Dear all,
I was changing after my workout today. The locker room was crowded; my locker sat between two others—one occupied, one temporarily empty. As the man to my right finished up and walked away, he said, “You’ve got the space to yourself, except for the [Iranian slur].”
In that moment in time, words of Ecclesiastes surfaced: “There is a time to be silent and a time to speak.” I chose to speak.
I looked at him and said, “That’s not okay.”
He replied, “Relax. He’s a friend of mine.”
“But people hear you,” I said. “They don’t know your connection. And even if they did, it’s a terrible way to talk about an entire group of people.”
He shrugged and left.
We live in an unfiltered world, where people feel licensed to say ugly things out loud, often without consequence. This time I spoke. But in another place, or with another person, that choice could have ended badly.
There’s no crystal ball—only conscience.
Life is full of moments like this. When do we speak? When do we stay quiet? And at the end of the day, which choice lets us live with ourselves?
With love and Shalom,
Rabbi Zachary R. Shapiro
