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atching Rabbi Yosef Grunfeld in action means watching a master raconteur. He stands in the center of the dining hall during the first night’s supper at a Seed kiruv seminar surrounded by wary adults. They laugh politely as he jokes but they are clearly uneasy. He by contrast is relaxed confident warm and disarmingly funny. Suddenly he stops his introductions and peers around the hall.

“I know what you’re all scared of” he says and pauses for effect. He grips his beard and gives it a melodramatic tug. “It’s this isn’t it? This is what you’re all scared of!” He stops and waits. Ripples of self-conscious laughter bubble around the hall.

“Well let me tell you something. Beards are nothing to be scared of at all. We’re humans we rabbis and I promise you we don’t bite.”

He’s done it. He’s grabbed the elephant in the room by the scruff of its neck hauled it aloft and shaken it until its tusks rattle — and now his audience is climbing into his hand.

Reminded of the incident as he shares his experiences as national director of Project Seed in the UK he laughs. “You break down barriers with warmth and humor” he says. “I’ve watched people coming to seminars and when they see our faces for the first time they’re absolutely petrified. And I’ve overheard people saying they want to go straight home. But because they’ve traveled so far they decide to stay — and see. By Friday night — our seminars start on Friday afternoon — they’re much calmer. They see that we’re normal and the barriers have been broken just by the singing the dancing the friendliness the warmth. A woman got up at one seminar and said ‘I never knew that rabbis were normal people.’ ”

Rabbi Grunfeld 65 alumnus of Gateshead Kollel is the founder as well as the national director of Seed one of the foremost kiruv organizations in Europe today reaching out to about 6 000 people a year.

Over 30 years ago Rabbi Grunfeld was a serious kollel yungerman. The last ambition on his mind was entering the then-unfashionable world of kiruv. He chuckles as he remembers the strange way he was pulled into the field.

Rabbi Avi Shulman from Torah Umesorah visited England in 1979 to encourage the launch of a kiruv program similar to the Seed program he was running in the US in which yeshivah bochurim traveled to cities across America during the summer to set up learning programs for local Jews.

Rabbi Shulman hoped to send bochurim to Birmingham — a large city in the center of England with a substantial Jewish population — to learn with men on a one-on-one basis during summer bein hazmanim. He needed someone local to direct the project and sought a volunteer in Gateshead Kollel. But with the exception of Chabad’s work kiruv was unhip and little-known and no one was interested. At the time Rabbi Grunfeld was away in South Africa fundraising for the kollel. Graciously his fellow yungeleit nominated him.

Smiling at the irony he describes his horror when he returned. “At first I thought ‘Baruch Hashem I wasn’t there! Hashem saved me from this meshugas.’ ” Thinking no more of it he settled back into his learning ... until he received a phone call from Avi Shulman. He protested: this was not for him; his career path was in learning.

“Listen” Rabbi Shulman said. “If you’ll agree to lead these bochurim you can turn England upside down. If not vet England shloffen noch a hundert yohr England will sleep for another hundred years.”

Disconcerted Rabbi Grunfeld consulted Rav Avrohom Gurwicz and Rav Mattisyahu Salomon shlita. They encouraged him to accept the challenge.

So a two-week beis medrash-style program went ahead in Birmingham. Its success shook Rabbi Grunfeld and when he returned to Gateshead he found himself “completely disturbed. I wanted to stay in learning but Avi Shulman bless his cotton socks planted the idea — maybe leave kollel and start a new organization.”

Next Rabbi Shulman invited Rabbi Grunfeld to share his Birmingham experiences with a thousand-strong audience at the annual Torah Umesorah Dinner. Rabbi Grunfeld’s face assumes a mock-wry expression.

“This was very frightening” he recalls. “I’d never given a major speech in my life. It was his way of getting me on board but I was worried I’d lose out on my learning. This was not a path I wanted to take.”

While in America he consulted with Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky ztz”l who encouraged him to leave kollel and with Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman ztz”l Rosh Yeshivas Ner Israel in Baltimore.

“So Rav Ruderman asked me ‘And what about the Chasam Sofer?’ I said ‘What about the Chasam Sofer?’ ” Rabbi Grunfeld removes his glasses opens his eyes wide and leans forward. His voice rises as he replicates Rav Ruderman’s disbelief. “Rav Ruderman said ‘You don’t know the Chasam Sofer?’ So he pulled out a Chasam Sofer very excitedly and he showed me the introduction to Yoreh Dei’ah. ‘HaKadosh Baruch Hu said: Hamechaseh Ani mei’Avraham — should I hide from Avraham [My plan to destroy Sdom]?’ Rav Ruderman went on ‘Have you ever seen the Ribono shel Olam in doubt — should I shouldn’t I reveal a nevuah? Do you ever find this by Yeshayah or Yechezkel?’

“ ‘The Chasam Sofer says that Hashem expressed doubt as it were whether Avraham was really suited to receive nevuah. He was so osek in his hanefesh asher asah b’Charan — he made the first Seed program! — that he lost out on his own learning. But Hashem did give the nevuah. So you see if you’re osek in kiruv ’ Rav Ruderman told me ‘you won’t lose. You’ve got a promise from the Chasam Sofer. You go out there and you won’t lose.’ ”

By Pesach 1980, Rabbi Grunfeld had left Gateshead Kollel and thrown himself into creating summer kiruv programs in three provincial towns with large United Synagogue communities: Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow.

In England, the majority of identifying — albeit not observant — British Jews are members of the Orthodox United Synagogue, under the banner of the chief rabbi (as opposed to the US, where nonobservant Jews may choose Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, or anything in between).

“The fact that the majority of secular membership is still under an Orthodox flag gives kiruv in England a certain advantage,” Rabbi Grunfeld maintains. “People are very aware that there’s a difference between Orthodox and Reform, although they don’t necessarily understand those differences. And we have a structure to recruit from, a base.”

Following the summer programs, Rabbi Grunfeld established one-on-one learning sessions in Whitefield, Newcastle, and Kingsbury, London, and later organized a rally in London — backed by London’s chareidi rabbanim and addressed by Lakewood’s Rav Mattisyahu Salomon — to recruit more tutors. Another hundred tutors signed up. With the support of volunteer tutors and coordinators, and the encouragement and fundraising efforts of Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu, head of the London Beis Din, Seed launched additional one-on-one programs, spawning a thousand study couples across the UK.

Within a few years, Rabbi Grunfeld recognized that the organization needed to develop more professionally, and invited Mr. Yitzchok Silkin, then coordinator of the Stamford Hill center, to join as director of programs. Seed flourished, but by the mid-1980s, the team realized that it had been hoisted with its own petard, a victim of its own success. Both men’s and ladies’ learning groups were thriving, but in some cases, only one spouse was studying, which meant that husbands and wives were not moving in the same direction. Seed wanted to encourage people to change their lifestyles, Rabbi Grunfeld says, “not to get a divorce.”

Furthermore, research showed that participants wanted to grow intellectually, but did not necessarily believe in Torah miShamayim. “We realized that unless we could prove it rationally, everything they were learning was a load of mumbo-jumbo, and they were not really going to change.”

Gear Shift

So Rabbi Grunfeld traveled to Eretz Yisrael to study the success of the Arachim seminars, using them as a model for seminars in Birmingham University in 1985, one for married couples, one for students. “They were smash hits. Both of them. People were really moved. They were persuaded in the divinity of Torah, and they began there a serious journey of change.”

Rabbi Yehuda Silver of the Israeli Arachim joined Seed professionally as principal lecturer, and Seed eventually created its own native lecturing team consisting of Rabbi Grunfeld, Dr. Sholom Springer, Rabbi Avrohom Hassan, and Yitzchok Silkin.

They called their seminar “Challenge” — and for several years, the formula worked well. Their audience comprised intelligent professionals — doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Their lectures were sophisticated, well-delivered, and contemporary. They tackled such subjects as the conflict between science and religion and the role of halachah in the modern world.

But as Rabbi Grunfeld notes, “What works for one dor doesn’t work for the next.” The profile of their participants has changed over the years. Where people were originally seeking answers to philosophical questions, today they’re looking for answers on relationship issues: maintaining marriages and bringing up children.

“Torah miShamayim was once a magnet,” he observes, “but people are not interested in that now when they start out.”

Why does he think attitudes have changed so much? His response is swift and unequivocal.

“Because we’re in a dot-com generation. First of all, people’s connection to the past, to grandparents and tradition, is much weaker. In addition, people today are tied to the Internet, their children are tied to the Internet. There are so many distractions that it’s very hard to pry them away, to get them to focus. There’s a lot of pleasure-seeking. Also, people are very busy making parnassah: husbands and wives are working, and they don’t have time to think. And they’re very involved in bringing up their children; today it’s very hard to bring up children.

“When people give themselves time and space to think — and we give them that space — they can ask themselves where they are going and where they want their children to go. When they begin to learn, they see the beauty. We bring them to seminars, show them Shabbos. It’s a combination of coming to shiurim, hearing genuine Torah hashkafah, and seeing the lifestyle of a Torah Jew, which makes them want to begin a journey.”

Rabbi Grunfeld doesn’t like to tout miracle stories, but he does admit that sometimes the results of the decision to start a journey are dramatic. He tells of one couple who had been childless for ten years — and the husband himself was a top medical specialist. At a seminar, they learned about taharas hamishpachah, and, after much soul-searching, decided to change their lifestyle. Within a month of taking on the halachos, the woman discovered she was expecting.

In another incident, a couple who owned a factory decided to become shomer Shabbos. About a week before Shavuos, Rabbi Grunfeld received a frantic phone call from the man, who was shocked to have just discovered the existence of the Shavuos holiday, which he had never heard of before. But he had already arranged a stand at an exhibition scheduled for Yom Tov. If he didn’t go, he would lose a substantial deposit, as well as the potential business connections. What should he do?

“I was in a real dilemma,” Rabbi Grunfeld recalls. “As a rav, I couldn’t tell him to go, but if I told him not to go, he could end up resenting Yiddishkeit.”

He advised him not to go. Some time later, the man telephoned Rabbi Grunfeld, amazed. “He told me that he had received an order for an item that hadn’t sold well and had been lying around in his warehouse. The order was for the exact quantity he had left, and the profit he earned covered his entire deposit.”

Today, Seed sends young couples into United Synagogue communities, and, in conjunction with the shuls, they provide a range of activities for the community, such as explanatory beginner shul services and shiurim. So when families return enthused from a seminar, there is a support structure waiting.

A Good Joke

As a seasoned speaker, Rabbi Grunfeld has honed his oratory skills over years to pull in his audiences. “Humor is a very important aspect of my speaking,” he says. “I try to engage with my audience by not being that formal. I’ll throw out a question to elicit a response.”

He advises speakers not to read their speeches, which hampers their interaction with their listeners, and to respect their audiences, whether they are talmidei chachamim, or Torah newcomers.

“Preparation, preparation, preparation, that’s the first thing,” he counsels. “Don’t patronize. Don’t think — especially in the world of kiruv — that because your audience may know less than you, you can get away with anything. Structure your speech well, with a beginning, middle, and end, and with good content.”

He never fails to invoke his favorite character, “little old Mrs. Cohen,” who’s busy “knitting away for all she’s worth, her needles going clickety-clack, clickety-clack.” When Mrs. Cohen sees an advertisement for a study course in a mystical Eastern religion, she signs up, and for the entire six-month course sits at the back of the lecture hall, clickety-clacking away, baffling students.

Astoundingly, Mrs. Cohen passes the first course, and then the second, and is eventually granted the chance of a lifetime: to travel to Tibet with an elite few, and come face to face with the devout guru himself. She clickety-clacks her way through the arduous trek, shuffles for hours in a line that snakes down the mountainside, and is finally escorted into the guru’s tent.

At last, Mrs. Cohen puts down her knitting needles. Looking up into the guru’s face, she utters three short words: “Sheldon, come home.”

The audience laughs, but the message pricks. Are our people exploring the richness of Yiddishkeit before chasing smoke and incense elsewhere?

Rabbi Grunfeld makes use of his vibrant personality to connect with people, but not all people are extroverts. Is it true, as some organizations suggest, that anyone can do kiruv?

A long silence follows and he rubs his hand over his face, thinking. “Professionally or unprofessionally? It’s a different question.” The professional kiruv worker, he explains, is trained to deal with difficult questions, but the ordinary Jew, who might interact with non-frum colleagues, can engage in kiruv by example.

He believes that everyone — skilled or not, gregarious or not — has something to share. Inviting people into one’s home is a powerful attraction for those who have never been inside a Torah home. “A Torah lifestyle — that means a stable, warm, mitzvahdige home, which families are prepared to invite people into — is itself a role model.”

And he points out that people raised in a Torah environment possess a valuable commodity — knowledge. “You don’t even realize the wealth of knowledge that you have on everyday matters. Tutors are far more knowledgeable than the people they’re learning with.”

But what about the fear of being faced with questions they cannot answer? “Never try to give an answer which is patently forced,” Rabbi Grunfeld advises. “There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘I don’t know and I’ll get back to you.’ People will respect you for it and psychologically they’ll feel much better, because they’ve asked you something that you don’t know, so it makes them feel more of an equal. But for the philosophical questions, like tzaddik v’ra lo, even if you have an answer, sometimes it takes a professional to present it in a manner that appeals to the secular mindset.”

Is there anyone who should not do kiruv? “Somebody who has no love for Klal Yisrael. You need to have a passion to help Klal Yisrael. A feeling that there’s a fire out there, that there’s a whole section of Klal Yisrael who have no idea of Torah and mitzvos. If that doesn’t hurt you ... then it’s not for you.”

There’s another crucial aspect: “[Your feelings] have to be genuine; they can’t be put on. I don’t feel patronizing toward the people who come to Seed. I look at every Yid as precious. They’re wonderful people, who’ve never had the privilege of a Jewish education. I don’t look at myself as better than them ... I wouldn’t be better than them if I was in their situation.”

Straddling the Fence

Kiruv activists often struggle with a dichotomy: they straddle two diametrically opposite worlds, trying to maintain their yeshivishe values, while interacting with an entrenched secular culture.

“I retain who I am by keeping my contacts with the yeshivah world,” Rabbi Grunfeld reflects. “I have a chavrusa with a gevaldige talmid chacham. I’m very much tied to the yeshivah world in terms of my hashkafah and my connections. That’s the way I want to be, and that’s the way I’ve brought up my children.”

He sees no conflict between his stance and the world he works in. To him, it’s about upholding your principles. “It’s not a stira, not a contradiction, because you don’t have to compromise. People respect you for what you are, as long as you show that you care about others, and you’re genuinely concerned for their welfare. They want to hear more. They see something in genuine Yiddishkeit that they know they’re lacking.”

After three decades devoted to kiruv, Rabbi Grunfeld must have seen his share of challenges. What keeps him going through the tough times?

“Two things. First, the feeling of success: I know we’ve made a huge difference to thousands of families, living all over the world today. My nachas, my sipuk hanefesh, comes from going to Torahdige chasunahs of the children of people we first introduced to Yiddishkeit. And secondly, the knowledge that out there, there’s still a whole world of people who don’t know. Whatever we’ve done, it’s still only a drop in the ocean. Today, people are assimilating in the UK at the rate of 40 to 50 percent. We’re losing enormous numbers of people. How can we sit idly by?”

He credits his parents with modeling the principles that drive him. He was brought up, he says, in a home devoted to the klal. His father, Mr. Morle Grunfeld z”l, a German refugee, was a beloved teacher and headmaster. Gentle and patient, all his life he taught and inspired his pupils to reach for Torah and yiras Shamayim. “My father’s students tell me until today that they still have in front of them an image of my father saying Selichos on Rosh Chodesh Elul in Hasmonean School. He made an indelible impression on them.”

His mother, Mrs. Lola Grunfeld yblch”t, also a refugee and formerly a professional physiotherapist, is still busy with numerous chesed projects. “Even today, at nearly 90, she can’t stop giving things to people. She’s got a smile and a warmth, a personality and a vibrancy, and she’s universally loved.”

And of course, there’s his life’s partner, Ayala. Mrs. Grunfeld is short, warm, and motherly, with hints of South Africa in her voice. His respect for her is unmistakable. “My wife,” he says deliberately, “is a solid rock. For the first 18 years of Seed, I worked from Gateshead because I wanted to have that anchor. I commuted nearly every week to London and stayed there most of the week, and my wife cared for our 11 children. That was an agreement between us. And she’s been at my side always. For me, she’s been the anchor, the stabilizing force of my life.”

While it’s evident that Mrs. Grunfeld is a strong partner in her husband’s work, Rabbi Grunfeld has always been firm that her role not be “as a front-line professional. And that’s the way we wanted it, because we were able to bring up our children al pi Torah and mitzvos — and that’s because of her.”

Today all the Grunfelds’ 11 children are married and raising Torah families in Eretz Yisrael, Gateshead, and Manchester.

The Grunfelds have hosted hundreds of people for Shabbos, and Rabbi Grunfeld highlights an unexpected kiruv tool. “My wife is a brilliant cook, and you know, very often, you get to people’s hearts through their stomachs. She’s also an excellent role model. People look up to her, they watched how she interacted with the children, how she interacts with them, in a very eidel way. She has this very regal, quiet way of dealing with people, and she’s mekarev by example. You don’t always need to be noisy in kiruv.”

With a wry grin, he describes his role today as “elder statesman,” noting that while he still runs the organization as founder and still raises the funds, Rabbi Malcolm Herman is responsible for the day-to-day management. “He’s much more on the ground. I’m old Seed, he’s new Seed.”

Elder statesman or no, it’s obvious that Rabbi Grunfeld still has an enormous amount to give. And while one would wish that after 30 years his role would become redundant, until Mashiach comes it looks like there will be no letting up for Rabbi Grunfeld, Rabbi Herman, and their dedicated team.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 388)