HATE....

I come from a lifestyle that made me think I knew that word..... being a Jew is hard, especially when you are a non-practicing Jew living in the streets of Miami Fla.; that's where I'm from... and being that ( a Jew) and white where I lived ment you had a lot of hate directed at you, and so I learned quick; with no father around to teach me and, a mom that worked 3 jobs; I was on my own to learn what it meant t be a mean man...
When I was 7 I got my ass kicked by 3 kids and ran home crying like a baby. When I came home, my mom asked why I was crying. When I told her what had happened, she spanked me and, told me " not to ever run, now get back out there and fix it how ever you can." So I went out, found the biggest stick I could and , I beat the crap out of each and everyone of them.
 Those days are long behind me now and I am a changed man in more ways than one. My ancestors have been shot, gased, crushed though out history and so I thought I knew a little something about hate...
But shit, at 42 years old I still get my blood pressure up, the other day...

I went to lunch and had the unpleasant experience of sitting with a young man that had a swastika tattooed on the back of his very bald head, this man had no idea that I was a Jew on my was to service that very night, anyhow two of my Jewish brothers were sitting at the next table and so he leans over and tells his friends, " I should go over there and sit at that table and make them leave."
At which point my ears were on fire! So I say to him, " Excuse me, but do you have something against Jews?" and he said," Yea, I don't like em." Pure hate in his heart when he said it, isn't even old enough to remember the first Gulf War much less the Holocaust.; anyways I say to him " good because I'm a Jew and you are sitting at my table now." guy says " I ain't scared of you." and I said "good!, it's better that way." He gets up and leaves...30 plus years and I've never been shaken like that!!
A few days later... he comes, finds me and apologizes to me... I am shocked, confused, but it seems that in life, forgiveness and hate go hand in hand... one does not happen with out the other to follow...
I learned a great lesson that day.... never eat in that terrible restaurant again!! No seriously, I'm in prison and, it was the " Chow Hall." What I did learn was real and valuable.
From the Rebbe:
Evil is simple the absence of good, it has no real existence of it's own, and is dispelled in the light of goodness.