20. How Are We Doing?

Are we living up to the challenge?

A Communal Challenge

Above, we showed that Hashem gave us our national mission statement as part of the introduction to Matan Torah. In four words, Hashem charged us to be a mamleches kohanim v’goy kadosh — a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Until now, we’ve developed the first half of the phrase — to be a mamleches kohanim, a nation of teachers who are meant to model for the rest of the world what a God-centered life looks like. Our concern for and involvement with the rest of the world is partially because we are called to impact it. But we must also remember the second half of the verse — at the same time as embracing our role as a mamleches kohanim, we must also maintain our identity as a goy kadosh, a nation that stands separate and distinct.¹

Avraham Avinu is our earliest role model in walking this line between particularist identity and universalist concern. After Hashem directs Avraham to leave his homeland and embrace the mission of v’heyeh brachah — to be a blessing to the nations of the world by introducing them to Hashem, the Torah records that Avraham traveled Eretz Canaan and settled not in an established city, but between Beis El and Ai. There, he built a mizbei’ach and called out in the name of Hashem, which a number of Rishonim explain as informing people about Hashem and calling them to serve Him.² Separate, but involved. Avraham actually describes himself this way later in the Chumash: When Avraham goes to request a burial plot for Sarah from the Bnei Cheis, he describes himself as a “ger v’toshav anochi imachem — I am a temporary dweller and a resident amongst you.”³ He saw himself as walking the line between living with them, but also separate from them. In the words of Rav Soloveitchik:

What is our position vis-à-vis modern civilization — with respect to science, to Western culture, to the countries in which we live? The answer is enshrined in these words. Certainly I am a resident, I am one of you. I engage in business as you do, I speak your language, I take full part in your social-economic institutions. But at the same time I am a stranger and, in some aspects, a foreigner. I belong to a particular world, one that is completely foreign to you. It is a world in which I am at one with the Creator…with spiritual values that seem impractical in your eyes, pragmatic children of Heth.”⁴

Illustrating Avraham’s incredible success at this balancing act, the Bnei Cheis responded, “Hear, my lord — you are a prince of God in our midst! Bury your dead in the choicest of plots…” Avraham’s separateness did not take away from the impact he was able to have and the prestige in which they held him.⁵ How well are we doing at balancing these two identities — concerned with, yet separate from?

How Are We Doing?

The following section may be uncomfortable to read. Many of the points are not mine; see Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein’s “Centrist Orthodoxy” (By His Light, pg. 210–220) and “The Future of Centrist Orthodoxy” (Leaves of Faith II, pg. 322–329) for a precedent for much of the content. I hope it is clear that my goal is not to criticize, but to identify challenges so that we can more consciously address them going forward.

There is no way to excuse, no matter what banner is raised to justify it, unfettered and undiscerning involvement in modern-day culture and media. Television shows and most movies are at the very least purposeless bittul zeman, and often direct transgressions of everything the Jewish instinct is meant to stand for. The portrayals of family life, relationships, and priorities seep into our consciousness and affect the way we think; our values of kedushah, perishus, and rachmanus — sanctity, self-control, and mercy — just don’t sell as well as their opposites do. It is very hard to find redeeming qualities in these mediums, especially as so much is ingested uncritically.

Technology and modern media, especially social media, are primary reasons the boundaries that are meant to separate us from the world around us, allowing us to preserve our values, have more or less eroded: when we consume the same content from the same influencers as everyone else, we will come to think and feel like everyone else, too. The Torah’s demand to avoid the “ways of the non-Jews — u’v’chukoseihem lo seileichu” — should have taught us to build higher walls, but we have failed; we have let them fall lower and lower until they’ve been swallowed by the ground.

We should not be proud that we can do all the same things that a non-Jew can do, with the added obligation of Torah and mitzvos; kosher concession stands and regular minyanim at professional baseball games are not l’shevach, but l’genai. We are not meant to be non-Jews who do mitzvos; we are meant to be Jews, proud Jews, who keep enough distance from the world around us to maintain and exemplify our values. Even before the intellectual rot at Ivy League colleges was revealed following October 7^th, why was acceptance at these “elite universities” considered a point of pride? And why do some of our school push students to commit to these schools through early decision, making it harder for them to shift priorities while learning in Israel?

Is there really a reason our fifth-graders have handheld access to the internet, to say nothing of filters, and spend their recesses practicing TikTok dances? Do we use professional sports as a harmless outlet, or does it become a fascination, with fantasy leagues becoming an obsession? How many Netflix series do our high schoolers follow — and to say nothing of the content of those shows, how many hours a week does such a schedule waste? These “engagements with culture” have nothing to do with an ideology that sees wisdom as potentially coming from the nations of the world to enhance our avodas Hashem, with an appreciation for “the best of what is thought and said,” no matter how you try to justify it afterwards. Instead, it indicates a community that has lost track of its priorities; rather than drawing culture up to Torah, Torah was abandoned and we descended into the abyss. As the very same Midrash in Eichah makes clear, while there is chochmah to gain from the nations of the world, our values, the principles upon which we organize our lives, must come from Torah: Torah b’goyim, al taamin.

One of the most important steps our community needs to take is to recommit ourselves to spending our time in ways that reflect our values: serious talmud Torah, investing in pursuits that enhance either our avodas Hashem, talmud Torah, or our lives, or some other constructive endeavor. Leave leisure and the “entertainment industry” for those who have nothing better to do with their lives; as soldiers, we have neither the right nor the desire to waste our time with it. If we really embrace the philosophy of b’chol d’rachecha da’ehu, as we must, we should honestly question how much of the media we consume, in any form, really contributes to that overarching ideal.  

Over the next few weeks, we will turn from challenges to solutions. What is an alternative picture for our communities, one that expresses our values and marshals our strengths to achieve our collective calling?

1. See Vayikra 20:26 and 19 Letters, Letter 8.

2. Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Seforno.

3. Bereishis 23:4.

4. Chumash Mesoras HaRav, ibid. See also the Rav’s essay Confrontation, sect. II, 1–2. 

5. The Netziv reads this idea as part of the bris milah narrative: After Hashem informed Avraham that he was meant to become the Av Hamon Goyim, the father of many nations by connecting them with Hashem, He commanded him to circumcise his family to ensure distinctiveness from them. After all, how long would their distinct values be able to survive if they were fully ensconced in a different culture with a different value system? Bris milah represented that fundamental difference, creating space which was meant to allow us to maintain our identity and values and thus lead the world in the right direction (Haamek Davar, Bereishis 17:9; see also the Harchev Davar there, including his analogy of boiling water in a pot vs. the water dousing the fire).