Missing Idealism

In my early 20s I chose to learn in a Haredi yeshiva.  I was deeply attracted to the idealism of that world. Though over time I took some distance from that world and its hashkafot, though its idealism, and the desire for it, stays with me. 

On my recent visit to Israel that sense of idealism was kindled, though in a very different place, and it made me aware of what seems to me to be a lack of similar idealism in my religious world, and at least in my perception, in much of North American religious Jewish culture – or at least Modern Orthodox culture. 

I noticed it first when I interviewed a teacher from Arad. I asked why he lived in Arad, a fairly out of the way city, originally a development town. He said that while he grew up there, he specifically moved back after getting married because it was a place that he felt he could contribute to and help make better. Shortly after he and his wife moved a Bnei Akiva garin (seed community) formed in Arad, which they joined. The garin organizes Bnei Akiva in the city, puts on events for holidays, and other communal gatherings. In contrast, I moved to Thornhill so I could afford a house, and didn’t think much further.  I was very moved by his values. 

After the interview I met with a friend/colleague who lives in a small yeshuv of about 300 families, almost all under 45. It’s a very new town, only about 10-15 years old. They still only have one shul, and based on whoever leads davening, the rest follow that nusach.  The people who moved there did so to be with other, religious and ideologically like-minded families. But what was so interesting was his description of how the town operates. They have committees to make decisions on a wide variety of town needs, everything from communal policies, to who organizes snif, to how the new shul will be built.  It’s a very engaged place, a kind of mini-democracy – all oriented around a shared set of values. 

When I did a quick ‘compare and contrast’, the closest parallel I could see in my own life to what I had just seen, of people investing create an idealistic community, are the Lakewood kollelim, or Chofetz Chaim students who historically (though I don’t think so much any longer) who would go out in small groups to small and under-serviced communities.  But in my own life, or what I see around me? Not really anything of the sort.  Yes, people go to shul, volunteer for lots of great causes, and give back in impressive ways, but there strikes me as something different when someone thinks beyond the causes that reflect their personal interests, and instead look to create and impact a community beyond them, who come together to create a visionary community, not just to replicate the one they now live in. This is certainly a different kind of idealism than what I described in the Haredi world, but it overlaps in the sense of living beyond one’s self, and thinking about the Jewish People and Torah values as a motivator in one’s choices. 

Are these differences explained by the individualistic, and autonomy-oriented ethos of the West, in contrast to Israel’s greater sense of social awareness and communitarianism? By North America’s relative materialism, with the result of a focus on what ‘I’ want rather than what others need? I’m not sure, though both may have some truth. I will admit, however, that it did leave me feeling that  something was missing from our home culture. And as is the case with such an awareness, it creates the emotional energy and desire to make change.