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| Rav Malkiel Kotler, Rosh HaYeshiva of Beth Medrash Gavoha |
He went through the
system and no doubt had absorbed the attitudes espoused in those circles about the outside world. Which
amount to insulating yourself from external influences as much as possible.
Those influences are deemed mostly negative and to be avoided. The addendum to
that is that non Jews have views that are anathema to Judaism and are therefore
to be avoided as well - as bad influences on us.
But R’ Yaakov’s experiences once he left the cocoon of the Lakewood environment provided him with an entirely different perspective on what non
Jews are really like. This is a theme I have touched upon many times. And it is
a theme R’ Yaakov has written about before – as he did once again in a recent Jewish Press article. And once again - he is critical of the kind of insularity he sees in
his alma mater. His life experiences counter the impression he received as a
student in Lakewood and literally ten of thousands – perhaps even hundreds of
thousand students get there. The vast majority of whom will likely never leave
that cocoon - or if they do enter another one like it.
R’ Yaakov rightly notes a subtle seemingly innocuous change
in the Lakewood of today that did not exist when he was a student there as
little as 13 years ago - as a symbol of this mentality. Buildings that were
built since his years there have mostly Hebrew with very little English. Older buildings had substantially more English.
Apparently the old guard felt it was important for those outside the confines
of its insular world to know what Lakewood is all about. Today, they apparently
don’t care. True – R’Yaakov points out – that Lakewood is mostly populated by
its Yeshivaleit who can read the Hebrew. But they are not the only ones there. Why,
he asks, does Lakewood want to hide what they do from the non Jews?
It is in my view a symptom of their desire to be so insular
that they go out of their way to even address the outside world. The message is:
We don’t really care about you and your values. And you don’t care about us and
our values. Just leave us alone and we‘ll leave you alone.
R’ Yaakov’s point is that once one is outside the Daled Amos
of the Yeshiva world one finds that non Jews do care about our values. And we
ought not ignore that. As I have said many times – as recently as last Friday,
we have an obligation to be a light unto the nations. That means trying to
influence our surrounding culture and not simply withdraw from it for
insularity purposes. Here is how he puts it:
A connection to God through learning Torah is the pathway afforded to Jews. But is a connection to God something only Jews should experience? If we have a Godly connection and see other people struggling in that regard, should we not share it?
The culture is indeed guided in large part by an
entertainment medium that is increasingly distancing itself form the moral
precepts of the Torah. A Torah that used to be a part of an America that valued
its moral teachings in what is popularly referred to as the Judeo-Christian
ethic. That ethic is slowly disappearing - giving way to a more liberal
humanistic ethic.
We who value and honor Torah the most by adhering to its
Halachic and should not be withdrawing from the world. We should be engaging
with it and trying to influence our non Jewish citizens as much as possible to continue
valuing ethics and morality that the Torah teaches us to be the right way for
all of mankind to live. A morality that is generally contained in the Shiva
Mitzvos Bnei Noach. Allowing this country to ‘define deviancy down’ (as the
great Patrick Moynihan once said) without any attempt by us to influence it is done at our own peril.
We Centrists already know this. And we engage with the
world. The left wing of Orthodoxy has made an art of this - taking it to
dangerous extremes in my view. But the right wing has taken the other extreme
by increasing its insularity to the point of not even wanting to identify its
buildings in English. This may seem trivial. But I agree with R’ Yaakov. This
is a symptom of the dangerous path referred to by British Chief Rabbi Lord
Jonathan Sacks.
And what was the response to Rabbi Sacks? He was blasted by
the right for even suggesting it by Agudath Israel. They denied this to be the
case by saying how involved they are in public affairs via their lobby in
Washington. They accused him of wanting to undermine their protective layer of
insularity and disparaging the Yeshiva world and disparaging the Charedi Torah for
it as being dangerous to Judaism
But as I said the few community activists that are involved in
such lobbying are few. The majority of their number are told to insulate as much
as possible. And this is reinforced subliminally by insular innovations like no
longer having English identifiers on their new buildings.
I am glad that R’ Yaakov has learned the truth about the
world outside of ‘Lakewood’. He has learned from experience which is a lot
better than learning from lectures given by the insular mentors he had in
Lakewood… mentors that are still there and whose message is becoming
increasingly more insular.
And yet, I fear that R’ Yaakov, and Chief Rabbi Sacks are
waging an uphill battle. The tide against them is too great to overcome. They
have both experienced the real world and have come to a similar conclusion. But
how many people who attend Lakewood will ever be able to have the ‘hands-on’ experiences
that will teach them the truth? The only truth the vast majority of Lakewood students
will see is the truth they hear from their mentors in Lakewood. And that means
that the fastest growing segment of Judaism will have the least amount of
influence upon the culture that will define the country. And as Chief Sacks so
accurately pointed out, we do so at our own peril.
