I was genuinely surprised by a number of the responses in the first issue of Klal Perspectives a new online journal. The symposium questions asked contributors to identify the major challenges facing the Orthodox community. I expected that they would focus on practical challenges — e.g. the overwhelming financial burdens on Orthodox parents the shortage of affordable housing the shidduch crisis the overconcentration of Torah learning in Lakewood disaffected youth.
Yet Chaim Dovid Zwiebel executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America and the closest thing to a “policy wonk” in the Orthodox community dwelt eloquently instead on “the increasing numbers from across the Orthodox spectrum … who feel no meaningful connection to Hashem His Torah or even His people.” He made no attempt to suggest that the problem is limited to any particular segment of the Orthodox community or that it is confined to youth. Indeed he explicitly rejected both suggestions.
And Reb Gedaliah Weinberger the chairman of the board of Agudath Israel and the moving force behind a number of public policy initiatives — e.g. wedding takanos and professional training for avreichim in Lakewood in need of parnassah — made a similar point. He identified the central challenge of contemporary Orthodoxy as the need to create a community whose thoughts feelings and actions are fully shaped by the Torah and detailed the many forces working against achieving that goal.
I am sympathetic to both essays. The true measure of any Torah community is the degree to which the members of that community derive sustenance from the Torah and are shaped by it. If that connection is strong all other challenges can be dealt with and if it is not then solutions to the other problems are beside the point.
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