Fixing the World, aka butting into everybody else's business

There was a very interesting article written the other day about an incident that had happened a couple days earlier.

The author, a woman named Noa Raz, writes that she is a member of the Conservative Movement. She davens every day, with tallis and tefillin in the privacy of her own home. She slept by her friend in beer Sheva and in the morning she davened with her tefilin. She later went out to the bus station and a haredi fellow, after staring at her, pointed at the lines on her arm and asked if they are from tefillin. After ignoring him for a bit, he finally got in her face and she no longer could and confirmed they were.

He then grabbed her arm, started kicking her, and screamed and cursed at her.

She successfully extricated herself after a few moments and ran to her bus (later she filed a report with the police).

This is the problem today with religion. We butt into everybody's business. In this case, assuming the general details are generally accurate (it is only one side of the story, and it is from a news report so I dont expect all the details to be accurate, but lets say it is generally accurate), she donned her tefillin in the privacy of her own home (her friends home actually).

The excuse given to oppose the Women of the wall does not fit the bill in this case. She was not being provocative, she wasn't just trying to show people she can get away with it, she was not trying to show up anybody.

All she was doing was davening according to her belief. That is besides the fact that even though she is not commended to don tefillin she was still doing a mitzva.

Sure, we might write it off and say this guy was just a nut job, a fruitcake, off his rocker. And maybe he was. But we are seeing more and more of this recently where religious people are butting into everybody else's business and telling them how to live their lives.

It has to stop.

Fix yourself, fix your family. Stop worrying so much about what the next guy is doing, let alone about what he is doing in private.