They come despite us

Shlomo Carlebach had this to say about the BT movement: "People think that the frum community created so many Baalei Teshuvah, and that the irreligious looked at the frummies and said to themselves: "I wanna be like them!" I say that it happened DESPITE the frum community." That they couldn't stand in the way of the the booming movement no matter what they did to turn them off....

Mehallel commenting on Circus Tent: Seeing past the flaws

You do not recognize the gift you have. The world is drowning in emptiness and hopelessness and you are living in the shade of the tree of life and you are complaining about the color of its leaves. The world today is an empty shell. There are no longer ideologies to excite the world and rally the masses. All the gods are dead. We have a toras chayim, ah ziseh toyreh, a sweetm, true torah of life. So for some momentary pleasure some of ours may stray and graze in foreign fields but there is nothing to hold them there anymore. They will come back. there may be some souls who are so broken by abuse, drugs, or mental illness that in this lifetime they may not be able to come back, G-d should heal them. Please don't make these unfortunates into the norm! There is no question that we have problems in the frum community and there are things that have to be fixed. We have to ensure that we help our children who are at risk as early as possible, etc. All the critical bloggers point out our flaws and if we are to grow we should listen. But please do not internalize the anti Semitism. Tzigaleh, oy Tzigalleh, You have gone to sleep with dogs (or maybe with cows )and you have woken up with fleas.

There is no question to change is difficult. When do we change?? Sadly it is when a crisis hits or at certain points of our life when we are not entangled in responsibilities etc and we are in an open mode to experience new things such as the college years were in the secular world in the past and may still be to a certain extent. For a mature healthy adult in a stable situation to change is not realistic. But every day I am humbled by people who are doing just that. The Russian engineer who puts on teffilin everyday, the woman married to a non Jew who is keeping kosher, the family who sent their teenage son to yeshiva, the man who walks 3 miles to shul and sits by his shabbos table alone Friday night waiting for his children and wife to join him. His sons who have begun to join him,,soon his wife may light the shabbos candles..... Leave Boro Park and visit some Chabad houses even the least successful ones will tell you stories of the changes people are making and the paths they are taking The world is full of many tens of thousands of Jews who are adopting more mitzvos into their life. In the world today there is a huge shift of attitudes toward mitzvos and yiddishkeit. This is not a young college kid going off to a Yeshivah where he can submerge himself in yiddishkeit although that is also happening. The big picture is a longer much more difficult path it is bringing back the entire Jewish people to Mitzvah observance. If you chart what is happening across the board - reform, conservative, the unaffiliated, you can see this. Is everyday a churban with all the children of mixed marriages and false conversions? Of course. But do not take away from this huge REVOLUTION in attitudes and practice that is impacting the Jewish world.

To the outsider Yiddishkeit does not look worse today than it did 50 years ago. Farkert! Yiddishkeit is no longer perceived as an obstacle to success in the world and (for better or worse) it is possible to live a life of Torah and Mitzvos without giving up the vast majority of comforts. The beauty of Torah and Mitzvos and Jewish family life is apparent to so many today. The non frum world looks and sees the success of the frum world in leading Jewish lives of meaning, and we should too!