There’s a school in Far Rockaway, I believe. It’s called TAG. It’s a girls’ school, a girls’ high school: Torah Academy for Girls. Two weeks before the end of the school year, one of the seniors was diagnosed with a serious disease: Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The doctor said she was going to need chemo. The doctor told her, “You cannot be around crowds.” But she said to the doctor, “My graduation—I’m a senior. My graduation is in two weeks from now.” The doctor said, “The only way you could go to your graduation is if you wear a mask.” She says, “I’m an 18-year-old girl.” The only way you could go to your graduation is if you wear a mask.
And so when she walked into her graduation, she was wearing a mask. But when she looked at the section of the 101 graduates, every single one of them was wearing a mask. Every single one of them said to themselves, “If our colleague has to wear a mask, we’re wearing masks.” So, in the actual picture of the graduation, you see a hundred girls wearing those COVID masks. Remember those masks? A hundred girls, every single one of them wearing a mask, because if their friend is going to be uncomfortable, we’re all going to be uncomfortable.
We are the best nation. We’re the best. We’re doing a great job. We might struggle. We might have days that we cut the line in the doctor and we were wrong. We might have days that our ego wins. We might have days that our temptation wins. Yes, we are in a battle, and sometimes we lose. But so often we win. So often we do an incredible job. And when you look at people, you’re naive enough to judge them as horrible or judge them as perfect. You don’t get it. We’re battling and we’re battling. But so often we’re winning. So when you look around at people, don’t judge them. Understand them. Relate to them. Because you know what they’re going through? They’re going through exactly the same thing you’re going through. On every day. Every Monday. Every Tuesday. Every Thursday. Every Friday. Every Shabbat. Every day of their lives, as long as their body and their soul are together. Every single day, they’re in a battle. And that’s not a reason to make them perfect. It’s not a reason to make them hard. To reason or look at them simply as what we’ve been for thousands of years. To just realize that every person you interact with is simply human.