Why Charedi Isolationism is Wrong

The president kneeling before Mrs. Ravitz

One of my role models for women in the Charedi world is Rivka Ravitz. One may recall that when former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the White House near the end off his term, Mrs Ravitz who was his chief of staff at the time accompanied him. When President Biden heard that she was the mother of 12 children he kneeled before her.

Rivka Ravitz is a role model because she is Charedi and yet has managed to integrate her role as a Charedi woman with a career in the secular world. And has navigated the secular world quite successfully. A career she still enjoys as chief of staff for Shmuel Greenberg, the current mayor of Bet Shemesh.

In  a recent interview she was asked how she would define being Charedi. In light of her successful career, her answer was rather ironic and it surprised me. (Although I guess is it shouldn’t have.)  Being Charedi, she said means being different - being separated from the secular population So as not to be influenced by cultural values not in concert with Charedi values. Cultural values that can undermine one’s religious observances.

Isolationism is indeed the modus operandi of the Charedi world. They seek as little contact as they can with the outside world. It is one of the reasons cited by them for refusing to enlist in the IDF. The fear being that the army is almost by definition the ‘great equalizer’. Meaning that they want all recruits to become a kind of Israeli prototype of a secular Jew who is a strong warrior rather than someone who sits in their tent and studies Torah all day long. 

There may still be that mentality among some of the IDF hierarchy. But it has long ago been abandoned by most of them. Which is proven by the thousands of religious Hesder and other religious IDF soldiers that have remained loyal to their religious upbringing long after leaving the IDF. Not to mention the creation of army units that specifically cater to Charedi needs

I get that Charedim have insisted on being a an Am L’vadod Yishkon - a nation living alone for fear of having their lives contaminated by secular values and ideologies. But I nevertheless reject that this is the right way for any segment of the Jewish people to live.

By refusing to live among one’s brethren a Jew abdicates his responsibility to his fellow Jew. And perforce abandons any attempt at unity.  I get that the idea of unifying the Jewish people at this point in time is about as remote as it has ever been. A goal that seems to be increasingly elusive as time goes on. But that should not deter us from the attempt to reverse that trend.

Ravitz correctly does note that there was a unity of sorts in the immediate aftermath of the October 7^th massacre of 1200 Jews by Hamas. But as she also notes that it didn’t last long.

Many Orthodox Jewish thinkers have noted that there has been no better time since the 6 day war to pursue  unity than right now. Beginning with reaching out to fellow secular Jews. One silver lining of October 7^th was that it instilled a sense of Jewish identity into a lot of Jews who up to that point could not have cared less about the fact that they were Jews. Which unfortunately is the way over 70% of American Jewry that marry out feels these days. But after October 7^th and the subsequent sharp rise in antisemtism, that changed.

Jews – especially young Jews on college campuses - were suddenly reminded that they were Jews in very unflattering ways (to say the least!). Strangely enough, in many cases, instead of trying to hide their Jewish identity they started to display it proudly. Which led some of them tp explore their Jewish roots and rerunning to them – even if ever so gradually.

The idea that any religious Jew deciding that they need to isolate themselves from the rest of Jewry in order to protect themselves from bad influences is  wrong headed. There is a Midrash that attempts to explain why one of the two interpretations of why the Torah calls Noah a Tzadik (Righteous) in his own generation. Had he lived in the time of Abraham, he would have been quite ordinary. The Midrash  explains that since Noah isolated himself from the evil generation  and did not reach out to them he was personally righteous, but not righteous enough to try to inspire his fellow human beings to be righteous.

By refusing to integrate with the rest of Jewry, Charedim have chosen the path of Noah and have abdicated their responsibility to inspire fellow Jews. Same as Noah.  Both Noah and the Charedi world could be defined as exceedingly  righteous. Nevertheless they both failed to rise to the task before them.  They did not (do not) want to leave the sanctity of their own world and venture out into a world that may be hostile to them. They both preferred the safety and comfort of their home turf.

With all due respect to Mrs. Ravitz, I reject the notion that being true to one’s religious values requites one to be isolated from the rest of the world. By doing that, they have rejected another very important Jewish value. Pursuing the unity of the Jewish people.