Websites and marketing aside, there's also
deceptive recruiting via love bombing and the lure of wealth. As one man wrote
The outreach people come at you with an
overabundance of artificial friendliness that is temporary. You get besieged
with Shabbos invitations that also go away once your brain has been switched
over to fear of hell for failure to comply. Much of the outreach takes place on
college campuses which are billion dollar facilities that the outreach people
pretend to be their own. My first Shabbosim were spent in million dollar homes,
one after the next. Yet within two years they had me sleeping on a basement floor,
prohibiting me from getting a job in order to buy some food because it would
interfere with my Torah study.
None of that is from the Torah which demands
authenticitiy and frowns on flattery and genevas daas. The latter term is
translated as stealing of the mind, meaning creating false impressions.
Certainly, we should be friendly but not unnaturally so and not with ulterior
motives. People who didn't stay with Orthodoxy have reported to me how the same
people who gushed at them with interest refuse to even look at them now. As for
earning a living, the Torah actually tells you to get a job and not rely on
others for support. So, we say again, yes there is all kinds of funny business
going on with kiruv, but none of it is sanctioned by the Torah, none of it is
proper Judaism.
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