Seeing the Light
We write a lot about challenges, but this message focuses on opportunities. It derives from having spent a recent Shabbat with the staff of this year’s OU-NCSY summer programs. These hundreds of religiously engaged young men and women were preparing to spend many weeks with thousands of Jewish teens with whom they will share their love for G-d, Torah and the Jewish people. Hundreds more will do the same on our Yachad and Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) summer programs.
In our morning Amidah prayer, we turn to Hashem and ask Him to bless us “be’or panecha—with the light of Your face.” While this can be understood as a metaphorical request for G-d to visibly demonstrate His love for us, it may also be a request that our own faces exhibit a heavenly glow like that of Moshe, whose face radiated brilliantly when he returned from his intimate and transformative experience with G-d at Sinai.
Those young people visibly carry that blessing. Their spirituality glows and their faces radiate goodness. Being with them was uplifting, hopeful and enlightening on several fronts.
Confronting Antisemitism: We Are Winning!
Organizations tracking incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States report a continuous rise in those numbers. Evidently, all the Jewish communal activism to reduce antisemitism is not proving effective. One might therefore say we are losing the battle, but that is only correct if you define victory by lessening manifestations of Jew-hatred. Recognizing, however, that the antisemites’ ultimate goal is to, Heaven forbid, weaken or destroy Jews and Judaism, then it is evident that we are winning as, with Hashem’s help, we witness a repeat of the historic phenomenon that first emerged during the original anti-Jewish persecutions in Egypt: “The more they were oppressed, the more they grew and expanded.”1
Engagement in Jewish life has indeed surged since the attacks on Shemini Atzeret 5784, October 7, 2023. Broad communal studies2 have documented that this was not just an immediate post–October 7 spike; the growth has continued since then. Within the OU, we see this on many fronts, including, for example, a dramatic 50-percent increase in NCSY’s Jewish Student Union (JSU) public school clubs throughout the country, and elevated Torah engagement of both men and women on all our OU platforms.
The antisemites are doing their best to weaken and to destroy Jews and Judaism, but throughout the world we are responding to the hostility by doubling down on being there for each other and elevating our engagement in Torah and mitzvot, the essential identity of the eternal Jewish people. The smashed idols of failed contemporary ideals have made room for many Jews to return home to Jewish community and values. From the Orthodox to the unaffiliated, October 7 and October 8 have generated a wonderful backlash of prosemitism.
Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (the Netziv of Volozhin), in his classic essay on antisemitism, She’ar Yisrael,3 advanced a thesis4 that antisemitism is G-d’s way of protecting and preserving Jewish identity. In the Netziv’s wry reading of Vehi She’amda,5 we declare that those who in every generation set out to destroy us have, in fact, prevented our destruction by disrupting our assimilation into the surrounding society and driving us to come home to G-d, Torah and Klal Yisrael. The surge in Jewish engagement following attacks on the Jews here and in Israel is not an incidental reaction to these events but their Divinely intended result.
That renewed positive energy is visible in these young men and women. While we often wring our communal hands bemoaning the prevalence of religious disconnection and complacency, the NCSY summer staff are spiritually engaged and ambitious. The light in their eyes reflected their vibrant bond to Judaism—apparent in the way they davened and sang, related to others and carried themselves, and eagerly learned Torah and wisdom from the assembled faculty. Sincerity, passion and purpose were everywhere. “Lo alman Yisrael—the Jewish people are not bereft.”6 A community that has raised such a dynamic force of glowing young men and women is the farthest thing from bereft, and the experience of the past nineteen months has made their glow grow even brighter. That glow is a key indicator of success in the battle against antisemitism. With Hashem’s help, we are winning.
Who Will Educate the Next Generation?
What made these young people shine? Undoubtedly each of those stars has a back story with unique supporting actors, including parents and teachers, communities and schools, mentors and informal experiences leading them to the meaningful connection they have to Hashem, His Torah and His people. But the key element that produced that light in their eyes and brought them together this past Shabbat is their sense of mission to share the Torah they love with people they care for. Like Moshe whose radiance was on display specifically when he was sharing Hashem’s words with the Jewish people,7 their glow reflects their eagerness to do the same. They are poised, motivated and empowered to make a real difference, leaving them no room for apathy or indifference.
Their sense of mission is not a nice extra to look for in an excited group of camp counselors. It is core to our identity as believers and as Torah learners.
The surge in Jewish engagement following attacks on the Jews here and in Israel is not an incidental reaction to these events but their Divinely intended result.
Rambam noted in his Sefer Hamitzvot8 that because people are naturally moved to share their passions, the mitzvah to love G-d includes within it the mandate to impart that love to others, “sheyehei shem Shamayim mitaheiv al yadcha—so that the name of Heaven becomes beloved because of you.”9 Avraham was the primary example of this as he loved Hashem10 and was a driving force in bringing others to His service.11 The mission to share our faith with others is both a stimulant and an outgrowth of our ahavat Hashem (love of G-d).
Rambam similarly considers both the learning and teaching of Torah to be components of a single mitzvah, lilmod chochmat haTorah ul’lamda.12 One might trace this to the Rambam’s own citation13 of the Sages’ view that one’s love for G-d is best expressed through the learning of His Torah. Torah study therefore adopts the same rules as the love of G-d, where having it and sharing it are inseparable. Can we really be thirsty for knowledge and engaged in learning without also being driven to share that knowledge?
This mission to teach is also an essential aspect of our Jewishness. In conveying the history of worship, Rambam speaks of how when Avraham discovered the One G-d, he proceeded to smash the idols worshipped by his contemporaries.14 Avraham, however, was not the world’s first righteous monotheist. Why had this smashing of the idols not been performed earlier by Shem and Ever, ancestors and predecessors of Avraham who also believed in the One G-d? Ra’avad suggests that they had not even been aware of the idols, whereas Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his Kessef Mishneh, explains that while Shem believed in the same G-d as Avraham, he only shared that belief with those who came to seek it from him, while Avraham was committed to proactively transforming the world and redirecting the faith of others. Ra’avad and Kessef Mishneh are presenting the two distinguishing elements of the Abrahamic and Jewish mission: noticing and caring about the religious well-being of others.
In his discussion of antisemitism, the Netziv takes note of the unusual choice of the term itself.15 When were we ever called Semites rather than Jews/Yehudim or Hebrews/Ivrim? He suggests that this appellation implies a reduced Jewish stature and worthiness and posits that part of the curse of antisemitism is the humiliation of our being seen by the world as undeserving of the loftier titles of Ivrim or Yehudim such that we can only be described as simple Shemites.
The Jewish community cannot be satisfied with Semitism, a faith that we observe and maintain but are not committed to share and inspire others with. If we are to be faithful to the vision and mission of Avraham, we must have a religious culture that inspires young and old to notice and to care for the well-being and the Jewishness of other Jews. We cannot possibly have a dearth of people dedicated to teaching and caring for other Jews. Like Avraham, Jews should be sitting at the doors of our individual, familial and communal tents, scanning the horizon to identify individuals with whom we can share what we have to offer and rushing forward to share it with them.
This shining cadre of young men and women are doing just that, and we must hold them up as the children of Avraham and Sarah, examples of what a Jew is meant to be, to feel and to do, encouraging them and many others to nurture a lifetime passion to notice and care for the religious well-being of every member of Klal Yisrael.
Endnote
I was far from the only one who saw the light in this remarkable group of young men and women. The hotel where the summer staff training was held simultaneously housed a group of Chareidi Israeli leaders currently positioned at crucial junctures of influence within Israel, in critical Knesset committees and government ministries and in local councils and mayoral offices. While the visiting group had been focused on protecting and strengthening their own community’s interests, they had come to the United States for a week-long mission to broaden their horizons and learn more about American Jewry, and they eagerly began and ended their Shabbat in the uplifting company of our summer staff. As they described it, their encounter with our young people and “the fire in their eyes” helped them see a broad and uplifting model of commitment to Klal Yisrael that was enormously impactful and the highlight of their week, leaving them wondering how they could learn from them and bring this secret sauce to their own children and students in whose eyes they did not always see that fire.
“Barcheinu Avinu kulanu k’echad be’or panecha—Bless us, our Father, all of us as one, with the light of Your face.” In these times of deep division within Klal Yisrael, these glowing and radiant young men and women, admired by every Jew they encounter, are a blessing from Hashem and a glimmer of hope that we will triumph over antisemitism, inspire the teachers and students of the next generation, and eventually come together as one, as Klal Yisrael, noticing and caring for each other.
Notes
1. Parashat Shemot 1:12.
2. https://www.jewishfederations.org/fedworld/federations-new-study-490865.
3. This essay was published along with the Netziv’s commentary on Shir Hashirim and is available here: https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%A8_%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C. An annotated English version of the essay was published by Rabbi Howard Joseph, z”l—father of Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph, OU executive vice president and chief operating officer—as Why Antisemitism? A Translation of “The Remnant of Israel” (New Jersey, 1996).
4. This thesis was also promoted by many others, including Rashi in his Sefer Hapardes Hagadol, who wrote of the “profound gratitude the Jewish people must express to G-d for generating hostility between them and the nations, as without that, they would assimilate with the nations and adopt their ways . . . therefore Hodu la’Hashem ki tov—give thanks to Hashem for He is good; His kindness is everlasting.”
5. She’ar Yisrael, chap. 3, and the Netziv’s Imrei Shefer commentary on the Haggadah.
6. Yirmiyahu 51:5.
7. Parashat Shemot 34:29-35.
8. Positive commandment 3.
9. Sifrei Devarim 32:2.
10. Yeshayahu 41:8.
11. Rashi to Bereishit 12:5.
12. Sefer Hamitzvot, positive commandment 11.
13. Sefer Hamitzvot, positive commandment 3.
14. Rambam, Hilchot Avodah Zarah 1:3.
15. She’ar Yisrael, chap. 5.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer is executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.