Living in a Non-Jewish Environment

UPDATE (31March): Rabbi Nachum Amsel has kindly furnished us with a recording of Rabbi Wein's speech. It comes in two parts. The first 52 seconds are here; the subsequent 28 minutes are here.  Thanks, Rabbi Amsel, for sharing.

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Last Motzaei Shabbat, at Rabbi Nachum Amsel’s double book launch, Rabbi Wein gave a lecture under the title “A Jew Living in a Non-Jewish Environment Today”. A packed house sat in rapt attention while he expounded his theme.  Our member Bill Gerber was among that audience. We thank him for the following note.

The essential problem faced by the Jewish people in this regard is the relatively small numerical size of the Jewish people in comparison to the numbers of those in the non-Jewish world. Even during the Davidic era and the years before that, after the Exodus, Jews found themselves confronted by empires and cultures (Rabbi Wein here lisred the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arab-Islamic, and so on, up to and including the British). These non-Jewish cultures and civilizations have all been based on concepts alien to those which animate Jews.

Rabbi Wein opined that, speaking generally, Jews have responded in three broad ways to the unfamiliar environments which have confronted them:

·       total rejection,

·       partial accommodation, and finally

·       surrender and assimilation.

Thus, in antiquity, Jews rejected and fought the Seleucid Greeks even though their culture was rich in many ways. The second modality of partial accommodation stems from recognizing that an alien culture has qualities and values that may be valuable to Jews. Thus, for example, in nineteenth century Germany, some great rabbinic authorities wrote in German and studied great German authors.

Rabbi Wein then observed that our situation is similar to the mixed reaction in that there can be both some acceptance of the majority culture along with a push-back in other areas. But the same issues remain such matters as

·       how much accommodation should there be?

·       How much of the majoritarian culture do we accept?

·       do we expose our children to these cultures, especially given that ,in some instances, these cultures include genocidal and destructive inclinations?

Thanks, Bill, for letting us know what we missed!