What’s Pew To You?

 Is the recent Pew survey of American Jewry of any value to Orthodox Jews other than as a window into the dire straits in which our nonobservant brethren find themselves? More specifically ought this study be cause for any sort of self-reflection regarding our own religious lives as it has been for at least some Jews beyond our world? I believe it should be but for a reason you aren’t likely to find in any of the scores of essays addressing the Pew findings.

Consider an article Dennis Prager wrote recently in Los Angeles’s Jewish Journal to explain why “Orthodoxy is prevailing and … the non-Orthodox denominations are diminishing.” He lists numerous reasons:

Orthodoxy makes more religious demands on its followers … the more Orthodox one is the more he or she is likely to live among Orthodox Jews … the great majority of Orthodox Jews send their children to Orthodox Jewish day schools … more Orthodox Jews marry; they marry younger and they have more children than non-Orthodox Jews….[A]s if all of the above were not enough Orthodox Jews believe G-d chose the Jews and is the ultimate author of the Torah [and] it is inconceivable that Judaism can long survive among Jews who do not believe that G-d created the world took the Jews out of Egypt and gave the Torah….

Despite Prager’s admirable attempt to explain why Orthodoxy is flourishing he makes two mistakes. First he implies that belief in a G-d Who runs the world’s affairs and authored the Torah is just another reason among many for Orthodoxy’s success. In fact it is the singular reason from which all the others flow.