Are We Still a Light Unto the Nations?

For a moment, the Jewish reader takes pride as Goethe recognizes our potential as a People.

Meanwhile, in reality, it seems like every other month a new expose is being published about someone eschewing their Orthodoxy. How is it that the non-Jew looks in and marvels at the Jewish people, while practitioners within bristle to escape? Is one right, and the other missing something?

I think it was Goethe who missed the mark.

Yes. We personify creative energy. We are perpetual. But. There is no such thing as an insignificant Jew. Every single one of us is even more perpetual, more influential than he understood, making us even more prone to unraveling from within.

I recently attended a talk given by Dr. Rona Novick, the Dean of the YU Azrieli Graduate School of Education and Administration. She reminded the audience that at about the pre-teen years, children are hyper-sensitive to adult hypocrisy. If we want to our children and students to accept our messages, we must practice what we preach.

For the Jewish post-adolescent growing up in an ‘ultra-Orthodox’ yeshivah community, the marks are set pretty high for Jewish integrity and character. We grow up inundated with lessons that our forefathers and Jewish leaders in Tanach were above reproach, bordering on infallibility- and if we question, it is we who do not understand. Our leaders’ words are psak: literally stop. The general public cannot question them further. The problem is, each one of us embodies perpetual energy. Asking one of us to stop thinking and feeling and reacting is against our nature. And then the unthinkable happens: children becoming adults see how fallible the people held as communal role models can actually be. And instead of being able to question or worse, call anyone out – those role models are protected and their words defended. And as the reality of those role models becomes clear – the veracity of the ‘saintliness’ of our forebears and the truth of our teachings – all come into question.

When the groupthink of a community hurts you, a significant Jew, while saying it values Torah, Shabbos, ahavas Yisrael, kiddish Hashem- you know something isn’t right. You can’t help but feel it no matter how hard you try to justify it intellectually. In fact, you recognize hypocrisy or feel betrayed. Some people in this position live with it quietly, while others leave screaming and shouting.

They say you can never judge a man until you’ve walked in his shoes. I’m familiar with this pair of shoes – the ones worn by people who want to leave Orthodoxy.

My story is different from most. I was born in Korea and adopted by a single Jewish mother who was not Orthodox, but growing in her observance. After converting at age 11 and attending a community day school in Dallas, TX for four years, I entered a Bais Yaakov in 8th grade.

When my mother first applied, my sister and I were rejected, because the school didn’t think we’d fit in as a single-parent household. My mother holds two graduate degrees and helped pass US legislation in the mid 70s to bring my sister and me into the US as our adoptive single mother – she wasn’t falling for that. Of course, the school was convinced otherwise, and the administrator graciously apologized.

I found my place there. I was popular, a good student, had many friends, started my share of harmless trouble, and my high school career was largely typical. Upon applying to seminary, I included my background as an adoptee from Korea in my application. I thought it would help me stand out in a good way. On the day of the interviews for my seminary of choice, I confidently walked into the classroom. Instead of questions about my knowledge of Tanach or my extracurriculars, the interview began with a story of a young boy who had been adopted and converted as a minor, who upon Bar Mitzvah chose not to be Jewish. “Didn’t he make a good decision?”

The conversation continued into my poor choice of trying to get into her seminary by trying to flaunt this difference. My friends were down the hall thinking I must be doing great, because she had kept me so long in conversation. Instead, I ran out crying and confused.

I got over her and assumed she was just one jerk in a sea of people who accepted me. Then it came time for me to date.

My friends were going to shadchanim. Often, they’d go in small groups, so I tagged along with one of my friends to the local yeshivah shadchan. After quite a while of conversation between my friend and the shadchan, it became quite obvious that I was being completely ignored. My friend even began mentioning that perhaps the shadchan might want to speak to me, as we were wrapping up. After a polite, “what are you looking for?” that was the end of my conversation, completely unlike that of my friend’s. Again – just another individual. Then it happened again, in another shadchan’s office. I stopped going to shadchanim, even though, supposedly, this was THE way to meet the type of people I wanted to date.

One afternoon, sitting in my friend’s house, her mother mentioned, “Oh, did you hear there’s a new Asian Jewish guy who moved to town?” Of course I had. “Why don’t you go out with him?” While one of my best friends knew him and was pretty sure we weren’t compatible, from what she had told me, he sounded like he might actually be compatible with this woman’s daughter. So I said, “Actually, I thought he might be good for your daughter.” Then she said, “You know I love you, but I wouldn’t want someone like you in my family.” I chuckled politely, because what else do you do when an adult you’ve known for years punches you in the stomach?

While many in the Jewish community will point to the sometimes obvious dysfunction in the authors’ of these memoirs lives as the true cause of their disaffection for Yiddishkeit, I can’t help but wonder if having looked around and seen overwhelming, accessible warmth, integrity, and beauty elsewhere in their community, they wouldn’t have just left their bad situation and not their community. Finding the personal strength to stay when you know you’re not welcome is not easy. When you look around and people you thought you knew or were upheld as ‘the best of the best’ weren’t accepting you or betraying principles they espoused – it is not rational to stick around. Most of all, if they’re hurting you or people you love, of course you want to leave.

I asked my friend to ask her rabbi father whether someone could go back on their conversion if they’d converted before Bas Mitzvah. No dice. My intellectual investment at that point was too great to believe dropping everything wasn’t without true, spiritual impact. Plus, I couldn’t help wondering why Hashem sent a single Jewish woman on an uphill battle against a prohibitive social climate and legislation to adopt my then deaf sister and bring her thousands of miles back to the US, later to become observant Jews. She actually hadn’t intended on adopting two children – I was an unexpected surprise. During those years of disaffection, it actually felt really unfair – and completely accidental. Maybe I wasn’t really meant to be here. But, I stayed in.

Now, I recognize fully that a large swath of people I consider ‘my community’ don’t fully accept me nor will they accept my children – not based on halachah, but on small-mindedness and undeveloped ahavas Yisrael. I also recognize that they will not even recognize that they don’t accept us or that this as a short-coming – and feel that I should accept this as normal. It still hurts. It will definitely hurt even more if and when my children experience it. So, I bristle at the vast amount of attention focused on the minutia of halachic technicalities of ritual practice – and not on scrupulous dinei mamanos, onaas dvarim, ahavas Yisrael, and the like. I am not satisfied with our communal religious priorities. But I don’t want to get stuck in that space. I know my priorities; I love being here and a part of the Jewish community. Why should I lose out because of others’ shortcomings; I want to stay and help improve the space.

I’m not here begrudgingly, I’m here proudly. I recognize that we’re ALL fallible. BUT. Our standards are high and our potential is vast. Including my own. If I step out, just shrug my shoulders, or become complacent with the niche I’ve carved out just for myself – I’m shortchanging myself, my friends and family, the entire Jewish community, and the world. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh.

I have not stepped out of the community, because I want to be part of the conversation. In 2001, on the morning after 9/11, I delivered the world’s largest Rosh Hashanah card to Israel from 40,000 Jewish children on six continents. In 2006, I designed a project that had 5000 Jews send Rosh Hashanah honey and cards to 5000 non-observant Jews through Project Inspire. In 2015, I helped 19 Jewish outreach organizations raise $1.36M in 24 hours.

On June 2nd, I’ll be running an online Giving Day that will invite the entire Jewish community to help Jewish Chesed organizations raise $4M in 24 hours online through MillionsforChesed. These beautiful organizations ensure that when we, our friends, or neighbors are in need, our community is there to help. In this Giving Day – ALL levels of donations are critical and impactful. Each organization will have three big matchers to match all the crowdfunded donations, effectively quadrupling all donations, but it’s all or nothing. If the community doesn’t meet their total goal in 24 hours, none of the donations will be processed.  As a Giving Day: ALL organizations must meet their goals, or none will collect. They become completely interdependent – as we all truly are. The model is Jewish: it’s areyvus, and it’s exponentially more profitable for organizations than any other crowdfunding model, which could help all kinds of non-profits improve on their efficiency and fundraising. However, this level of areyvus: all for one or none for all, I would never have dreamed setting as a condition in any other community. Deep down it’s there, we just need more practice.

But my greatest contribution to the Jewish community to date: my three gorgeous, well-loved, creative-genius children, ages 8, 5, and 2. I can’t wait to see how they contribute.

I would not be the same without the Jewish community, and it would not be the same without me. When it works, it’s so sweet. It’s worth the uphill battle. That goes for every Jew. Every Jew who sits next to me is a world of unlimited potential. They may not look like it – I sure don’t. But whatever their shortcoming – even if it’s one that hurts me – never discount their value to the Jewish community or to you. That disapproval must remain directed solely at actions – and recognize that it is just one part of a person- the not important part. True, it should be worked on. More important: accept and encourage the rest of who they are. Encourage every single Jew you know to excel in whatever he or she is doing that is Jewish or Godly, even if they’re not excelling in “Jewish” areas. And of course, not everyone will do this or even agree. But for those of us who do see and understand it- then we have to be active in encouraging this potential in ourselves first, then our community. Each of us is great. We are perpetual energy. We can be a light unto the nations – and our own nation, but it begins with a single spark.

“Each individual has the capacity to build communities and endow communities with life… so that every community member becomes a source of inspiration.” R’ Menachem Mendel Schneerson.