Q&A: Conflict
Conflict
Question
I wanted to ask the Rabbi what his opinion is, as an observant Jew, about those Chabad people who go around offering tefillin to passersby in neighborhoods with a very secular character. On the one hand, there is bringing merit to the public here (although I’m not sure the Rabbi accepts that concept, even though someone who puts on tefillin on those occasions presumably does believe in some way or another, so perhaps according to his view this is not a valueless act). On the other hand, those secular people have what seems to me a strong claim: secular missionaries would not be allowed to enter Haredi strongholds, and there is an element here of stealing souls. What does the Rabbi think about this reality? Thank you very much in advance.
Answer
I think it is wrong not to allow others to come in and try to influence people in our communities. But even if the Haredim are in the wrong, that is not a reason to prevent them from coming in and trying to influence others. The reason is that the right to enter and try to influence is not a favor done for them, but their basic right, and also a right of the neighborhood residents, who can decide whether they want it or not. We are not talking about coercion, but about an offer that can be accepted or rejected.
In my personal opinion, if the person believes, then there is value in it, and if not, then not. There is an interesting correspondence between Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe on this issue, and it can be found somewhere online (I think that at my request someone once brought a link to it here on the site).
Discussion on Answer
I understand from the Rabbi’s words that if he were running a school, he would bring in a different missionary every week in order to open the students up—one time Yaron Yadan, one time Christians, and one time Muslims.
If we are looking for truth, then that’s how it should be, no?
I’ll answer the last two questions together. I also don’t think every child at every age should be exposed to every argument. What should be done is to explain to him the value of openness, and that not everything is certain and we are not necessarily right. And little by little, to open him up to other directions too.
By the way, closedness doesn’t really prove itself. Students in closed institutions can fall more quickly and more effectively into the net of various Yaron Yadans.
In general, both tactically but mainly in essence, I oppose closedness. On the other hand, it is clear that there are better proportions and stages for doing this.
On grounds of symmetry, I can now discuss putting tefillin on children. Just as I would not want someone to do that to my son or daughter, in my opinion it is not appropriate to do it to others. True, from a halakhic standpoint, from age 13 he is an adult, but practically speaking today that is not the case. A 13-year-old cannot really make decisions, and therefore in my opinion it is not right to persuade him at such an age.
Age 13 is the age of obligation in the commandments if he grew up in a home that is obligated. But the law of “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” (in the spiritual sense) or “you shall surely rebuke” does not, in my opinion, apply at such an age. Jewish law speaks about people whose faith and commitment are formed. But bringing them to faith is for a more mature age. Of course, this distinction is only based on reasoning, but everyone would agree that this is so, except that they would not admit it openly. I have a friend who had a very strong influence on young children after bar mitzvah, and most of his rabbis and Haredi friends did not agree with him. But of course none of them said things as plainly as I am writing them here.
I would like, please, to shed light on and sharpen the question from a different angle. I was taught that every way a Jew relates to situations in his life should be considered in light of Jewish law. My question is this: suppose that as a religious person I see a Chabad guy putting tefillin on a 15-year-old boy in a very secular neighborhood. It is clear that this teenager may or is liable to abandon the path on which he was raised because of the relationships those Chabad people create with him at an age when he is still not fully his own master. As a religious person, I experience a conflict between the religious side, which is supposed to rejoice over every Jewish boy who returns to his roots, and on the other hand a sense of justice that revolts at the fact that those missionaries are stealing souls from their parents’ home and education, and that in addition those secular people have no possibility of marketing their ideological wares in Haredi concentrations. My question is: where does a religious person draw the justification to oppose those acts, which on the face of it are highly praiseworthy from the standpoint of Jewish law? Or how is a religious person supposed to live with such a situation, in which natural morality clashes with Jewish law, or its spirit? After all, it is obvious that Jewish law would claim that one is obligated to cause as many Jews as possible to put on tefillin, since there is the matter of “a skull that did not put on tefillin,” etc. And on the other hand, it seems horrifying that people approach boys who are under their parents’ authority and influence them to kick away all the values on which they were raised.