our center and feeding Iran information?
A few days later, something happened that raised even more concern.
The same Farhad Mohammadi signed up for one of our Torah classes.
Now the alarms really started going off. “Rabbi, this is the same Iranian guy. We should probably have extra security tonight. Who knows what could happen?”
So I did what anyone would do.
I Googled him, but no luck. It’s quite a common name apparently!
So that night, I walked into the Torah class curious—and definitely a little concerned—to see who would show up.
And within moments, all my assumptions and preconceived notions evaporated.
Yes, he was Iranian. Very Iranian. But he was also Jewish.
And suddenly, I realized our mistake: We saw he was Iranian and that’s all we saw. We stopped too soon.
Because, yes, his family is Iranian, and his background and culture are Iranian. But he is also a warm, sincere, thoughtful Jew, seeking connection and hungry for Torah study.
Unfortunately, that’s what the world teaches us. To look at the exterior. To focus on names, race, color, nationality.
The Torah, on the other hand, teaches us to look at souls. Chassidus teaches that every Jew possesses a Divine soul—a chelek Eloka mima'al mamash, an actual spark of G-dliness.
And while meeting Farhad brought this lesson to the fore, it applies to all of us. Everyone we meet has layers. A name, accent, profession, political leaning. Most of us never look beyond the outer layers.
We get so caught up in who is right-leaning and who is left-leaning politically, who is pleasant and who is grumpy, who is wealthy and who is poor. But Chassidus teaches us to keep digging. Look deeper, further, peel back the layers and uncover the core.
Because at the core, every Jew is the apple of Hashem’s eye—created in His image and more loved than anything else in the world.
So let’s challenge ourselves to stop defining people by the first thing we notice about them and train ourselves to see what G-d sees.
Because if you look only at the surface, you may see an Iranian. But if you look deeply enough, you will discover a warm Jew.