What is the impetus for Jews to convert to their religion?

May 11, 2018   

1. This week I remembered N. who lived in the building next to ours on Bar Giora Street in Haifa. N. was a secular kid, like 95% from our street and the red Haifa of old. We were never at N.'s house, but down in the square we got to play ball here and there. One day we suggested that N. come and pray Mincha with us. He didn't know what a "Mincha" was, we explained to him that it was a prayer. He knew what a prayer was because he was told at the "Geula" school that religious people pray. So he came with us to Mincha at the synagogue on Rashi Street, corner of Bar Giora Street, and we opened a siddur for him and told him to read. Even though at least forty years have passed since then, I remember how he stood at eighteen with his legs spread and shouted to us from time to time, "Say, is this what you should say?" Since we forgot to tell him that it was a whispered prayer, he said the entire prayer out loud, including the headings along the lines of: "And give a blessing in the summer." "In winter, dew and rain are a blessing." As much as we laughed then, we haven't cried in years. After the prayer, we went outside and saw N's father standing there. He was a full, muscular man. His face didn't bode well. To be honest, he was really angry. And here comes the strangest text we've ever encountered in our lives. "What did you do?" He addressed his son in the tone of someone who caught his child breaking into a bank. "Who gave you permission to enter the synagogue." Then he addressed us: "Why did you suddenly take him there? Who gave you permission? I forbid you to talk to him." Then he simply began to beat his son vigorously and drag him home, shouting: "Wait, wait, what will happen to you when we get home?" (as if... "I'm holding back now, but don't count on it..."). But he really couldn't hold back. Strong blows landed on the boy and he cried: "Father, enough, father, I promise I won't go to the synagogue anymore..." Some time later, we heard his cries from inside the house: "Father, I swear to you, I won't go to the synagogue." Years have passed, now Haifa is no longer red, I haven't heard a single word from M. But his cries are still preserved in my memory (and I believe in the memory of all the children who were there to this very day.) 2. And why did I remember this story this week? Because during Lag BaOmer, events were held by the Chabad movement and other movements in several cities. Various artists were invited who, during their performance, recited to children the words "Rabbi Akiva said: 'And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is a great rule in the Torah." That and "Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." This was enough for the next day to appear in the media in the State of Israel (which is for some reason called the "State of the Jews") with news reports reporting on "many parents complaining about the perfect camouflage for introducing religious content to our children." Meir Mendelovich, a resident of Kfar Saba, said in the article: "Telling people 'Amen is coming to the mall' and then exploiting this fact to get the children to go up on stage to recite verses is beside the point. It is misleading the public." "We actually have no alternative to celebrating Lag BaOmer in a positive and neutral atmosphere," claimed Hadar Graf, a resident of Ganei Tikva. While Michal Shalev Reicher, one of the leaders of the Secular Forum, said: "From past experience, events such as these are events that include religion and are not suitable for secular cities" - and added: "We call on parents from all over the country to boycott events such as these." Meanwhile, Ram Forman, chairman of the Secular Forum, summed up the affair in the media without getting confused: "I don't want them to teach Shema Yisrael here.". 3. It is important to note that an investigation by Channel 20 has proven that all the names listed above are not innocent parents, but rather activists of the "Secular Forum," an extremist anti-religious organization that is working resolutely to uproot every Jewish root in the State of Israel. (To be honest, I want to cry when I think about where we have come to. There have always been destroyers, ravagers, and educated people, but there is almost no precedent in history for non-converted Jews who sought to uproot everything. That was reserved for the Greeks, Christians, and the Inquisition; even Muslims did not seek to uproot Judaism.) The problem is that the innocent secular reader does not know that these are people who are working to uproot religion. He believes that these are innocent parents and may be convinced that perhaps this is dangerous for his children as well. The big argument is about the media that cooperates with this lie and presents these activists as concerned parents, and in general, about the very fact of raising the issue in the Land of Israel that legitimizes the uprooting of Shema Israel. But the question I would like to discuss here is what is the impulse? Why have Jews risen up in the last two hundred years who have devoted their entire lives to one thing: the uprooting of religion and Judaism? I must point out, as is already known, that they were all Ashkenazi and not from the Eastern Jewish communities. The Enlightenment did indeed harm the Eastern Jewish communities, but try to find a member of the Eastern Jewish community who fought against "Shema Yisrael" and against the observance of Torah and mitzvot, and you simply will not find one. Not one. But that is a subject of investigation in itself. What entered them? The enlighteners and destroyers of recent generations who were not content with distancing themselves from Torah and mitzvot but worked and bothered so much to convert all Jews to their religion? 4. I think the answer lies in the internal psychology of humans. In every group there are individuals who do not fit into that group and a minority within that minority who do not fit into any group. A person who does not fit into a group may suffer in it, because there is a price you have to pay to be included in the group. There are behaviors you cannot afford and there are customs you cannot afford not to practice. Now, in one moment, any person can stop this distress. How? Simply withdraw from the group. And here is the biggest problem of humans: they can hate the group and its members and its customs, but they are unable to imagine themselves outside the group. This is something that is difficult for them to bear. Call it loneliness, call it emptiness, call it a feeling of abandonment, or whatever you want to call it: it is simply difficult. The only choice they have is to try to pull as many people as possible out of the group, and if that is difficult or impossible they will try to do everything to try to destroy the group, whether by slandering it or by contacting the authorities to help disperse it, and in extreme cases even violent physical harm or the elimination of members of the group. That's how far things get. Neither will you nor I (and there are known cases of converts and apostates in all generations who have caused bloodshed and pogroms. This comes from the same places we just described.) 5. If you like, this principle explains the entire phenomenon of "leftism," "Lapidianism," and "pro-Arabism" that permeates significant parts of Jewish society. These are people who have distanced themselves from Judaism and the observance of the commandments, and some have never connected to it. Some came from countries where there was no connection to Judaism. Like, for example, Russia during the communist years or from among the neo-Nazis in Hungary. The ancestors of some of them "left the group" and tried to create a new group. "Another Judaism" without beards, wigs, and commandments, something similar to Christianity, but what always bothered them was the "original group," these ultra-Orthodox with the beards, wigs, and black hats who ruined everything for them, what's more, the pious have multiplied and they have dwindled. Meanwhile, the descendants of these, have scattered everywhere and many of them have even converted to Christianity. I'm talking to you about their children, not even grandchildren. Like, for example, Moshe Mendelssohn, Yehoshua Zeitlin, Y.L. Peretz, Herzl and others. They tried to change Judaism and when they failed to bring the group to them, their children abandoned it in anger and rage, converted and continued to try to harm Judaism from the outside. 6. About six months ago I received a surprising call. "Hello Haim and Walder, do you remember me?" "Not really," I said. "Who is your honor?" "I was your neighbor in Haifa, on Bar Giora Street." He gave me the number. "N???" I said. "Exactly," he said. "What about you?" I ask him. "I'm here in Bnei Brak. In Itzkowitz I asked where I could reach you and someone gave me your phone number." "Wait there, I'm coming," I said. I, anything related to Haifa, or to my childhood, attacks him. I got there, called his cell phone and suddenly he appeared in front of me. Nothing in my life had prepared me for what I saw. Tall, a bully and... with a kippah that covered his entire head and a long, thick beard. Down to his belt. And I wasn't exaggerating. I didn't expect that. "Are you N?" "I've been through a lot in life," he tells me. "Father and mother are no longer here, I was the national weightlifting champion, my life is not easy. Now I'm repentant." We talked a little. He has indeed converted, but he does not belong to any specific community. Not Lithuanian, not Hasidic, not Breslav. Alone. We went in to pray mincha. During the eighteenth prayer, I remembered (as sometimes happens to good Jews) that mincha, forty years ago, for which he was beaten. I finished the eighteenth and looked back. He stood there with his legs spread wide, and said the eighteenth prayer out loud... Forty years and nothing has changed. It was indeed a victory for the eternal Israel over the religious fanatics. But at what price? What a price! And as I laughed there, I have not cried for years. • The column is published in Betad Ne'eman