The Courage for Kiruv

I am still not sure if it was a ruach shtus (foolish impulse) that motivated me to take the afternoon off from my Kollel yesterday or if it truly was a proper and appropriate decision. Whichever it was, I told my chevrusa what I planned to do (he told me I was absolutely meshuga) and I headed off to the old city.

The old city is a place where there are always secular American or English Jews touring around so I figured that it would be the best place to go. My goal was to emulate Rav Meir Shuster for the afternoon, ‘the man at the wall’ who has approached literally tens of thousands of secular Jews at the Kotel and around the old city and offered to let them stay for free at Heritage House or take them to a class. I personally know quite a number of yidden who are now rabbonim who became frum because Rav Meir approached them and made sure to connect them to a yeshiva.
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Following the Kiruv Tradition of Avraham

I am a baal tshuva of 10 years living in Jerusalem. I have spent time in a number of different yeshivas and kollel’im in various different communities in and out of Jerusalem. I have met and know a plethora of baal tshuvas like myself who have married and integrated into the frum communities in which we live. I know many baal tshuvas that doven neitz, learn all day, behave like menchen and who are raising their FFB kids to be good Jews and are sending them to well established schools. But, I am beginning to think that as utopian as all this seems, something is wrong, something is missing.

Lately I have been doing something that for quite a while I have to admit I have managed to avoid doing. I have actually been listening to the Torah that I am learning. As crazy as this may sound, this has been a life shocking experience for me.
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