The Million Jew Seder By Rabbi Shmully Hecht

The article below says some important things that need to be said and acted upon. After I read it I spoke with Rabbi Hecht and asked him to write an introduction. One of the comments he made in our conversation was that the concern for the non-observant Jew is not an exclusive Chabad endeavor and in fact there are a significant number of Lubavitcher's who have trouble reaching out to their fellow Jews. He noted that it was important to clarify that his message was not Chabad versus the Charedim - but rather that we all need to work on removing the barriers betwen Jews.
 
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Dear Readers , 

Please allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is Shmully Hecht and I am the senior Chabad Rabbi at Yale University .  Though I was born and married into prominent Chabad families  on all sides , our recent family ancestry  is quite broad and unique.  The Hecht family can best be described as Galitziana Yidden. In fact, in 1885 my great great grandfather Reb Hersh Meilech Hecht  z”l came from the  Polish town of  Shiniv to America  with the  blessings of Reb Yechezkel of Shiniv; grandson of The Sanzer Rav . My mother’s father, Rav Chaim Gutnick z”l  learned in Telz for many years  with Rav Mordechaii Gifter  before the second world war. My wife’s maternal  extended Weiss family are prominent Satmar Chasidim; Reb Moshe Weiss being a great uncle. My wife’s paternal great grandfather was Rav Nisen Pilchik, among the  founders of Stolin in America. My father is the Senior  Rav in the Sephardic community of Queens where I grew up davening with Jews from Iran, Afghanistan, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and just about ever middle Eastern and North African Country on the map. I went to Ohr Yisroel in Queens NY for elementary school where the students were best described as black hatters/litvish  and our Rabbeim  were Satmar, Ger, Vishnitz, Belz and Lubavitch. I have spent time with Jews in over 100 cities on 6 continents, and have educated Jews in places as remote as Perth  Australia , Tokyo,Japan and Addis Ababa,Ethiopia .  

I have spent seventeen years as the Rabbi at Yale where I have met Jews from every secular and religious stripe you can imagine.  They span from the Chareidi Phd math candidate from Yerushalayim, to the Jewish Yale undergraduate, born to a Mormon father from Denver . 

In short, I am familiar first hand with the fact that there is really  only one Jew in the world and our differences are minimal compared to our essential bond and oneness. It is perhaps because of the many worlds I have been exposed to  that  I can humbly make that statement wholeheartedly and objectively . I have therefore asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky to officially ask his talmidim this year to kindly invite one Jew to their seder. My hope is to have one million Jews invited this year for Pesach by someone they would least likely expect it from . Even if they don’t accept the invitation, the call itself  will change Israel and the Jewish people in a revolutionary way. Please read the following story to understand why. Times of Israel

An open letter to:

Rav Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky

I write to you in your capacity as one of the leaders of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of Israel, often referred to as the haredi movement.

On a flight last week from Israel to New York, I had a rather disturbing conversation with one of your of disciples. The individual was an ultra orthodox Jew and a successful Swiss real estate developer who resides in Jerusalem with his wife and seven children. He was on his way to New York for the wedding of a relative. I was returning home from Israel where I had spent the day attending the funeral of the father of a dear Israeli friend of mine from Yale, where I am the campus rabbi.  I had met the  deceased last year at his son’s wedding in Caesarea, where I was honored to officiate. On a subsequent trip to Israel I had put Tefillin on with this 77 year old man, preceded by an in-depth theological conversation about his Judaism and beliefs.  On this return trip to Israel it was at the Shiva house where, upon meeting many of the members of my friend’s F16 squadron, a troubling conversation began. This was a conversation that crystallized on the flight back to New York while talking with your disciple.[...]

Listening to him describe the gap that sadly divides the secular “chiloni“ and ultra-orthodox “haredi“ leaderships of Israel, I was dismayed and  saddened by how far this split has actually wedged a division among our people. Could we have reached such a low point in our history that Jews living in our ancient homeland were flying across the world to avoid having to engage with our very own rabbis? How ironic I thought it was that I, an American rabbi, had flown to Israel first to marry and now bury a son and father of the most secular type of Israelis. Would this young pilot’s first encounter with an Israeli rabbi be at his own funeral?[...]
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This is the Hebrew translation - Rabbi Hecht encourages the distribution of this letter

   מכתב מתורגם לשמולי