NEW YORK (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) Rabbi Doctor Abraham Twersky ob”m wrote an entire book entitled “Addictive Thinking.” It stated that sometimes a person can become so warped in his thinking that he actually believes that alcohol is the only thing that saves him. By the same token, someone with an eating disorder actually thinks that they are very fat.

Join our WhatsApp group

Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email

I would like to suggest that a similar disorder exists in parenting – for a rare few people. That parent thinks that the absolute best way to deal with a struggling child is to completely deprive that child of any sign of love.

In that parent’s mind, he is doing the right thing – completely unaware that this warped view is the height of destructive behavior. He justifies it all by speaking to his Rosh Yeshiva and then telling others that this was the guidance he received from his Rosh Yeshiva.

The Rosh Yeshiva is understandably unaware that this parent, his talmid, has this addictive thinking disorder. And the damage to the soul of his talmid’s child is incalculable. Rachmana litzlan.

If only, if only the words of Rav Meir Chodosh zt”l on page 151 of his sefer “Ohr Meir” could somehow penetrate into the father. What follows is a translation of his words.

There Is No Limit to the Love of Children

A person must always love his children with such great love that every limit by which the quantity of love could be measured falls away. This is learned from Avraham Avinu, in his relationship with his sons and his love for them.

Avraham had two sons. One was Yitzchak, a tzaddik and a chassid, the son of Sarah, whom HaKadosh Baruch Hu calls “servant of Hashem” (see Midrash Shocher Tov 18). He was a tzaddik the son of a tzaddik, whose prayer HaKadosh Baruch Hu hears; Yitzchak Avinu, who was an elder and sat in yeshiva (Yoma 28b). Opposite him stood Yishmael, who already at a young age transgressed the most severe sins, as it is written (Bereishis 21:9): “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Avraham, metzachek.”

Rashi (ibid.) explains: “Metzachek is an expression of idolatry, as it says, ‘and they rose up letzachek.’ Another explanation: it is an expression of illicit relations, as in ‘to letzachek with me.’ Another explanation: it is an expression of murder, as in ‘Let the young men now arise visachaku before us.’”

The source of Rashi’s words is in Bereishis Rabbah 53:11:

“Rabbi Akiva expounded: ‘And Sarah saw…’ Metzachek refers only to illicit relations, as it says, ‘The Hebrew servant whom you brought to us came to me letzachek bi.’ This teaches that our mother Sarah would see him conquering gardens and seizing married women and violating them. Rabbi Yishmael taught: this expression of tzechok refers only to idolatry, as it says, ‘And the people sat to eat and drink, and rose up letzachek.’ This teaches that our mother Sarah saw Yishmael building altars, catching locusts, and offering them upon them. Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Yose HaGelili, says: this expression of tzechok refers only to bloodshed, as it says, ‘Let the young men now arise visachaku before us.’”

Therefore Yishmael is considered the dross of the Avos, as stated in Shabbos 146a: “For three generations the impurity did not cease from our forefathers: Avraham fathered Yishmael…”

From all this it is clear that there is no point of similarity whatsoever between Yitzchak and Yishmael. Even so, when HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Who searches the kidneys and the heart, speaks with Avraham about his sons and tells him to take his beloved son, Avraham cannot say which one he loves more. As it is written (Bereishis 22:1–2): “And it came to pass after these things that G-d tested Avraham, and said to him, ‘Avraham,’ and he said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Take now your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak, and go to the land of Moriah, and bring him up there as an olah upon one of the mountains that I will tell you.’”

Chazal explain in the Yalkut Shimoni (Lech Lecha, remez 62):

“‘Take now your son.’ He (Avraham to HaKadosh Baruch Hu) said to Him: ‘Which son?’ He (HaKadosh Baruch Hu to Avraham) said to him: ‘Your only one.’ He said to Him: ‘This one is the only one of his mother, and that one is the only one of his mother.’ He said to him: ‘Whom you love.’ He said to Him: ‘Are there then boundaries within the heart?’”

Avraham stands before the King of Kings, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and tells Him that he loves Yishmael so much, with a love great, broad, and mighty, a love without end, that he cannot distinguish or separate between his great love for Yitzchak and his love for Yishmael. For the heart has no boundaries. There is no limit at all to the love of children, and within those expanses no measures can be grasped. For the love with which Avraham loves his sons, there exists no instrument and no measuring cup by which a human being could measure whom he loves more and whom less. That is why Avraham answers, “Are there then boundaries within the heart?” Both of them, the wise son and the son who does not behave as he should, Avraham loves without limit.

The Responsibility of a Jewish Home

This teaches how great the responsibility is in conducting a Jewish home, and to what extent a person is obligated to take care within his home and with his children. A father, too, has obligations, halachos, and detailed laws governing how he must conduct himself even within his own home, such that any deviation, even the smallest, can bring about terrible consequences.

Therefore, when it is seen that even the choicest of the Avos (see Bereishis Rabbah 76:1), the father of the holy Shevatim, made a distinction in a place where it was forbidden to make a distinction, there is nothing left but to take mussar: to reflect on every thought and every deed, to daven, and to ask for siyata dishmaya, so as never to come to shame, forever and ever.

These holy words of Rav Meir Chodosh are at the exact opposite of what the father is thinking. Boruch Hashem this illness is rare – but to the child who is suffering the rarity doesn’t help. It is a situation that needs seyata dishmaya and continued tefilos.

The father might respond: But my child is a Rasha! Or she is an absolute rashanta!

But iss There Still Such a Thing as a Rasha Today?

True. The Torah speaks of the rasha with unflinching severity. There are laws about distancing from him, about hating him, about refusing him honor. Yet a question hangs over all of these laws in the modern age, and it is not an academic one. The Jew who drives past a shul on Shabbos morning, the young man raised in a home where Shabbos was never mentioned, the woman who has never once heard a bracha recited: are these people resha’im in the eyes of halacha? Or are they something else entirely? The answer shapes how an observant Jew speaks to his neighbor, whom he counts in his minyan, whose wine he drinks, and whose soul he may yet help bring home.

The great poskim of the last two centuries confronted this question head-on, and their words carry a weight that has only grown with time.

The Cry of the Binyan Tzion

Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger, author of the Binyan Tzion, looked out at the Jewish world of his day and saw something without precedent. He wrote (Binyan Tzion, Vol. 2, end of siman 23):

“Regarding the sinners of Israel in our time, we do not know how to judge them. Due to our many sins, the plague has spread to the majority, to the point that for most of them, desecrating Shabbos has become like something permitted. Perhaps they have the status of one who holds it to be permitted, which is only close to deliberate sin. And what is more, their children who have arisen in their place, who never knew and never heard the laws of Shabbos, are truly similar to the Tzedukim. The Tzedukim were not considered mumarim even though they desecrated Shabbos, because they were following the practices of their fathers, and they are like a tinok shenishba, a child taken captive among the gentiles.”

These are remarkable words. A towering posek writes openly that the old categories no longer fit. The children of the sinners did not choose rebellion. They inherited it. They are captives, not traitors. Or as in our case, the child may be the product of a parent with this very disorder.

The Compassion of the Chofetz Chaim

The Chofetz Chaim, who spent his life guarding against the smallest sin of speech, saw the same reality and responded with mercy. He wrote (Chofetz Chaim, Letters, Letter 26):

“For in truth, in our time, even among the sinners and transgressors, many are found who do not intend to anger G-d, Heaven forfend. They simply err because of certain sinners who lead them astray from the path. It is a great mitzvah to have mercy on them and to show them the proper way.”

No anger nor contempt. Just mercy, and a great mitzvah at that.

The Chazon Ish: No One Has Truly Been Rebuked

The Chazon Ish took up the question with his characteristic precision. Discussing the mumar whose shechitah is invalid, he asked what such a person’s status could possibly be in the present day (Chazon Ish, Yoreh De’ah 2:28):

“A mumar to a matter in order to anger, or one who denies the Oral Torah in general… there is a condition here, that he not be an anuss. As the Rambam wrote (Rambam, Hilchos Mamrim 3), their children and students [of the Tzedukim] are considered as anusim and as a tinok shenishba. A tinok shenishba brings a korban, as stated in Perek Klal Gadol [and his law is not like that of a mumar, from whom a korban is not accepted], and we are commanded to sustain his life and even to desecrate Shabbos to save him. The Hagahos Maimoniyos (Hilchos De’os 6) wrote that one may not hate him unless he has refused to accept rebuke. At the end of Sefer Ahavas Chesed, the author wrote in the name of the Mahari Molin that it is a mitzvah to love the wicked for this very reason. He cited the same from a responsum of the Maharam of Lublin: in our times, everyone is considered as not yet having been rebuked, since we do not know how to rebuke properly, and we therefore judge such a person as an anuss.”

The Torah permits hatred of a sinner only after he has been properly rebuked and has rejected that rebuke. But proper rebuke is an art that has been lost. No one today knows how to deliver it in the way the Torah demands. And so, in a sense, no one has ever truly been rebuked. The sinner of today stands before the halacha not as a defiant rebel, but as one who has never been given a fair chance.

But Can His Shechitah Be Trusted?

If so, a natural conclusion would follow: out of doubt, one should be stringent about the wine of a Shabbos desecrator and about his shechitah. Yet the Chazon Ish did not stop there. He wrote (Chazon Ish, Yoreh De’ah 1, perek 6):

“A tinok shenishba among the gentiles has the status of a Jew, and his shechitah is permitted. He holds the presumption that if he were informed and efforts were made with him, to the degree of effort appropriate for him to return, he would return and would not deliberately refuse to return. However, once efforts have been made with him and he deliberately refuses to return, his status is that of a mumar. The required degree of effort depends on the consideration of the dayanim, when they inform him with a holy spirit in deciding his law. As for the dispute among the later authorities regarding whether the Tzedukim of later generations are considered anusim, this concerns determining how much knowledge they possess of the reality of the Jewish people, and of the fact that their fathers separated from it and turned a stubborn shoulder. The question is whether we judge such a person, according to his level of knowledge, as deliberate or not, and whether he is still an anuss. In truth, each individual must be judged separately… Likewise, those whose fathers separated from the ways of the community and who grew up without Torah have the status of a Jew in every respect, and here too one must assess the extent of his knowledge, whether or not he is considered deliberate.”

The lesson is unmistakable. There is no sweeping rule. Every Jew is a world unto himself, and every Jew must be judged on his own.

The Testimony of the Baalei Teshuvah

One of the great poskim of Yerushalayim once ruled that the secular Jews of today are not tinokos shenishbu. They know, he reasoned, that Torah Jews exist. They see them on the street. They cannot claim ignorance.

Then baalei teshuvah came to him and told him what their lives had actually been like. While they were secular, they said, they had been utterly removed from any understanding of what Judaism even is. Seeing a man in a black hat did not teach them the meaning of Shabbos, the depth of Torah, or the beauty of a mitzvah. In their own words, a secular Jew born into the secular camp is, without question, a tinok shenishba.

The upshot is a delicate balance. Such people must be treated as Jews in every respect, embraced as brothers and sisters. At the same time, one should not rely on this leniency in matters of shechitah, testimony, and the like. In practice, the final word belongs to the gedolei hador.

How to Treat the Wicked in Today’s World

It emerges, then, that one must be careful in both directions. Further details now follow, and they are startling.

When the Harshest Law Falls Silent

The Torah speaks of certain wicked people regarding whom the law is “moridin v’lo ma’alin,” that one must actively bring about their downfall. The Chazon Ish explained why this law, terrifying in its severity, does not operate today (Chazon Ish, Yoreh De’ah 13:16):

“It appears that the law of ‘moridin’ applies only at a time when Hashem’s providence is revealed, as in the era when miracles were common and a bas kol was active, and the tzaddikim of the generation were under a special providence visible to all. The heretics then were in a special perversity, an inclination of the yetzer toward lusts and lawlessness. At that time, removing the wicked was a protective fence for the world, for everyone knew that the corruption of the generation brings calamities upon the world, bringing pestilence, sword, and famine. But in a time of concealment, when faith has been cut off from the simple people, the act of removing them does not repair the breach. On the contrary, it adds to the breach, for in their eyes it will appear as an act of destruction and violence, Heaven forfend. Since everything is meant to bring repair, the law does not apply at a time when it brings no repair. Rather, it is incumbent upon us to bring them back with cords of love and to place them in the ray of light, as far as our hands can reach.”

Here is one of the most profound principles in all of modern halacha. The purpose of every Torah law is tikkun, repair. When a harsh measure would no longer repair but would only destroy, when it would make Torah appear cruel to a generation that cannot see the Hand of G-d, the measure falls away. What remains is the command to draw them close with cords of love.

Two Boundaries

The sefer Sha’arei Limud Torah (p. 51) affirms that there is a mitzvah to bring close even those who are very far, since they are tinokos shenishbu. But it sets two firm boundaries.

The first boundary: when other souls are endangered. All of this compassion applies only where the errors of the misguided pose no danger to the souls of other Jews. The Mishnah Berurah addresses this squarely, commenting on the Shulchan Aruch’s instruction not to be embarrassed before those who mock the observant (Bi’ur Halachah 1:1, s.v. v’lo yisbayeish):

“But if one stands in a place where there are apikorsim who rise up against the Torah and wish to make some enactment in the affairs of the town, and through this they will turn the people away from the will of Hashem, and he opened with words of peace and they did not heed him, then in such a case… it is a mitzvah to hate them, to oppose them, and to thwart their plans in every way he can.”

Love has its limits. When the sinner becomes a crusader, organizing to uproot Torah from an entire community, gentleness gives way to battle. And even then, the Mishnah Berurah insists, one must first open with words of peace.

The second boundary: no shared organizations. Here the sefer follows Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, who held that observant Jews are obligated to separate from the general communities and form independent ones. Rav Hirsch wrote:

“Just as we are obligated to deal in peace and friendship with our brethren who grew up in the views of heresy and apikorsus, and just as we must live a life of true Torah and bring them to the recognition that wins the heart to Judaism… in contrast to this, there rests upon us the obligation and the great need to distance ourselves from heresy and apikorsus and to separate from them entirely.”

The distinction is sharp and clear. The individual Jew, however far he or she has strayed, must be drawn close. The secular organization is another matter entirely. It may not be assisted, not even with the quiet gift of recognition, because sitting together in one body strengthens its hand in its harmful work.

The Netziv’s Warning

Not every gadol agreed with Rav Hirsch. The Netziv, Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin, responded with a warning that still echoes (Shu”t Meishiv Davar 1:44):

“…The author advised and instructed to guard oneself from this generation by separating one from another entirely, as Avraham separated from Lot. In the opinion of this writer, this counsel is as harsh as swords to the body of the nation and its survival. Behold, at a time when we were in the Holy Land and in our own domain, briefly during the Second Temple, the land was laid waste, the Beis HaMikdash destroyed, and Israel exiled because of the dispute between the Perushim and the Tzedukim. The cause was also baseless hatred, which led to bloodshed contrary to law. That is, when a Parush saw someone being lenient in some matter, even though he was not a Tzeduki at all but had merely committed a transgression, nevertheless, out of baseless hatred, he would judge him as a Tzeduki whom one may put to death. From this, bloodshed multiplied under the guise of permissibility and for the sake of a mitzvah, in error. All this is not far from coming about, Heaven forfend, in a time like ours, when in the view of one of those who uphold the faith it may appear that so-and-so does not conduct himself according to his path in the service of Hashem. They will judge him as a heretic and distance themselves from him, and they will pursue one another under the guise of permissibility, with a false image, Heaven forfend, and the people of Hashem will be destroyed, chalilah. And this would be so even if we were in our own land and our own domain.

“All the more so now, when we are in exile and scattered among the nations of the world. In exile we are compared to the dust of the earth, and the nations of the world are compared to water. There is no remedy for a clod of earth in a flood of many waters unless the dust becomes a solid stone. Then even a rushing river does not destroy it, but only rolls it from place to place, without destroying it entirely. So too, Israel among the nations has no remedy except to be ‘even Yisrael,’ a stone of Israel, that is, to be bound together in one bundle. Then no nation or tongue can destroy them. How, then, can one say to separate one from another, so that the nations of the world will come and wash us away little by little, Heaven forfend?”

The Netziv’s words are chilling. The Second Beis HaMikdash did not fall merely because of heresy. It fell because zealots, convinced they were fulfilling a mitzvah, branded ordinary sinners as heretics and spilled their blood. The road from righteous suspicion to sinless hatred is short, and the Netziv feared it could be traveled again. His image is unforgettable: loose dust is swept away by the flood, but a solid stone survives the torrent. A divided people dissolves. A united people endures.

Two giants, two visions, and both spoke from love of Torah and love of Klal Yisroel. These matters depend on careful judgment, which is precisely why, in every place and every generation, it is the gedolei hador who chart the path through this delicate terrain.

The Supreme Value of Bringing a Jew Home

“Return, and cause others to return” (Yechezkel 18:30).

If there is any doubt about where the heart of the Torah lies in all of this, the Zohar removes it (Zohar 128b). One who is meritorious must pursue the sinner and bring him back in teshuvah. In doing so, he acquires complete reward. He scrubs away the filth of sin, he subdues the Sitra Achra, and he gives the sinner’s soul new life. It is considered as though he created him. No praise elevates the glory of Hashem as this does.

That is why Malachi (Malachi 2) describes Aharon HaKohen, the lover of peace and pursuer of peace, as one who “turned many away from iniquity,” and declares of him, “My covenant was with him.” Whoever takes a sinner by the hand and labors with him until he abandons his ways is elevated in three ways, as no other person is elevated. He humbles the Sitra Achra. He causes Hakadosh Baruch Hu to be exalted in His glory. And he sustains the entire world, above and below. Of such a person it is said: “My covenant was with him, of life and peace.”

And there is more. Regarding one who teaches Torah to the son of his fellow, a simple am ha’aretz, Chazal say that even if Hakadosh Baruch Hu has issued a decree, this person annuls it. As the posuk states (Yirmeyahu 15:19): “If you bring forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as My mouth.” As it were, he becomes the very mouth of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, with the power to overturn Heavenly decrees.

Such is the power of reaching out to a lost Jew. The halacha may draw careful lines, but the destination is never in doubt. Every distant Jew is a precious soul waiting to be brought home.

The author can be reached at [email protected]