“A Wholly Life” is a Targum/Feldheim compilation from 2005, edited by Dr. Moshe Kaplan. It contains a blistering essay by Rabbi Berel Wein against hollow Judaism, p. 108, called “The Jew in the Land of Plenty“.
The article opens with Mishlei 13:7, as translated by Rabbi Malbim.
“There is one who waxes wealthy and possesses nothing, and one who is impoverished and has great wealth.”
Rabbi Wein continues:
Jewish history is replete with differing problems, paradoxes, and challenges. But the basic problem that faces every generation is how to remain truly Jewish in an overwhelmingly non-Jewish world. The Torah itself addresses this problem: “How do these nations worship their gods? Let me also do likewise!” And the story of the Jewish people in their long exile is again one of that struggle to remain uniquely Jewish in spite of the pressures of an alien, encroaching and different world.
Rabbi Wein goes on to note the special difficulty of American Orthodoxy in an age of prosperity coupled with negligible hostility toward Jews. He admits the comment by Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, “The Marranos of Spain were goyim on the outside and Jews on the inside. My Jews are reverse Marranos” still rings true.
In the context of choosing an “אמנות נקיה וקלה”, Rabbi Wein tells of a mother who complained her son would be “losing” a year of medical education if he went to study in Israel after graduation: “He may discover the cure for cancer”.
His answer was hard for her to swallow:
God has created a great and varied world. There are over four billion non-Jews in the world. We don’t have to do everything in the world by ourselves. The Jews are not obligated to supply all of the doctors, lawyers, judges, corporate raiders, real-estate-developers, and entrepreneurs of this world. The Jews are, however, obligated to be the Jewish people, with all the moral and ethical obligations that this implies. We should have no objection to an Italian or an Irishman or a Black or a Hispanic discovering the cure for cancer. But Torah, halacha, Jewish ethics, and eternal value systems are the primary Jewish agenda, both nationally and individually. What I can do, only I can do; our role in the world is therefore very exclusive…
So, Eretz Yisrael is an imperfect alternative; indeed, the aforequoted verses concern Israel. But, there’s an old story with the Vilna Gaon.
The Maggid of Dubna was once paid by the Gaon to give him Mussar. One of the things the Maggid said was: It’s no “Kuntz” (Yiddish: big deal), to be so great while remaining closeted in one’s room studying Torah day and night. Let’s see you mix with others, perhaps to influence them, yet remain at this level of Torah and Mitzvos (or thereabouts)! The Gaon aptly rejected the idea. (I probably butchered the story!)
It’s easier to be a real Jew when living in Eretz Yisrael: Must you make it so hard on yourself in Chutz La’aretz?!
