Do we have watchdog organizations who fairly evaluate the performance of our charities? How do rabbis and shuls decide where to route their contributions?

Does the mosad you referred to claim that its kiruv services go solely or primarily to children deprived of some non-material good thing (e.g., Torah) ?

We humans are very strange indeed. As long as we are calling the shots, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to lead a successful kodesh life. Our Yeitzer will follow us even there… and then we’re in BIG trouble.

People like Norm realize that. In a certain way they are to be commended. And then we must learn the lesson… and daven our hearts out to learn how to live HIS Torah on HIS terms.

The funny thing is, that I can remember very well exactly where I was and what I was doing when I realized that I didn’t believe in the Reform interpretation and that instead, I believed that Torah was true and it applied to me. I was eating fast food with my mom, in my car. But it took a couple of years for me to seriously start investigating what it meant to live an observant life. I think there was a part of me who really identified with what the young man Ellen described did. There was a disconnect between what I believed and what I wanted to do. I have an uncle who essentially is permanently stuck in that disconnect. He davens regularly at an Orthodox shul and with Orthodox minyans, he accepts the Orthodox understanding of Torah and mitzvot…but he just likes eating treif food and using his microwave during Shabbat. Yaakov Eric is right. We humans are very strange creatures!

I made the decision to be be observant before I had ever met an Orthodox Jew, let alone been invited to a Shabbos dinner. I was raised Reform but when I was in my early twenties I realized that Reform’s interpretation of Torah didn’t make sense to me. Why would G-d give us an explanation of how to live and then not expect us to follow all of the directions, and why would I want to follow directions on how to live if they were written by men who made mistakes when they were writing the instructions? After I had that realization, I started investigating the Orthodox understanding of Torah and mitzvot. The rest is history. ;-)

Before we get to the Tov, we need the yeshar.

How many people do we know who have dived into the world of Tov – of kdusha and tsedek and din and emuna – but remain far from the world of yosher? As per the shabbos morning tfillah:

B’fee YESHARIM comes before all mention of Tsaddikim, chasidim and kdoishim!

True Tov takes time.

Rav Dessler discusses the person who is simply not interested in such spriritual or intellectual pleasures – who considers them a burden. These are the “Esau” types who can been exposed to great Torah personlities, and reject their connection to them – who can say “we’re all going to die anyway, so what good is it to me is to be Isaac’s firtborn?”

The question illustrates the mindset that produces it: what’s in it for me – using the basest, most material definitions of “me” and “benefit”.

Pretty common attitude among products of modern materialism and secular indoctrination. Kiruv workers will tell you that the greatest attrition comes before the lecture – most people simply bow out. They’re not interested.

What’s unusual about Norm’s story is that such an indifferent fellow was induced to actually sit down and listen.

And perhaps the author thought that the beauty/truth/power of Torah must inexorably effect people who are exposed to it. Didn’t happen.

Having said all that, perhaps for these reasons his take is entitled to a lot of credibility. We certainly must always be awake to the power of rationalization, after all.

But it’s hard for me to abandon my original thesis.

FWIW,anyone who has read about a certain “spiritual leader” and his indictment on multiple Federal violations of securities laws and who apparently operated under the view that ignoring Anerican law was no different than ignoring the royal edicts of a European monarch because the ends justified the means of “saving” his mossad should be disturbed and upset at the use of such an inappropriate rational. IMO, kiruv professionals should be willing to say to anyone that such conduct is wrong, as opposed to exercising in rhetoric that can only be described as “blaming the victim.”