No Room for Doubt

Around nine years ago, after I had written a column about the then-newly appointed president of Yale University, a descendant of Rav Chaim Volozhiner, I received a call from his sister, who, along with another brother, is now Torah-observant.

She wanted me to know that although Yale’s president wasn’t fully observant like his siblings, he maintained a connection to Jewish practice and participated in weekly family conference calls to say Tehillim for an ill family member. Most of all, she wanted me to know that besides being her brother,

in a different way, he is your brother too.  Do you remember standing with him at Har Sinai?  Hashem doesn’t give up on us.  It is easy enough to look at someone being promoted in the secular press as a “hero” of non-Torah life and assume he has no inner calling to aspire spiritually.  Indeed, he affectionately uses our term to refer to himself as “not-yet frum.”  I would like to hope that teshuvah is not beyond his reach.  The more difficult task would be to feel heartbroken over the possible loss of a member of the Jewish family, and to use that sadness as motivation to bring him close with love, respect, and patience.

My conversation with her made me realize that although what I had written was factually correct and mildly stated, what did not come through was that he’s not just Yale’s president, but also a fellow Yid, whose distance from Torah should pain me. I noted at the time that there’s more to writing like a Jew than just complying with the halachos of lashon hara; there are also the feelings that come through subtly between the lines.