Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Samuel Kaye

The Troll in the Pantry 

Last week at Holy Blossom, we got trolled.  

Not on the internet. Or at least, not solely on the internet.  

Last week, inside our Tiny Pantries, where dedicated volunteers place free food for the hungry on a daily basis, one of our members found a strange and slightly disturbing figurine. It upset them greatly, and they sent me a message, attaching the very images you see here.  

I vaguely recognized the doll. My godparents, Judy and Harvey Cohen z’l, had a few of them around their house. This style of figure is of Norwegian origin, representing trollish creatures found in mythology and folklore. They are indeed ugly and weird, but some people collect them for exactly that reason! I would venture a guess that if you’ve ever gone to Norway or been on a cruise to that part of the world, you’ve likely seen such tchotchkes for sale.  

So why was it in our pantries? I have no idea, but here are a few possibilities that we’ve come up with.   

Perhaps someone found it… and thought it was so ugly it must be cursed! “I’ll leave it for the wise Jews of Holy Blossom!” they thought. “They’ll know what to do!”  

Perhaps someone wanted to give tzedakah! “I have no food to donate,” they thought, “but I know that this troll is worth a little bit of money! I’ll leave it for the synagogue, and they’ll do right with it.”  

Perhaps some busy soul mistook our beautiful pantries for a dump to put their unwanted old objects and trash. But God forbid that be the case, for that would be an uncharitable thought.  

Or, of course, there is the least charitable thought of all. Perhaps this was one more swipe at us. One more little moment of cowardly and anonymous antisemitism. After all, the troll is ugly. It has a disproportionately big nose. Did someone leave it to say something? Is a little bit of Jew-hate the secret message of the troll?  

I do not know the intent. But I know our people, I know our community, and I know what we can do next.  

If you saw that troll and felt attacked in your kishkes, I want to invite you, and truly encourage you, to come and learn about how antisemitism is being manipulated in Canada on June 29th. Our Advocacy Committee has invited Warren Kinsella, author of The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda, to join us and discuss how Canada has become ground 0 for this coordinated international effort. You can register here to join us. 

And if you saw that troll and felt upset that, instead of food for the hungry, we found an ugly doll, I want to encourage you to take up the mitzvah of tzedakah. We are always looking for shelf-stable donations that can be put into the pantries. Whenever you come by, feel free to drop off a can or a package of food at the security desk or in the Janis Rotman Tzedakah Centre.  

We might have been trolled this week, but our community gets the last word. Make it a word of wisdom. Make it a word of mitzvah.