Jewish Kids from England

​   by Reb Gutman Locks   

Jewish Kids from England

     A small group of Jewish teens from England came to the Kotel last week. They didn’t want to put on tefillin, scorning them, but I pulled just hard enough to get them. They were not at all interested in Judaism, to put it mildly. They were really immature. They had nose rings, their eyebrows were pierced and they had a couple of earrings hanging from their ears. When I saw that one of the boys had a black fingernail I asked him if he hit it with a hammer. He showed me his hands. He had painted the nails dark purple!

    “What in the world did you do that for?”

    “It’s nice. It makes my hands look nice.”

     “Painted nails, earrings, nose rings…all these are girl’s garments!”

      “Who said?”

     “The Torah says. A man is supposed to dress like a man and a girl like a girl. We want you to take the male role and marry a Jewish girl.”

     “What’s wrong with marrying a boy?”

     “Are you crazy? What’s wrong with smoking cigarettes?”

     “They kill you.”

     “Cigarettes cause you to die ten years earlier than someone who doesn’t smoke. Homosexuals die twenty earlier than normal people! It’s a disease!”

     He almost fell on the floor laughing. “That’s insane!”

     “Oh, yeah! Search on the internet “homosexual life expectancy” and you will see for yourself.

     “Oh, baloney!”

     “Okay, I’ll make a deal with you. If what I am saying is true, you promise that you will marry only a Jewish girl.”

    He was so sure that I was making it up that he agreed.

    I said, “Okay. I got you! Check it out and if it is like I said, you have to keep your promise and marry a Jewish girl.”

     Will he change his life from one short conversation? I don’t know. But I know that we have to try.