Welcoming October 8th Jews Home: A Symposium, Part 3

Assuming unlimited financial resources were available, what could you envision American Orthodox Jews doing to strengthen Jewish identity at this time?

Rivkah Slonim, as told to Steve Lipman

This past year has been both heartbreaking and bolstering. From my perch on a college campus, I was privileged to watch as our students united and faced their/our new post–October 7 reality with resolve and largesse of spirit. I saw the breathtaking unfurling of the neshamah, the Jewish soul, as it awakened in students not previously Jewishly engaged.

At the same time, it was heartrending to notice just how many Jewish kids were still not “plugged in,” or worse, were manifestly hostile toward Israel and the organized Jewish community in the Diaspora.

Of course, what I see is one small part of a much larger picture. I went to Washington, DC, to stand with our community on November 14, 2023. The number of attendees was estimated at 290,000. That is a lot of people. But not nearly enough. On December 6, 1987, an estimated 250,000 people attended the “Freedom Sunday” March on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Over a span of thirty-six years, we should have been able to almost triple the number of attendees.

Numbers don’t lie. They tell a tale of wholesale assimilation.

If resources were not an issue (and this holds true when it’s a struggle as well), I believe that the number one task for us all is reaching out to the far too many Jews who are on the sidelines, who are populating the fringes, perhaps unsure of how to find a way in. This takes thought and creativity, openness and, above all, belief in the pristine core, the neshamah that is searching for a way home. It takes flexibility, but not the soft bias of lower expectations that is patronizing and off-putting.

On the contrary, we have to meet these Jews in various ways and in diverse venues; we have to meet them where they are. Without an agenda. With unfettered love and acceptance. With undiluted Toras Emes (Torah of truth) presented in bite-size, doable pieces. And we have to project the unvarnished truth: We are not whole without all of our sisters and brothers. This is not a project. This is not a numbers game. This is a family reunion. We miss you; viscerally so.

At Binghamton, for example, instead of four shluchim couples, this would take the form of us hiring many additional shluchim. For starters, we would hire one couple for each of the six residential communities on our campus, not unlike the faculty masters whose job it is to create a community within a community. This would go a long way toward fostering a greater number of deep relationships, curating specific programming for smaller cohorts, and ultimately exposing larger numbers of Jewish students to their rich heritage.

Parallel to the above, there is another cause that is close to my heart. I believe it is necessary to channel resources toward tweaking, if not overhauling, the Orthodox day school and camping system.

It’s time for more focus on the neshamah, on the shlichut (mission) of each soul on this earth; on understanding who we are, why we are and what we are doing in this world to begin with. Said simply, our chinuch must infuse more passion, more pride, ge’on Yaakov, more mesirus nefesh to fulfill our tafkid, more simchah shel mitzvah, more of a sense of privilege in being the Chosen People.

We are not whole without all of our sisters and brothers. This is not a project. This is not a numbers game. This is a family reunion. We miss you; viscerally so.

In plain English, can we see the same level of excitement that is generated by a meal in the Tabernacle Steakhouse in Manhattan, or a yeshivah-week vacation to Cancun, engendered by the opportunity to do a mitzvah?

October 7 has exposed the fallacy of our being k’chol ha’amim, just as the other nations. Am levadad yishkon—we are the nation who dwells alone and apart. Our efforts must go in the direction of fostering within all of our precious youth—those within the bubble of Orthodoxy and those not yet there—a feeling of pride and joy in being the subject of the iconic words: Atah bechartanu mi’kol ha’amim (You chose us from all the nations).

Rivkah Slonim is associate director of the Rohr Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life at Binghamton University.

Rabbi Efraim Mintz

The question suggests a direct link between financial resources and our ability to strengthen Jewish identity. I have the zechus to serve as the executive director of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI), Chabad’s adult education arm, an organization with this very mission—strengthening Jewish identity by inspiring limud haTorah in hundreds of thousands of people in communities worldwide. In my capacity, I’m well acquainted with the need to cover a substantial budget. That said, I am convinced that finances, while essential, are neither the master key nor the primary urgency of the moment.

What’s critically needed is a shift in focus—a grassroots reprioritization. We need to become active heritage sharers, internalizing the principle of kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh—that all Jews are responsible for one another.

Consider this: Imagine your brother, rachmana litzlan, was seriously ill, whether emotionally or physically. The good news is that there’s an affordable, readily available medicine that could cure him. But the bad news is that he refuses to take the medication because he doesn’t understand how it works, and even worse, he doesn’t recognize his illness. What would you do in this situation? Would you shrug and say, “Well, I’m healthy, so this isn’t my problem. He hasn’t asked for my help, and he’s clearly not interested. I wish I could do something, but I’ve got to take care of myself—I need to go take my multivitamin. . .”?

Of course not! You’d lose sleep, your mind racing with strategies to convince him to take the lifesaving medicine.

This isn’t a hypothetical situation—it’s our reality. We have millions of brothers and sisters whose spiritual health is in dire straits, and we have the cure. The question is: are we losing sleep over it?

These are our neshamah siblings, and our Father in Heaven longs for us to take responsibility and bring His children back home. This must become our priority, because it is His.

When we make this mental shift, we’ll start seeing opportunities everywhere—in our neighborhoods, workplaces and everyday interactions. Each encounter becomes a Divinely orchestrated chance to inspire. Did you meet another Jew? Help him put on tefillin. Invite her for a Shabbos meal. Give him a lulav and esrog before Sukkos, or blow shofar for her on Rosh Hashanah. Study Torah with her in person or over the phone. Send him a sefer. The possibilities are endless, but it starts with recognizing that the call of the hour is personal investment. As Jews, we are very creative; we have only to appreciate that the call of the hour is personal investment, and we will already figure out the ways and means for accomplishing this important goal.

Imagine if the average frum Jew in America started using his everyday encounters to share and inspire. Would that not spark a global transformation in a short amount of time?

What’s lacking isn’t money—it’s will. (And when there’s a will, the money will follow.) The real game changers are perspective and commitment. When we shift our priorities, we’ll make an immeasurable impact.

Rabbi Efraim Mintz is executive director of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, the educational arm of Chabad.