I didn't know much about him, only that to the Aish HaTorah people he is a hero. To the Machon Shlomo people of those who do kiruv the wrong way (that's everyone to them), he's the wrongest (even though they actually are the wrongest). To the yeshiva world he did make many baalei teshuvah but ....
I met him once 40 years ago, in his office, as part of a group.
So I'm reading Rosenblum's bio on him and am finding myself liking the man more and more. He had a reasonable approach. He didn't try to turn you into a kollel guy (I have heard that the women's school Eyat as run by his wife did push the kollel life hardcore). He advocated general association with the yeshivas but discouraged full integration with the yeshiva world particularly if it was done uncritically. He started you with hashkafa, mitzvos, and halacha rather than Talmudic pilpul, and that's good because that's what BTs need most.
The hashkafa concerned largely the basics of why we do this thing called Judaism, and it didn't come from being hunched over a text whose language you couldn't decipher. For beginners, that kind of studying is mostly an exercise in translation about which little content is remembered and little ground covered. (Sometimes, when I hear the term Torah study, my back starts to hurt because of my associations with all the hunched over sitting.) Besides that, which classic text discusses the matter in a way that is appropriate for late 20h century Westerners?
Rather, he created his own lecture series, one that contained some wisdom that helps one to approach some of the difficult topics of Judaism and lead a full life, not just one of obedience and robotic behavior. The New York accent is a bit irritating for me and the manner of expression a bit strong (he is a NY yeshiva guy after all) but maybe that's helpful to some in the end because overcoming atheistic and anti-religious biases (and habit) requires a little shove to help the wisdom along.
Yes, he can be overbearing and shaming like any NY yeshiva guy, but not nearly as bad as most. If a person says she doesn't see what's holy about Eretz Yisroel he says, do you even know what holiness is? (I don't know if he said this to anyone. He wrote it as a dialogue in one of his 48 ways articles - if indeed he wrote those as they might be a transcription) To that I say, yes, she does have some sense of it. Isn't that in all of us? So the answer is a cult trick of making a person doubt his own mind. Not Weinberg at his best. But his program in general was much better than that of Ohr Som. and the like, MS in particular, where halacha and machshava and Hebrew are totally ignored.
It seems to me that the general approach of the yeshivish kiruv folks is to say, our salesmen got you here and it doesn't matter how because it's for the cause. Alternatively, zchus avos got you here. You are merely the beneficiary. Now you're under the yoke of Torah and we are its representatives. You will obey or you will go to hell and we will yell at you as you go there. But don't worry because the thrill of a svara in the Tosfos will make it all worthwhile. We live for that.
Actually, not one of those guys would ever change over his life from frei to frum just because of Tosfos. They are all just living off of childhood conditioning and the culture into which their lives are interwoven. The Tosfos is a cherry on top. So it's no wonder that they so often fail in kiriv, which is to say that they don't really do kiruv, they just teach Talmud in an inappropriate way to people who are already Shomer Shabbos but not necessarily solidly so.
Rabbi Weinberg was pushed out of Ohr Somayach (originally Shema Yisrael) the yeshiva he founded by the two partners who changed the name to Ohr Somayach to make it more yeshivish. And that's also why they pushed him out too. They wanted a standard yeshiva that was based on pilpul. They pushed him out even though he started the place. Rav Hutner had advised him not to take any partners.
Machon Shlomo shamefully criticized Aish and Reb Noach for avoiding the text. At MS that word is used obsessively. Ironically, MS doesn't have a library and doesn't even use any texts other than the Chumash and a few pages of Gemara. But the Chumash is read to the students, which doesn't give them much experience with the text. And Hebrew isn't taught, so how can one approach the text at all if it's written in Hebrew? In other words, MS is a nuthouse that distracted you from its nuttiness by making false claims against Aish, which seems to me to have had a much healthier approach to kiruv than perhaps any other place.
Reb Noach acknowledged that the OJ world was crazy, just less crazy (in the important matters I suppose) than the general world. It was crazy in its criticism of him for not being yeshivish for that approach doesn't make sense in kiruv in most cases as I am explaining. But you know how it goes. Most of the good guys get condemned (the Rebbe, the Rav, etc.)
His lecture series the 48 ways contains good tips for living, including how to handle fear in Judaism. He can be confusing at times, perhaps in his attempt to do too much. But nobody is perfect. A better vocabulary would have been helpful. He makes the appearance of his ideas being formulaic ("#2", "The B of this is..." "The opposite of pain is what?") when the topics he covers are subtle and not conducive to formula. So you can hurt your head trying to approach it like a catechism. But if you just take out of it what good you can find, you will find some good.
He encouraged independent thought about one's own life. For example, what do you want out of it? Can you imagine a rabbi at Ohr Somayach proposing that you think about what you want out of life? He'll tell you what to want, which is to be a talmid chocham of course.
Reb Noach didn't disparage all the world. I have heard that at the Aish yeshiva this does happen. Aish has changed. The outreach group has become nearly indistinguishable from Haddassah or Hillel and the yeshiva not much different from Ohr Somayach. However he didn't do it. He actually employs the phrase "career choice." Wow, a choice of career. When I was in yeshiva I didn't know that I was even allowed to choose to have any kind of career despite the fact that a six figure income is needed to be frum in chutz and $800,000 for an apartment in Israel.
Every group asks something unrealistic of its members. With Reb Noach perhaps it's too much pressure to engage in kiruv. I don't know how much pressure there was actually. Kiruv is a natural act for BTs, as they have travelled that road and they are the ones who know the non-frum people. I would say that doing some kiruv is a basic mitzvah of loving Hashem as well as a demonstration of gratitude to family. How can one not try to help them? It's not so hard to invite somebody for a Purim meal or to invite them to a class. So only if a kiruv career is demanded is there a problem. That's a bit much to ask of everyone. Encouragement to do some kiruv in some way that matches a person's abilities is not unreasonable. So if his talk about changing the world through kiruv was taken literally or out of context from his talk about living one's own life, that could be a problem.
Most people who work in kiruv or say they do don't belong there. Many are yeshiva guys who need a parnassah. More than a few are dangerously arrogant and destructive people. It seems to be that Rabbi Weinberg was meant for kiruv. He had enough Torah and secular education to come across as credible and to inspire. I believe that he cared too. It's not so easy for a guy from New York City to come across as caring, but he does, at least in this book, and in the videos I have seen, and in the one meeting that I had with him 40 years ago.
Post Script: One problem with this book is that it seems to portray Reb Noach as starting the teshuvah movement and it doesn't mention Chabad at all, not that I have found yet. So I did a little search and found that of course Reb Noach was connected to Chabad and as a young man met with the Rebbe. His brother Yaakov Weinberg, the RY of Ner Yisroel met with the Rebbe every week. You can read all about that in a fascinating article here:
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