In his neighboring column last week Yonoson Rosenblum wrote about the “danger of being too quick to don the cloak of victimhood” as illustrated by President Obama’s belief that racism is to blame for his precipitous slide in popularity among Americans. He went on to note that the frum community while often faced with very real and irrational prejudice by outsiders would do well not to blame all external critique on antireligious bias. Such an attitude prevents us from reflecting on the changes we actually do need to make and also prevents us from changing the perceptions held by those who may be antagonistic out of ignorance rather than malice.

Both points are well-taken. I believe that beyond his apparent incompetence as a national leader on both the domestic and foreign fronts Mr. Obama’s single greatest liability — one apparent to keen observers from the outset of his national prominence — is his chronic inability to admit mistakes and concomitant need to be forever shifting the blame for his failures to a host of imagined factors and parties. When this happens in the home and workplace we all recognize such immaturity for what it is and take the steps necessary to address it. When it happens incessantly in the Oval Office we’re in real trouble.

On the eve of the 2008 presidential election I contrasted the vehement opposition of Barack Obama with the unflagging support of John McCain for President Bush’s fateful decision to implement an ultimately successful surge when the Iraq war seemed like a hopeless morass. “On the single most crucial foreign policy decision of this decade” I wrote “one that required a great deal of wisdom farsightedness and courage to make Senator McCain was spectacularly correct. His opponent? Not only was Senator Obama wrong he couldn’t find it within himself to admit this even as the empirical facts piled up. To this day Obama has never once mouthed the words ‘I was wrong’ on the surge nor come to think of it on anything else of import — and that’s perhaps the most troubling thing one can know about a nation’s leader.”

As for the need to be at least selectively receptive to the criticisms — however mean-spirited — leveled at our community I once cited here the Hoover Institute scholar Shelby Steele’s analysis of the black community as being “too proud to explore [its underdevelopment] for all to see” choosing instead to impute its failures to discrimination. I drew an analogy between that attitude and our own temptation “to write off all criticism of the frum community — whether of our financial dealings our driving behavior or otherwise — as just so much anti-Semitic fantasy.”

I observed further that this is

not to say that Orthodox-bashing isn’t an all-too-real regular feature of the Jewish and general media — sadly it is. But to paraphrase Shelby Steele today’s Jewish problem is underdevelopment in areas like civic responsibility and following safety rules and at times in simple middos tovos and not in the main anti-Semitic discrimination. And success in living amicably among our neighbors — not to mention in creating a community of mekadshei Sheim Shamayim — may demand of us profound cultural changes.

That said I would take issue with the assumption that there exists an all-or-nothing dichotomy in which all those who display animus toward the frum community are either irredeemable bigots or can be persuaded to change their attitude if only we change ours. The Gemara (Pesachim 49b) teaches that “the hatred of amei ha’aretz for talmidei chachamim is greater than that of the non-Jewish nations for the Jewish People.” Considering the blood-soaked history of unremitting anti-Jewish hatred and oppression throughout the ages that’s quite a statement.

It’s true that there is no precise analog nowadays for the amei ha’aretz discussed in the Gemara who were a particularly incorrigible group and that contemporary nonreligious Jews are largely tinokos she’nishbu to one extent or another. But the point of that gemara remains entirely relevant. The same complex web of emotions of envy fear and loathing that is at the visceral root of much of gentile anti-Semitism is also subconsciously at play in the hostility of Jew toward fellow Jew.

But while the non-Jew is envious that we have the Torah and he doesn’t the hostile Jew is envious precisely because he has it; he knows at some level that the Torah is his birthright too and he has failed to embrace it. The non-Jewish Judeophobe can’t bear the message of monotheistic morality for which the Jew stands and neither can the hostile Jew — only more so because his elevated neshamah gives him no rest and propels him to express his spiritual angst through active hatred for the Torah Jew rather than benign disregard. Of course everyone has free choice in the ability to change an attitude but some of the emotions that underlie Jewish hostility toward Torah and its adherents can be quite deep-seated and powerful. I wouldn’t refer to the people who harbor such feelings as “irredeemable bigots ” but neither are they all necessarily persuadable either.

Still they are my brothers and sisters whom I am bidden by Torah to understand and to love. And while it may seem paradoxical viewing them through the above-described prism actually enables me to do so.

COLLARED 

While putting my tefillin and tallis away after davening Shacharis in Rav Landau’s well-known hub of tefillah in Flatbush recently I noticed that the jacket collar of the fellow next to me was askew. I pointed this out to him (no I didn’t use the word “askew”) whereupon he thanked me fixed his collar and then almost instantaneously handed me his business card adding smilingly “If you’ve ever got insurance needs give me a call.”
As I walked away two thoughts occurred to me. The first was admiration for the man’s technique. I’m an insurance professional too specializing in long-term-care planning but my marketing skills leave something to be desired (considering that most readers don’t even know that’s what I do). So I appreciated the way he took the unexpected opportunity of our momentary exchange to introduce his services in a way that left me feeling favorably disposed toward him (and I’ve still got his card).
Then I mused further: What if from my insurance agent friend’s end the opportunity hadn’t been unexpected after all? Having done some reading over the years on innovative selling and marketing techniques I marveled at the possibility even if somewhat remote that the jacket collar gone awry was but a wry way of facilitating an exchange between him and me — and actually getting me to initiate it after which my friend could smoothly pivot and make his pitch to an already friendly audience.
Having a purposefully upturned collar for others to notice I realized isn’t all that different from the shinuyim the unusual practices we engage in at the Seder table on Leil Pesach in order to provoke our children into asking why we’ve done so. In both cases the real point of the endeavor isn’t the initial exchange whether it’s about collars or collard greens; it’s merely a wise pedagogical technique to get the “student” to approach the “teacher ” because that’s when the best learning — and selling — takes place.
In the case of the collar one might even suggest an additional factor: If as Rav Eliyahu Dessler taught giving generates love on the part of the giver for his recipient then doing someone even a minuscule favor like helping him enhance his appearance creates an ever-so-slight positive feeling toward its recipient. Education involves selling one’s ideas to the student and selling in the business world involves educating the prospective client. In both settings someone who — on his own initiative — is engaged and positively predisposed is the best customer.
But regardless of whether these fanciful imaginings ever did enter the mind of my shul neighbor that morning there’s a point here with important implications for all of us as Torah-true Jews. Whether we’re looking to do actual kiruv of our brethren to the path of Torah or simply interested in fostering good feelings toward frum Yidden there can be no better approach to doing so than by making ourselves through how we look speak and behave into attractive people (in the most literal sense of the word) the kind of people whom others would want to approach speak with and get to know.