Doing a Mitzvah

In Long Island, I prepared to do a mitzvah.

My breakdancing crew didn't ask me about the bombing in Dallas yesterday—the news more front-page than the San Diego ICE raids or the Dominican kid shot in the Bronx last weekend. Just as I didn't ask which of my boys were undocumented. Maybe they were all citizens; maybe I was a racist. I was the token white boy in their b-boy crew—me and an Asian girl brought the diversity. Yet because I was Jewish I threatened the racial superiority of those Dallas skinheads, their bald heads crackling in the Texas heat like pork rinds. They threw homemade hand grenades and chanted rhythmically about not being replaced and the death of Jesus and backroom cabals where my people conspired to take over Hollywood. They couldn't be bothered to rhyme.

I didn't ask my boys' feelings on DACA, and they didn't say anything sentimental to me when Jews were killed somewhere on the other side of the country.

After Dallas, half of my Facebook feed blew up with righteous anger: Remember we'll never be at home here, anywhere, the German Jews thought they were integrated, too, have you heard what's been happening in France? These were kids I knew from Jewish day school, Jewish summer camp, mostly Jewish college. This is why we need Israel, they typed into their phones, we'll need somewhere to hide one day, just wait, that's history for you. I used to live as fully in the Jewish world as they do. Part of me still feels like I'm one of them, and part of me is very far away. A few times a month, I have this recurring dream where I'm wandering the streets of the Old City and there's a pious rabbi. I wash his feet and bake challah that I share with a beggar who has the face of a ram, and catch the faintest glimpse of God, shining red and blue and gold and purple. Then I wake up and remember that God probably doesn't exist.

The other half of my Facebook feed didn't react to the news beyond a few murmurs of sympathy. Then it was back to the usual blend of conspiracy theories—the Illuminati, the Flat Earth people—and b-boy videos. Who's slated to win the Red Bull championship this year, Cloud's gotten really good, they're upgrading the livestream so viewers can watch the world breakdance championships in realtime, do you really think Neguin is going to compete again?

That Jewish community used to be my soul, both online and off, but now when a friend moved to a settlement in Israel to help stake a claim on contested land, I judged him. There were almost as many jenky blog posts and unattributed sources on Jewish Facebook as on Breakdancing Facebook. I judged the guy in my crew who posted about Lizard People, too. I would've quit social media altogether if it weren't the main way my crew communicated. I didn't want corporations to know my innermost secrets. I hardly even knew them myself.

Stomps loved doing mitzvahs, posting Facebook videos of thronging teenage girls and barbecue lamb sliders, fifty-something women fanning themselves when he took off his shirt to do a freeze.

This Saturday we were planning the usual bit. We'd come out in black hats and glued-on sidecurls, mixing some Russian kickouts into the footwork, all of Eastern Europe blurring.

I felt bad accepting money—mitzvahs are repaid only in God's mercy, but were windmills a commandment?—partially because it was commerce on shabbat, but mostly because I didn't need it. Rich Jews. They knew I had a white-collar day job. They asked me to proofread the crew's website, hire us to dance your preteen into adulthood, my college diction at a premium, but I couldn't find a way to say, keep your fifty bucks. Frenzy needs it for his two kids, Eclektik's saving...