What will be "the morning after the day before" ?
That is the $64,000 question so to speak if one thinks about
it!
To what does this really refer?
No question about it that
something truly extraordinary has happened with the way the Shabbos Project has
caught on worldwide. Best wishes to everyone concerned for its greatest success.
Mazel Tov to South Africa's Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein on his great milestone,
who has now become a truly global outreach Kiruv rabbi following in the
footsteps of Rav Noach Weinberg and the last Lubavitcher Rebbe and in fact
building on their great successes and examples.
But coming back to the
big question, the Shabbos Project begs the REALLY big questions that come in its
wake! With its great successes come the great questions, challenges and problems
that cannot be ignored or pushed aside under the rug of the current catchy
euphoria.
How does the whole notion behind the Shabbos Project (to make
people more observant of Torah Judaism via Shemiras Shabbos, a noble goal) mesh
with TODAY's reality that in many places around the world, the MAJORITY of
people who regard themselves as "Jews" are either married to gentiles given the
skyrocketing intermarriage rate, or are the children of non-Jewish mothers
(father Jewish and mother gentile and never converted), or are converts of
Reform, Conservative, civil marriages and various non-Orthodox
denominations of Judaism who "think" they are "Jews" but according to Orthodox
Jewish Law (the Halachah) they are still 100% gentiles.
This is the
reality that faces us:
"
Interfaith
marriage in Judaism [Wikipedia]: A 2013 survey conducted in the United
States by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project found
that intermarriage rate to be 58% among all Jews and 71% among non-Orthodox
Jews." [Reference:]
Poll
Shows Major Shift in Identity of U.S. Jews The New York Times,
October 1, 2013: "The first major survey of American Jews in more than 10 years
finds a significant rise in those who are not religious, marry outside the faith
and are not raising their children Jewish — resulting in rapid assimilation that
is sweeping through every branch of Judaism except the Orthodox.
The
intermarriage rate, a bellwether statistic, has reached a high of 58 percent for
all Jews, and 71 percent for non-Orthodox Jews — a huge change from before 1970
when only 17 percent of Jews married outside the faith. Two-thirds of
Jews do not belong to a synagogue, one-fourth do not believe in God and
one-third had a Christmas tree in their home last year...The survey uses a wide
definition of who is a Jew, a much-debated topic. The researchers included the
22 percent of Jews who describe themselves as having 'no religion,' but who
identify as Jewish because they have a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish, and
feel Jewish by culture or ethnicity. However, the percentage of 'Jews of no
religion' has grown with each successive generation, peaking with the
millennials (those born after 1980), of whom 32 percent say they have no
religion...
Reform Judaism remains the largest American Jewish movement,
at 35 percent. Conservative Jews are 18 percent, Orthodox 10 percent, and groups
such as Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal make up 6 percent combined. Thirty
percent of Jews do not identify with any denomination. In a surprising finding,
34 percent said you could still be Jewish if you believe that Jesus was the
Messiah...Jews from the former Soviet Union and their offspring make up
about 10 percent of the American Jewish population...Steven M. Cohen, a
sociologist of American Jewry at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religion, in New York, and a paid consultant on the poll, said
the
report foretold 'a sharply declining non-Orthodox population in the second half
of the 21st century, and a rising fraction of Jews who are Orthodox.'
The survey also portends 'growing polarization' between religious and
nonreligious Jews, said Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, senior director of research
and analysis at the Jewish Federations of North America..."
The above
sources are brief descriptions of the situation of Jewry in North America and
certainly worldwide since if anything it is worse in the UK, Europe, South
America, and even Australia and New Zealand, all places with significant Jewish
populations.
South African Jewry, home and epicenter of the Shabbos
Project, is unique because in spite of its slipping from Halachic
observance of Judaism, such as keeping Shabbos properly, yet nevertheless South
African Jews have remained loyal to the concept of attending Orthodox
shulls where men and women sit separately, employing only duly ordained
Orthodox rabbis, subscribing to the standards laid down by the South African
Orthodox Bais Din in all matters, and just considering themselves "Orthodox" --
but once they land up in places like the USA and Canada and even Israel they
find out very quickly that they are not regarded as truly Orthodox since they do
not observe Shabbos according to Halachah and do not send their children to
Orthodox yeshivas etc.
The point being that while the Shabbos Project and
other similar initiatives to enhance a more Orthodox mode of Judaism works
within South Africa for South African Jews given their unique heritage and
milieu, it does not automatically translate the same way in far-off America,
Israel and elsewhere where the local Jews are VERY assimilated, intermarried,
have irrevocably abandoned their faith altogether by even becoming Christians.
So the question is, once the Shabbos Project "hits" this "reality" in
the way that an "irresistible force (i.e. Shabbos Project) hits an immovable
object (assimilation & intermarriage") aka "the morning after the night
before" -- the big question is, what will happen and are the people in charge
aware of what they are up against outside of South Africa? And note, even
with international rabbis involved, those rabbis do NOT deal with such
questions because outside of South Africa they service strictly Orthodox or
Charedi populations most of the time.
Logically speaking there may come a
"project" that will have to face how to deal with masses of intermarried Jews
and how to inform people who are not Halachically Jewish that things like he
Shabbos Project are not meant for them and that they should please step back.
This may sound "messianic" but there have been efforts from very Orthodox
outreach sources in this direction, such as by the failed EJF project, that
have come seriously asunder and crashed on the rocks due to this very question
because the rabbis do not have one approach to CONVERSION and even more
troubling PROSELYTIZATION to gentiles, a hugely DIVISIVE issue, unlike something
as universally marketable as proper Shabbat observance for Jews who wish to do
so!
Have the South African Chief Rabbi and his planners and rabbinic
partners all over the world thought this through to its end game and final
conclusion or are they just riding on the wave of "ignorance is bliss, 'tis
folly to be wise"?
What happens a few "projects" down the line or even
what happens now during an actual Shabbos Project someplace when the gentiles
married to Jews or those who consider themselves to be "Jews" etc discover or
are informed, as they invariably will be, that they are NOT truly Jewish in the
sense of Jewish Law-Halachah? Do they leave the Shabbos table? What about the
wine? Who answers the Halachic
Shaylos at the end of the day and has a
suitable body of
Poskim been chosen already and in place to deal with
the tidal wave of inevitable questions?!
These are serious questions
for all those involved to seriously come to terms with and be prepared to face
as the time comes closer. In South Africa there is the acceptance of the local
one and only Orthodox Bais Din, something that does not exist in most places,
except in Israel and perhaps in the UK.
To be forewarned is to be
forearmed! or as the boy scouts succinctly put it "be prepared"! And as always,
life is stranger than fiction! Once again Mazel Tov to everyone who has
made the Shabbos Project such a popular success and here's wishing for the
success of the Shabbos Project and many more that will bring Klal Yisroel to a
Teshuva Gemura, Amen!
