Once upon a time, there was a pregnant woman who wanted to know what her child would be. She went to a seer & inquired. The prophet told her that she would have a son, but he looked sad when he told her this. She pressed him to know the rest & he told her that the boy would become a murderer. She went home and sewed a little cap for her child. When the boy was born, she put the cap on his head. As he grew, she would never allow him to go anywhere without the cap on his head. Soon, he noticed that he was the only child who always had a cap on his head, so he asked his mother why? She replied with all seriousness, "You must always wear this cap to remind you that there is a G-d above you."
Legend says that this boy grew up to become the famous Rabbi Gamaliel, spoken of in Acts 5:33-42 & not a murderer as the seer predicted. We don't know if this story is true, but it is one of many quoted as the reason why Jews wear the kippah on their heads. It is a sign of respect for G-d. Leviticus 28
There is a better reason found in the Bible itself;
The L-rd commanded all those serving in His Temple to do so with their heads
covered as a sign of respect for HIM. Leviticus 28
Unfortunately, this devotion & sign of respect for G-d along with other differences in dress has made the Jewish People a target for abuse:
In the days of Tsar Nicholas I, an old Jewish gentleman, Shmulik Kaganovitch by name, was walking along the palace-lined embankments of St. Petersburg, Russia. Slipping on a patch of ice, he fell from a bridge into the dark waters of the Neva River & began to drown. He thrashed about in the water, yelling for help at the top of his lungs. Two Cossack officers heard his screams and ran over to the railing. When they saw that the dying man was a Jew, they began to guffaw. Kaganovich shouted, "Help! Save me! I'm drowning!" The soldiers laughed, "It's your problem, Zhid!" As Shmulik felt himself sinking into the cold waters, he suddenly had an inspired thought: "Down with Tsar Nicholas!" he roared. Immediately the officers jumped into the water, dragged Kaganovich out and arrested him for sedition.
Proverbs says that "the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel". (Prov. 12:10) The two officers in this apocryphal story saved Kaganovich not because they were concerned for the life of Jew, but because they hated anarchists.
Cossacks have tended to be indifferent to the fate of the Jews. The Nobel
Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel once said, "The opposite of love is not
hate; it's indifference."
Shmulik's story is excerpted from Israel The Key to World Revival, by Avner
Boskey copyright 1998. For info: psalm67@netvision.net.il
Lura Maiman, Congregation Yeruel, Israel