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I have to say that I have some personal concerns as to the direction of modern judaism.
There are always fringe movements. The conservative and reform movements take up a large portion of American Jewry.
That said, I was once in the reform hands for many years before I learned and gravitated in a Torah direction. During that time, there were no. Read that. NO. Torah examples in my life.
Not one.
There were amiable people and righteous upright leaders.
There were friends and relatives and all the likings of a modern jewish community.
But there were no torah leaders.
I did not know a single torah leader until I started looking into reading Artscroll and Feldheim books and reading now the internet jewish archives.
This is a very big problem.
Today there are large jewish communities of Torah orientated Jews.
The orthodox are a mainstay in many of the large towns.
But what is the drive for kiruv?
Where are the Torah leaders in our fringe communities?
Why do no Jewish leaders integrate and shine their light on the children whose lights are really only dim at best?
And what about these insular communities? They do not in any way touch the lives of the other people in the remainder of the world on a usual basis for the most part.
We dress differently and refuse to don modern garbs and lifestyles such as television sets and computers and the like.
I am not saying that we are evil or wicked, but I sense that there is more that can be done.
Of course our people are a light to the nations. But does our light shine into the dungeons of the human mind either?
Just a thought for this 5 of Tammuz.
Be a Light.
I don’t really understand the problem. Are you asking why there are no orthodox Rabbis in communities that don’t have an orthodox population?
Or are you asking why there are no orthodox Rabbis in communities that do have an orthodox population?
basket of radishes, maybe this is something that you would like to implement?
There are many, many kiruv movements, but unfortunately there are quite a few communities that are still overlooked.
Between your question and Another name’s answer we can paint the full picture.
Reformed and Conservative Jews make up the greater percentage of Jewish people by a huge proportion. The Orthodox in comparison are tiny. How can you expect such a small population to infiltrate into every single community that might have Conservative and/or Reformed Jews in such a magnitude as to actually impact the community?
basket of radishes
The truth is other than Lubavitch shluchim (who were told by their Rebbe Zatzal to do so) there arent many people who would sacrifice to that extent to go do outreach in an out of the way place in the boondocks. Its extremely difficult to raise a family in these places and most frum Jews want to live in a city that has a vibrant Jewish community. Another point is that not everyone is dynamic to that extent that they can go to some place and just flip the place over and do Kiruv on a large scale.
If you want a better or more knowledgeable answer, call up Aish, Ohr Sameiach Gateways or Project Inspire and ask them. Im sure they will be able to answer you.
I assume that it is the job of the “Torah Nucleus” (term I learned today) to infiltrate the rest of the Jewish world.
Actually its been the way of Yeshivos for a long time to set up shop and let anyone that is interested come to them rather than send their students out.
Today there are different opinions on this. My Rosh yeshivah was of the opinion that it is more important to remain within the walls of the Beis Midrash rather than face teh dangers of the secular world.
His father-in-law Rav Wolbe felt that everyone should take something like one year out of their studies to do kiruv.
As WIY said, its not that simple to just pack up a family and their are other considerations that have to be weighed against the doing kiruv, such as the environment for your children that is conducive to Torah.
As it says in Pirkei Avos, “exile yourself to a place of Torah.”
i didint get to read what everyone wrote but basket of radishes- all the way! we just got to recognize that aspect about ourselves. we got to walk around with that feeling,nd demenstrat it through our every action nd speech etc.
“have an orthodox jewish friend, ideally.
Invite someone over to dinner.
Discuss Torah.
Have programming.
Invite and disperse information.”
A couple of problems:
A – Not everyone is cut out to do kiruv. Some might get influenced by the frei instead of them influencing them to be frum.
B – We have the Internet today. If anybody is looking for answers, they can always do research and they’ll get the right anwers. But going out and try getting frei Yidden to become frum, is a bit extreme IMO. Simply because many of them stay frei and you just made them sin bemeizid (knowing they’re sinning).
If any frei yid or non-Jew would question me about my beliefs, I’d be more than glad to answer them. I think that if anybody is really looking for the truth, they will find it.
“Where are the Torah leaders in our fringe communities?”
There in fact have been some pretty amazing Torah leaders in ‘fringe’ communities. Rabbi Eliezer Silver, Rabbi Ephraim Greenblatt, Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, Rabbi Norman Lamm, Rabbi Yaakov Yisroel Twersky, and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik are some that come to mind who have served communities with few observant Jews. There are others.
However, there aren’t many young rabbis today who are willing to leave the big Torah centers in New York, Monsey, or Lakewood. Today only Chabad shlichim and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah graduates seem to be willing to go to where there aren’t frum communities.
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