One of the advantages of a weekly column is the opportunity to revisit past columns and add correctives as required by further reflection. So I’d like to return once again to Rabbi Ilan Feldman’s important essay in the new issue of Klal Perspectives.
My concern last week was that we not fall into the mindset of Israeli Leftists forever writing mea culpas about how if Israel were just a bit more forthcoming more understanding the Palestinians would gladly live with us in peace — a conclusion incidentally refuted by every public opinion poll of Palestinians. In the telling of those on the left the Palestinians bear no responsibility for the lack of peace.
In a similar vein the Torah community should not engage in too much self-flagellation over the rapid assimilation of American Jewry as if every American Jew would gladly become Torah observant if we were only a little bit better and more welcoming. In particular I contested Rabbi Feldman’s claim that kiruv today “must be done in isolation from the established Orthodox community.”
Au contraire I asserted “Our communities are the greatest untapped resource for kiruv.… That is the message that Torah Jews need to hear.” As if on cue our guest last leil Shabbos commented that despite her four years of positive involvement with the kiruv families at theUniversity ofWisconsin she would never have become fully observant but for the semester spent living in the Chicago Torah community.
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