The essayist Joseph Epstein writes in the Weekly Standard of a conference at which of all the presenters he was “the only one who did not avail himself of audiovisual aids. The reason I didn’t is that I don’t have any; nor have I any wish to possess any.” One fellow speaker used a PowerPoint presentation to compare the human brain to a smartphone with accompanying “apps” for things like morality and self-preservation. Epstein observes:

One might say that is brilliant except that it is stupid. The human brain isn’t in the least like a smartphone. A smartphone doesn’t have courage isn’t capable of evil knows nothing of altruism cannot innovate or create and of that great human capacity for wondering called consciousness it is completely void.… But up there on that big screen with the speaker clicking and app-ing away for a moment or two it seemed an interesting connection. The human brain the smartphone — yeah baby it all seemed to make sense — except that it doesn’t.

During this presentation it occurred to me that audiovisual aids far from being an advance in pedagogy may well be nothing more than another form of dumbing down.… Some learning can doubtless be accomplished visually. But that it can doesn’t necessarily mean that the visual is the best way to accomplish it. The visual has its limits and they may be more extreme than devotees of the audiovisual know.

Readers of this column may have noticed a pattern here over time: the attempt to build a case against what technological advancement seems to be doing to us as individuals and as a society. That’s not at all to say there aren’t people for whom one or another aspect of the digital age has been an absolute lifesaver. There are undoubtedly those who cannot learn and thrive other than by visual means just as there may be those whose circumstances make smartphones et al an absolute necessity. And for all of us it has meant heretofore undreamed of convenience and efficiency.

The problem is that these benefits become a justification for the broad introduction of these machines into our lives and a creeping takeover begins that is not at all benign. Rather with each further foray into the brave new technological frontier we experience a loss in terms of our essential humanity and the blessings that only simple human actions and interactions confer.    

Epstein concludes with an anecdote about a talk by the late conservative thinker Irving Kristol:

The man who introduced him joked thatIrvingwas here today with his usual full panoply of audiovisual aids. Everyone in the room laughed. The joke was that Irving Kristol was the last man in the world to require audiovisual aids. He didn’t even require a note. He set out his argument with lucidity wit and undramatic but genuine force. What made a talk by Irving Kristol impressive was that when he spoke you saw a man thinking. The sight of a man or woman of high intelligence in the act of thinking — there can be no more compelling audiovisual aid. 

Frum Jews should be able to relate deeply to the scene Epstein paints. After all with our parent-to-child and rebbi-to-talmid mesorah with our celebration of seforim and shiurim we created the basis for that scene. And now slowly we’re being enticed and worn down in ways subtle and not so subtle into casting aside man for machine. Can we still summon the inner strength to push back?

CONSERVATIVES DISCOVER KIRUV The Conservative seminary’s Jack Wertheimer surveys the kiruv landscape in an essay in this month’s Commentary titled “The Outreach Revolution” referring to kiruv as a  “little-known phenomenon” — certainly true in the non-Orthodox world — involving “small platoons of Orthodox Jews … form[ing] an army of outreach”  with the “scale of their activities … staggering.”

The essay is not free of its misapprehensions and omissions. Dr. Wertheimer repeats the clichéd and factually flawed distinction whereby Modern Orthodox Jews in contrast to chareidi Jews “rigorously follow the commandments but do not seek to separate themselves from the commercial and cultural life of the country” and his thumbnail account of kiruv’s early years omits seminal developments such as the role of NCSY.

He illustrates what he sees as Chabad’s leading role in kiruv this way: “In Dallas for example an emissary has converted a former bookstore into a meeting place for Jewish singles; he finds potential participants by frequenting bars preferred by this demographic.” There’s no gainsaying Chabad’s far-reaching near-ubiquitous outreach activities over many decades. But it’s rather strange to use forays into singles bars as an example of successful kiruv in action when there are more innovative but far less dubious programs being implemented in scores of locales across the country. 

And in Dallas of all places. According to Rabbi Bentzi Epstein — cohead of the city’s DATA Kollel — since DATA’s arrival in 1992 the local frum community has grown from about 15 fully Shabbos-observant families with a single mikveh serving 20 families; and one day school enrolling 350 children almost none of whom went on to Orthodox high schools to one comprising 11 Orthodox shuls serving about 375 fully Shabbos-observant families; four mikvaos serving 300 families; and two Orthodox day schools with over 700 students almost all of whom go on to Orthodox high schools including three in Dallas itself. DATA teaches over 1 000 students each week and runs a summer camp campus and young professionals programs each with many hundreds of participants. 

Wertheimer also contrasts Chabad’s “non-result orientation” in which “any mitzvah is a positive step” with an unnamed chareidi rabbi’s exhortation to “kiruv workers that they ‘have accomplished nothing’ if the subject of outreach ‘does not go all the way.’$$$separatequote$$$” Do you know anyone who speaks that way? I don’t and apparently neither do many kiruv workers since Wertheimer himself proceeds to quote from his conversations with more than three dozen non-Chabad mekarvim all of whom described their goals in kiruv as some variant of “to increase knowledge of all Jews so they can make informed decisions” and “everyone is on a journey.” There may indeed be a variance between the kiruv philosophies of some Chabad shluchim and some non-Chabad kiruv people but it’s more nuanced than Wertheimer allows.

But much of what Wertheimer has to say is right on target. He correctly observes that the shrinking of the Conservative movement’s membership has significantly diminished a historically fertile source of potential baalei teshuvah. And conversely the galloping rate of intermarriage and the concomitant blurring of once-clear lines of Jewish lineage have also made kiruv ever more complex.

He also accurately portrays a divide that exists between those on the front lines of kiruv and some of their funders: the former view the estimated 2000 individuals who embrace mitzvah observance each year as a major accomplishment especially since kiruv is “a retail operation … requir[ing] intensive one-on-one work and the decision of a nonobservant Jew to become Orthodox often results from the combined efforts of many outreach workers in a variety of settings.” For some in the latter group however “metrics are all the rage” and they are thus “increasingly linking their largesse to quotas.”

Wertheimer writes admiringly that “a good many Jews who interact with Orthodox outreach workers see … altruism deep religious conviction a love of Jewish learning and passionate commitment to a cause ” and that “it has become an article of faith [among some non-Orthodox leaders] that Orthodox outreach is cult-like and intentionally designed to raid the non-Orthodox sectors of the Jewish community. With a few exceptions this is simply false.”

He concludes hopefully that “with the growth of the kiruv movement the American Jewish community can rely upon a new resource to complement existing religious movements synagogues and educational institutions in their collective mission to inspire Jews of all ages to draw closer to their religious tradition.”

Sounds great but I have a question for Dr. Wertheimer. As a highly informed observer of the American Jewish scene he surely reads Reform Judaism magazine. The issue that landed in the  mailboxes of Reform’s membership this month features two articles that reject the historicity of the Exodus one arguing that “revealed morality … infantilize[s] us” and “even G-d agrees that to seek truth means to break the rules ” and a third one that rejects monotheism plain and simple. So tell me again which are the movements whose mission is “to inspire Jews … to draw closer to their religious tradition ” and to which kiruv is a mere “complement”?