Between a person and their fellow: The repair begins with the person before you | Josh Aronson

A personal column by Josh Aronson connecting two chance encounters at an airport and a train station to the values of Yom Kippur. The meeting with a young Moroccan woman and with an elderly man helpless before a ticket machine illustrates the idea that true repair begins in relations between a person and their fellow, not in external religious rituals.

A personal column by Josh Aronson, connecting two chance encounters he had during one journey to the values of Yom Kippur. The first encounter took place at an airport, with a young Moroccan woman named Aya, with whom he had a deep conversation about Israel, heritage, and the Middle East conflict. The second encounter was at a train station in Manchester, with an elderly man helpless before a digital ticket machine. Aronson argues that true repair, according to Jewish tradition, does not begin with prayer and abstinence, but in relations between a person and their fellow. He quotes the philosopher Simone Weil, Martin Buber, and the architect Yechiel Tsubari, and emphasizes that a society's resilience is measured by its treatment of strangers passing through daily life. The column ends with a call to refuse to avert one's gaze from people in distress.