TO BE A JEW – PART V

Before We Compel Others, Should We Not Compel Ourselves?

By Ashirah Yosefah

For Jews, the past two millennia have greatly obscured our role as light unto the nations.  “Bnei Noach” (the Talmudic term given to Righteous Gentiles of the nations) and the Universal Torah Laws to which they are accountable have not been the focus of Jewish awareness.  Be assured, there was good reason for this lack.  To have dared to teach the Universal Torah Laws to Gentiles in the lands of our exile would have been considered incitement and insurrection by the religions governing these nations.  Jewish persecution and murder was rampant without any attempt to share the light of the Universal Torah.  Now, however, Jews have returned to Eretz Yisrael and with this comes a responsibility to fulfill the command to be a light unto nations that the Torah should go forth from Zion and the Word of God from Jerusalem.   

When Shuvoo was first being contemplated, its founders went to seek the counsel and the blessing of Rabbi Yoel Schwartz.  Rabbi Schwartz has sacrificially devoted over forty years of his life to studying and teaching the commandment for Israel to be light to the nations.  Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum (present at the meeting) inquired of Rabbi Schwartz what mitzvah Shuvoo would be fulfilling by sharing the Universal Torah Laws with the nations, Rabbi Schwartz responded immediately:  “You shall love Hashem your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.” (Devarim 6:5)

When our lives reveal Hashem in this world and when we encourage God-fearing Gentiles to keep the Universal Torah commandments, Jews fulfill the commandment to be a light unto the nations.  In doing so, we are proactively fulfilling the first obligation under the Shema.  Not an unworthy deed and certainly not one that should undermine or weaken anyone’s Jewish identity.

Each morning when Jews daven, we say the blessing “Blessed are You, Hashem, King of the Universe, Who has created me according to His Will.”  Just before this, we also say, “Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, Who has not made me a gentile.”  I often pause at this one.  Truth is, God did make me a gentile the day I was born, and Hashem does not make mistakes.  For 50 years of my life, half a century, my soul lived in a gentile body, in a gentile world.  A decade ago some supernal shofar or whistle sounded on High and my soul obviously heard it.  Struggling to hear that faint and beckoning sound, I became aware of a magnet-like force within that transformed me progressively over a seven year period, with proper Orthodox instruction and sanction, into being a Jew.  The journey began in 1997.  Eight years later, in August 2005, a baby Jew in a grown-up body walked out of the waters of a mikveh in Tel Aviv.  I was not “late in coming” … the timing of my conversion was completely Hashem. 

The fifty years of my life that preceded conversion were not a mistake.  As much as converts effectively “close the doors” on our past life, I still have to ask Hashem, “Why did it take so long, and what would You have me do with all those lessons from my past?”  There needs to be separation, to be sure … Jews are commanded in Torah to be “kadosh,” a word usually translated “holy”, but which literally means “set apart” in order to serve Hashem single-heartedly and in purity.  But a convert cannot not turn off their memory, particularly as you reflect on the events that occurred that resulted in the massive life change that being a Jew entails.

To this very day, friends here in Israel often shake their heads in disbelief and ask me, “How on earth did you ever get to know such an amazing group of Rabbis and Torah teachers?”  The truth is that I had little to do with it.  From the moment I set foot in this Land, Hashem kept crossing my path with Jews who are on the forefront of teaching the universal aspects of Torah to the nations, incredible men who I consider it a very great privilege to know and to learn from.  These Rabbis and teachers have paid a high price personally for bravely making new trails in what is actually a very old mitzvah.  As a result, there has been an impressive increase in the number of Jews and Gentiles who are now aware of the Universal Torah Laws and the number of Orthodox Rabbis who are responding to the overwhelming number of Gentile requests for information. 

There is a saying that one is known by the company they keep, so it would seem that affiliation with this esteemed company of teachers reveals the nature of at least part of my “Avodat Hashem” (service of God).  It is clear that Hashem is calling the nations to recognize that He alone is God.  Hundreds of thousands of God-fearing Gentiles around the world are turning to the Torah for answers, for the meaning of life.  They are at many different stages of spiritual understanding and practice, but the sincerity of their search is real.  Our work is before us … what is a Jew to do?  Yet, as much as the nations are asking for Torah, Jews are painfully aware that many of our own desperately to be connected with their Torah inheritance and Jewish tradition. 

Judaism has witnessed an incredible renewal movement over the past four decades.  We have large numbers of Ba’alei Teshuvah, of previously distant and non-observant Jews who have turned and/or returned to Torah Judaism.  Baruch Hashem, many of these people have made aliyah and now live in Israel.  Please God that there should be more, because the population here is still predominantly secular.  There are many Jews today for whom faith in Hashem is the least of their considerations.  The reasons are many:  The Holocaust, assimilation, conversion to other religions and humanistic New Age ideologies.  Many Jews have immigrated from formerly Communist countries, where any form of religion was discouraged and the practice of Judaism was punishable by imprisonment or worse.  Large numbers of conversions have been allowed for the purpose of marriage only, to ensure the birth of Jewish children, but without any intention on the part of the candidate or couple to be or become “Torah Jews”.  In the late 1800’s, the “Enlightenment”, as it is called, distanced thousands of Jews from Torah and its effects continue to this day. Nonetheless, all of these individuals are still Jews and accountable to Torah. 

Trust in Hashem, teshuvah (repentance) and Torah observance on a broad scale would radically change Israel as we know it today.  Dramatic change in the political climate of the country would be inevitable, and Jews living in the heartland of Israel would no longer be threatened with expulsion from their homes.  Our God-given Land would no longer be torn asunder to be given away at the whims and machinations of nations covertly seeking to weaken and destroy Israel.  In time, our nation would be granted the vision and strength it needs to fulfill its role as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” to ourselves and to the world.

I was speaking with Rabbi Nachman Kahane at a wedding recently.  A deeply thoughtful man, his words are few and weighty.  We were discussing this growing hunger for Torah learning among the nations and how Jews should respond.  Rabbi Kahane shared two thoughts that he feels are of utmost importance for Jews in today’s world, particularly for Jews living in Israel:  We are in need of teshuvah and we are heading for a war.  These, Rabbi Kahane contended, are equally as important as teaching the nations.  He is right.  We need to become light, or increase light, before we can spread light.

The War in Lebanon last summer gave us all too bitter a foretaste of what happens when Israel goes to war without Hashem significantly and properly placed in the battle plan.  Just last month, Lebanese forces have fired on IDF troops as they attempted to seek and destroy Hezbollah bombs and mines recently placed on Israeli soil.  The fragility of last summer’s brokered peace is all too evident.

We Jews have a daunting task ahead:  We need to return to Torah and to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.  We need to purify ourselves and our Land and prepare for a certain war.  We need to resume our role as a light to the nations.  The world desperately needs Jews to teach the nations the existence of the One True God and elevate the nations through the dissemination of the Universal Torah commandments.  But, we need to become a vessel that can contain and carry the message.  Torah and teshuvah.  Our ancestors told Hashem “na’aseh ve-nishmah”…  “we will (first) DO it and then HEAR (and understand it). (Shemot 24:7)  So what if we don’t have all the answers?  Clarity will come with practice.

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Ashirah Yosefah