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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Treat people who feel alienated from Judaism, especially those who left Orthodox or Hasidic life, with unconditional warmth, listening, and acceptance rather than judgment or pressure. The story centers on Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald, who spent about seven hours with a group of Hasidic young people who had come to a hotel to escape Yom Kippur, and whose acceptance led several of them back to Jewish life.
Key Points
- The young people arrived shortly before Yom Kippur in beachwear and flip-flops, having grown up in Hasidic homes and attended yeshiva and Hasidic girls' schools, and they expected to be left alone at the hotel.
- Rabbi Portner, from the Jewish Heritage Center, was polite but reserved, telling them the shul was open and they need not join if they didn't want to, while Rabbi Greenwald chose to wait for them in the lobby and engage them the next morning.
- Rabbi Greenwald validated their emotions and made them feel like welcome family members rather than outcasts, without criticism, tension, or disapproval of their behavior.
- Their connection grew over the day: two boys attended Neilah, and later about twenty-five of the group returned for Sukkot and Simchat Torah, and around a hundred attended the Hanukkah party, prompting the center to create a special division for Hasidic young men and women.
- Years later, at Rabbi Greenwald's funeral, one of the young women, who had since attended a regular Bais Yaakov seminary and was living in Israel, said that Rabbi Greenwald's acceptance changed the direction of her life; Rabbi Portner also said the whole group had gone on to build Torah-based Jewish homes.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Actionable approach drawn from the story: wait for or seek out people in the common space rather than avoiding them; listen to them one-on-one and then in groups; validate their feelings without criticism; avoid awkward faces, anger, or flinching at their choices; keep the invitation open and warm over time, including inviting them back for future holidays and events.
- Rabbi Greenwald did not daven in a visible way during the day, privately saying his Psalms when he could, and instead spent most of the day with the young people.
- The group was drinking beer and swimming during the day, and the story presents this without condemnation.
- Rabbi Portner recalled the Chofetz Chaim's teaching that God wants one to deal with Hasidic kids too, and described the young people as broken vessels (shevirat ha-kelim).
- Rabbi Portner noted that these young people had been so alienated that they regarded even intermarriage as acceptable, and some even despised the idea of a bris; the video presents this as a measure of how far they had drifted.
- The speaker dedicated the class to Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald, who had passed away suddenly in Florida; Rabbi Portner attended the funeral.
Bottom Line
Sustained, nonjudgmental presence can reach people who have drifted furthest from Jewish observance, and sometimes that acceptance matters more than any explicit teaching.
