A respected rav once asked me a very provocative question. “Why do you think it is,” he said, “that we don’t see a real mass movement of secular Jews becoming Torah observant? Or that more non-Jews don’t speak in glowing terms of the wonderful qualities of Orthodox Jews? These days, non-religious Jews and non-Jews come into regular and often close contact with frum Jews, so why hasn’t the word gone forth about all the tremendous qualities a Torah Jew is supposed to exhibit – how honest we are with others, how God-fearing and patient and generous and kind?”
Before I could even attempt a response, the rav answered his own question. ”I’ll tell you why,” he said. “Because the outside world doesn’t see any of those things. The bikur cholim societies and other such praiseworthy groups operate within and for the Jewish community – and in many if not most cases strictly within the Orthodox Jewish community. So what the outside world sees are the bad things – the financial scandals that plague our community; the lack of derech eretz and menshlichkeit one regularly encounters on our streets; the reckless driving; the increasing incidents of domestic abuse and drug use.”
The rav summed up: “As a result of all this, the collective image that Orthodox Jews present to the outside world – to both Jews and non-Jews – is, for the most part, something we should not be proud of. Most of the good we do we keep hidden from others – almost defiantly so – while the negatives are there for everyone to see.
“How many non-frum Jews and non-Jews ever get to see the beautiful side of frumkeit? If more of them did, Torah Jews would be viewed with a combination of respect, affection, and envy. Do you think that’s how we’re viewed today?”
Yaakov Feldman
(Via E-Mail)
Lack Of Derech Eretz
Reading Avi Ciment’s article, I couldn’t help but think about how some things never change. A few years ago I attended a concert in Brooklyn headlined by several stars of religious Jewish music and geared to an Orthodox audience. I took my then-ten-year-old son to the concert as a reward for his doing so well in school in the subject of middot.
Well, my son sure was taught a lesson in middot that night – one I wish he never learned. Nearly a half hour after the concert’s scheduled start, the hall was still about half empty. My son looked around the auditorium and asked me why so few people were there. I told him I didn’t know.
About 40 minutes after the announced starting time, people began streaming in and continued doing so for a good half hour after that. Many of these latecomers talked loudly among themselves, and if they spotted a friend in the audience they did not hesitate to stop, chat, and block the view of the people sitting in their seats.
A mother with five children – two of whom were too young to be at this concert – had the seats directly in front of me. It took her at least ten minutes of very loud persuading to finally get her children to stay seated. Then she promptly started speaking on her cell phone. Does the word chutzpah come to mind? When I asked her to please stop talking on her phone, she had the nerve to give me a dirty look.
There was precious little derech eretz on display that evening. Besides people arriving late and blocking the view, cell phones were ringing constantly. My son at one point turned to me and asked, “Mommy, what happened to all these people’s middot?” What was I supposed to say to him? He learns in yeshiva about respecting others and then he sees his fellow frum Jews acting so disrespectfully to each other.