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Speech

November 1965

Banquet Address - U.O.J.C.A. Pacific Region (1965)

Combating Assimilation
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Conference on Jewish Identity Here and Now (1967)

I am beginning to see, as a result of my experience with individuals in the community and on college campuses, that the young people Rabbi Israel has talked about do not have time to worry about the problem of their Jewishness, that is, Jewishness is not their problem. Here I agree, that the problem of the survival of Judaism – the crisis – lies with the Establishment. What does the Establishment have to offer these young people who have come home, trained and culturally conditioned by Yale? How can we get them to identify with the Jewish community? The problem will be easier to grapple with if we realize, first of all, that we are dealing with three different types of individuals, not just one. First, there are the young people who come into the community wishing to identify themselves with the community. They quickly affiliate and participate. Second, there is the larger group which I would call the neutral group, that is those who are neither here nor there. These people can be influenced. The third group, a smaller one, moves out of the community and does not wish to be spoken with.I think that it is important for the Establishment to take a good look at the needs of the first two groups. There is a new client in the Jewish community and this client no longer is the person who needs social-welfare assistance. For the client is actually the community itself. We must pay attention to this fact. When I talk about this “we,” I am talking about all of us who are involved in institutions within the community. We must begin to look at the service or the substance of what we have to offer. I think that there are areas that can be developed through the modification of existing institutions or the creation of new ones that will be at- tractive to this young group returning home from college. We must keep in mind that the colleges of today have given them some kind of underpinning — a set of values to which they would like to respond. If we are to reach them we have to be…
Combating Assimilation

Outline

Far Away (1956)

(1) 3 steps to Jerusalem (2) suggested by major הלכה (the must you not know) sidra: פסח שני... only it טמא or בדרך רחוקה (3) מתנ׳ פסחים אינו הי דרך רחוקה? – מן המודיעים ולחוץ כמדתה לכל רוח (15 miles) – דברי ר״ע; ר״ע אומר: מאיסקופת העזרה ולחול (4) understand ר״ע – but ו״א? – yet see that mom can be in Jerusalem ובאיסוק בפת העזרה & yet be miles away (5) story Rabbi to חסיד, often שמ״ע: ״שלום עליכם״ – just came back from business trip (6)
Behaalotcha Combating Assimilation

Speech

Public Address on The Sources of Responsibility (1968)

The fact of our attendance here this evening is nothing else. The very fact that we have come to listen to something about Yahadus, to take counsel together about any aspect relating to our Jewishness means that we want to remain Jews within the context of Western society, where for the very first time in the history of our people it is possible to opt out of the Jewish people without the stigma of conversion and betrayal. Never before was it possible for a Jew simply to vanish from his Jewishness without shmad – that free ticket of admission into higher Gentile society. When therefore we gather – and whenever we gather – to declare that we want to remain Jews and we are not choosing the option of disappearing and vanishing, we reveal a sense of responsibility for our Jewish heritage. It is that term and that concept that I should like to speak about this evening. Responsibility – what does it mean, what are its sources, and how is it discharged? First let me say something which may appear to be rather self-evident – and that is that responsibility means the ability to respond or to answer. The prerequisite for responsibility is the awareness that we are being questioned. Jewish responsibility is the response to a summons, to a challenge, to an interrogation. Jewish life lived responsibly is a reaction to a questioning G-d. We live under a question mark that comes at us – from Above. Ever since the first Divine question was directed at our first forefather and the Ribono Shel Olam said to Adam HaRishon, “Ayekah? Where are you? What are you going to do with your life?” – that question became enshrined in mankind’s conscience. And when man decides to answer that question, or at least to entertain it, at that point we have achieved responsibility. Chazal in the Midrash maintain that the word “Ayekah” – aleph, yud, chaf, heh – by rearranging its vowels, reads “Eichah.” And it tells us that when man fails to entertain the Divine question – “Ayekah? Where are you? What …
Combating Assimilation Europe