Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Popular subjects among young English speaking Jews

B"H

Yom Kippur is over and I hope that everyone of you is going to have an awesome year.
I myself participated, as almost every year, in the AISH HaTorah programme in Jerusalem's Old City. A litvishe service run by different Rabbis and sponsored by Jeff Seidel's Jewish Student Information Center as well as by the Heritage House.

So far the sponsor commercial ! :-) 

I have been participating in this for the past ten years and, although it may sound simple and for beginners, most of the time I enjoyed it. Probably because of various classes given during the service by Rabbi Yaakov Marcus (women's seminary "Neve Yerushalaim") on the top floor of the AISH fleishige diningroom.

Of course, the main purpose of this programme is getting young Jews (mostly Anglos) into religious programmes and some brainwashing is definitely there. Nevertheless, according to what I experience, most young Jews participating are very well able to decide for themselves how far the "washing" is reaching and influencing them.

Last Leil Yom Kippur (Sunday night), after the "Kol Nidre" service and Maariv (evening prayer) we, again, walked upstairs for a "Question & Answer" class. Anyone could ask Rabbi Marcus any questions about Judaism. Not too deep, as the Rabbi has his agenda and topics he knows: Outreach and Brainwashing !

First almost none of the at least 30 participants in the class dared to ask but then someone started with a question about converts to Judaism. I was tremendously surprised how much this subject moved most of the participants who were mainly from the US or Australia.
After a short while, another topic came up: Intermarriage.

What is a kosher conversion ?
Of course, an Orthodox one according to Halacha.
What if a convert later on decides to become secular ? Is he / she still Jewish when he / she had a kosher (Orthodox) conversion ?
Yes, he / she is still Jewish.

Why are Jews not allowed to intermarry ?
Because G - d created Jews and Gentiles with different sould and different purposes in life. When a Jew marries a Gentile, the two different souls are entirely unable to connect ! It just doesn't work although the marriage may be a happy one. However, something is always missing because the two different souls will NEVER get together !

It was very obvious that those young Anglos in their early 20ies were extremely interested in those two subjects and Orthodox communities including Chabad abroad should put lots of emphasis on explaining much more than they may have done in the past.

1 comment:

  1. The thing about the different souls for Jews and gentiles is from the Tanya n'est pas? I thought that was what the Alter Rebbe was arrested for.

    In which case it's surprising how much the idea has entered the mainstream of non-hasidic ultra-orthodoxy.

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