[Avodah] kiruv

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 07:14:21AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> From a blog on relations with non-orthodox:
>> We should instead become more involved with them while accepting them
>> as they are. While the ultimate goal is to bring them closer to God,
>> it should be done by example.

> Perhaps we should stop looking at them as our "cheftza shel mitzvah"
> (object through which we carry out a mitzvah) and view them as Jewish
> human beings with a tzelem elokim who we interact with in a manner
> consistent with the will of HKB"H...

In R' Wolbe's essay titled "Frumkeit" (Alei Shur vol II,
available at <http://www.aishdas.org/as/frumkeit.pdf>), he
quotes the Alter of Slabodka as saying

     "Ve'ahavta lereiakha komakha -- and you shall love your peers like
     yourself." That you should love your peer the way you love yourself.
     You do not love yourself because it is a mitzvah, rather, a plain
     love. And that is how you should love your peer."

To which Rav Wolbe notes, "This approach is entirely alien to
frumkeit." The frum person is the one who makes sure to have Shabbos
guests each week, but whose guests end up feeling much like his
tefillin -- an object with which he did a mitzvah. A person acting
out of frumkeit doesn't love to love, he loves in order to be a holier
person. And ironically, he thereby fails -- because he never develops
that Image of the Holy One he was created to become. The person who acts
from self-interest, even from the interest of ascending closer to G-d,
will not reach Him.

(Taken from my blog post at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/what-is-frumkeit>.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We are what we repeatedly do.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Thus excellence is not an event,
Author: Widen Your Tent      but a habit.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                 - Aristotle