As a former student of SCW participating in the joint nursing program with NYU, I have had the shocking and enlightening experience of quickly transitioning from one of the most conservative, right-wing institutions to one of the most liberal. I smiled to myself, pondering this humorous juxtaposition, while my professor spent the first moments of his lecture showing the class photographs of himself and his husband, which he proudly included in his slideshow presentation.
It was my first time in a classroom with people who did not share my religious beliefs. I felt disoriented and alone. I did not doubt that I had something in common with them, but I had no clue how to even begin discovering what that thing could possibly be. How was I to relate to these people? And how can it be that this is the very first time in my life that I needed to deal with this situation?
“Hi, what’s your name?” Surprised, I turned to my left. A black man smiled and held out his hand. “Rebec…Becky,” I stammered, shaking his hand as I unintentionally shook my voice. “Nice to meet you! Nervous for Pathophysiology?”
I wasn’t. I was caught off guard. I couldn’t remember the last time I was greeted like that––such a wonderful balance of professionalism and friendliness. I instantly felt pathetic and puerile both for having never experienced this type of greeting before and for not thinking to have initially done the same. And yet, his welcoming demeanor made me feel confident and wanted.
“Ivan,” he said. “What?” He repeated his name. “Oh, nice to meet you.”
While Ivan shifted his focus to the professor and his lecture, I shifted mine to my experience. Had that really been so unusual? Unfortunately, I concluded that it had been. I had spent all my other first days of school as a citizen of the island of desks that I and my other few friends from previous years had colonized together, isolating ourselves from the other islands. There was little to no conversing between citizens of other islands. We were satisfied. Content with the friends we had, we felt no need to make more. No one asked me my name, nor I anyone else’s.
Ivan was not the only one that day to whom I responded “Becky”. I did the same to Nicole, Trusha, Foday, Jose, and Isabella. They were friendly. Genuinely friendly.
I would like to think and hope that the stark contrast that I experienced between my encounters with my Jewish classmates of my past and those with my current non-Jewish ones is merely a coincidence, but after meeting Hakim, Jasmin, and Chen, I am beginning to arrive at a much more distressing conclusion.
We refer to ourselves as the light to these people, but frankly, I have been a recipient of much more warmth from their light than from ours. I am very proud my religion, and I find myself sharing that aspect of my life with many of my new classmates. Impressed does not even begin to express how I feel about the immense accomplishments that Jews all over the world have achieved to help make this world a bit brighter. However, I fear that perhaps many of us have forgotten some basic techniques for showing care and respect. Being in the presence of so many individuals who seem to constantly keep these techniques at the forefront of their minds has revealed to me how I have forgotten them, as well.
I am not sure why or how it is that a people that repeatedly emphasizes the need to treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated has managed to fall so short in this department. Perhaps it has to do with the “small world” of which we are all part. Maybe we see no excitement in meeting someone to whom we can assume we are already somehow connected. Or perhaps the relatively homogenous appearance of our fellow peers squelches any curiosity we may have had to discover the person to our left. Whatever the reason, there is no excuse.
Thanks to my amiable and conversationally generous classmates, I no longer feel alone in the lecture halls at NYU.
I smiled at Ivan, watching as he intently listened to the professor’s lesson, and I turned to my right to introduce myself to Racheli.