It’s Complicated
![](https://mishpacha.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/outlook-C.jpg)
![](http://mishpacha.com/wp-content/uploads/uploads/images/imagebrowser/628-510/outlook.jpg)
A
recent column (Strength from Love August 12) and a subsequent addendum (My Son the Critic) generated a fair amount of response. And that response forced me to try to further clarify for myself some of the guidelines for relationships with not-yet-observant Jews.
I cannot say that I have yet achieved clarity for the way is crowded with paradoxes or so it seems to me. On the one hand we have a responsibility to try to bring our fellow Jews closer to Hashem. On the other hand if we are too obvious about our goal or too focused on it we are unlikely to be effective in achieving it. On the third hand (yes there really is a third hand) if we forget the goal we are also not likely to be effective. Herewith some preliminary reflections.
The Chovos Halevavos writes something truly shocking with respect to the reward of Olam Haba: “A person’s good deeds alone do not make him suitable for the reward of the World to Come. G-d considers him suitable only because of two other factors in addition to his good deeds. The first is that he teaches others about the service of G-d and guides them in doing good...” (Shaar Habitachon Chapter 4)
Rabbi Noach Weinberg explained citing the Rambam in Sefer Hamitzvos (positive commandment 3) that a Jew who does not seek to instruct others in the service of G-d and to bring them closer to Him is lacking in ahavas Hashem.
Thus Avraham Avinu is described (Yeshayahu 41:8) by Hashem as the one who loves Me — ohavi — precisely because he sought to share knowledge of Hashem with everyone with whom he came into contact and to maximize those contacts. To love Hashem is to seek to make Him beloved among people writes the Rambam just as Avraham Avinu did.
Thus each of us is obligated to strive to bring our fellow Jews closer to Hashem. The failure to try demonstrates that we do not sufficiently value our own relationship with Hashem.
Teaching other Jews about Hashem is a reflection not only of our love of Him but also of our love of them. The lover seeks that which is best for the beloved.
BUT IF OUR GOAL for our fellow Jew must always be to bring him closer to Hashem the attainment of that goal is dependent to some extent on hiding that fact even from ourselves. Even if our motivations are a pure expression of our ahavas Yisrael and our desire for what is best for our fellow Jew they will not be perceived as such if our eagerness is too clear.
There are some very rare Jews whose sincerity is so great — the best example being the late Rabbi Meir Schuster ztz”l — that even those meeting them for the first time recognize that the intensity of their efforts to bring them to a shiur or to experience Shabbos with a Torah family or their horror upon learning that they are sleeping in an Arab hostel stems only out of a desire for what is best for them without any admixture of self-interest.
But most of us lack Rabbi Schuster’s purity the clearest proof being that we are not moser nefesh as he was for over 30 years bringing young Jews to their first taste of Torah. Few if any could endure the humiliations that he did the constant rejections without being discouraged or giving up. Only a laser-like focus on the goal and the lack of any personal self-interest made that possible.
The rest of us however have no choice but to win the trust of the nonreligious Jews whom we meet over time. That begins by treating them with respect interest and concern. I’m not suggesting that we engage in a ruse. Every human being whom we meet is entitled to be treated with respect because he was created b’tzelem Elokim.
And our fellow Jew no matter how religiously observant he or she is today has that tzelem Elokim and more. He or she has been assigned a role in the national mission of the Jewish People to bring knowledge of Hashem to the entire world to be a light unto the nations. Without each Jew’s participation that mission is endangered.
Surely one imbued with such potential deserves our respect our concern our interest in their well-being. So too is it incumbent upon us to discover their personal strengths and discern the positive middos they possess even if they are not yet aware of them. That those positive traits exist is self-evident for those are the tools Hashem has given them to fulfill their role in our national destiny.
In short it should become second nature for each of us as Torah Jews not just to show an interest in their lives but to actually be interested and to want them to be healthy wealthy (to a degree) and wise. (Depression is neither the best nor likely to be the lasting route to a Torah life.)
I experience a certain positive energy whenever I succeed in connecting to a nonobservant Jew and especially when the conversation reflects an awareness that being Jewish binds us together. For instance I recently met a former head of Military Intelligence. When he introduced himself I mentioned that I knew a talmid chacham of the same name. That led to a discussion of the meaning of his name which he linked to a certain dye used by sofrim and mentioned in the Mishnah.
Next I asked where he was from. His answer turned into a 20-minute story about his efforts to locate his mother’s grave in the Jewish cemetery of the Polish town in which he was born with an entire group of Polish generals in tow.
Out of such conversations deeper ones about what it means to be Jewish can grow. But even the connection itself left me feeling good.
Removing stereotypes about Torah Jews is itself a desideratum. Menschlichkeit in personal interactions being a conscientious coworker and a reliable employee all go a long way toward doing so. Avraham Avinu was an exemplar of chesed and brought people closer to Hashem in that fashion. He provides the model for all of us.
BUT BEING A FINE FELLOW is not enough and trying too hard to be a good fellow a regular Joe can be counterproductive. The danger exists that we will lose sight that Torah is the core of our identity — or at least appear to do so in the eyes of others.
One of the keys to the respect that Rabbi Moshe Sherer commanded with nonobservant Jews and gentiles is that he never forgot and never let them forget that he was an Orthodox rabbi. He could discuss many topics knowledgeably but sports trivia was not one of them. And the most mildly risqu? remark never passed his lips. By never lowering himself in speaking to politicians Rabbi Sherer made them feel respected and therefore well-disposed to him and his cause.
I once heard Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb describe a trip toSouth Africa in which he was accompanied much of the time by a consular official from the Israeli embassy. The official became more and more discomfited by Rabbi Gottlieb’s insistence on wearing his kapote in very high temperatures. At one point he complained “Why can’t you just dress normal?”
Rabbi Gottlieb replied to the effect that the kapote was an excellent way of conveying the subliminal message that being a frum Jew makes one different. (That does not mean both I and Rabbi Gottlieb would hasten to add that donning particular clothing imbues one with good middos or any other maileh.) And that message that becoming a Torah Jew must (ideally) change one fundamentally is an important one in our interactions with not-yet-observant Jews.
Why for instance has most successful kiruv inIsraeltraditionally been done by the chareidi world and not the national-religious? After all the latter are full participants in the IDF and the workplace and are often exemplary in both. They have much more daily contact with the secular public. And they are culturally much closer to the secular public than chareidim are. For instance many follow the same sports teams and listen to the same music.
Why then did they not pique the interest of more of their fellow soldiers and coworkers? The answer Rabbi Gottlieb speculated was that it was too easy for the secular fellow soldiers and coworkers to tell themselves however much they admired their religious colleagues that there was no essential difference between them except that “he wears a kippah and I don’t. But otherwise we are the same.” The cultural similarity turned out to be a barrier to kiruv.
In sum if we are not decent friendly and kind there is no chance that we will have any success in fulfilling the Chovos Halevovos requirement for Olam Haba — making a serious effort to bring our fellow Jews closer to Hashem. Yet if we are only those things but nothing about us conveys that a life with Torah and one without Torah are in essence different we will also fail. In the effort to be fine fellows and boon companions we will only damage ourselves and fail to help our fellow Jews.
Oops! We could not locate your form.