Torah Marks the Boundaries
I am acquainted with a family in France, all fine Jews. The parents raised their children with an awareness of Torah and mitzvot. Unfortunately, one of their sons decided to change the course of his life and pursue a college career. He threw himself into physics and other secular subjects. His friends had such a negative influence on him that he detached himself from spirituality. He began flagrantly desecrating Shabbat, scorning anything having to do with religion. He eventually married and had four daughters. He raised them in the manner he had adopted during his university years. They all married German men, rachmana litzlan.
I once met him in the street. When I heard that his daughters had married Germans, I was overcome with shock and chagrin. “How can it be that your daughters all married Germans, the nation whose credo was to destroy every last vestige of our people?!”
He replied, “The Germans are also people.”
I understood that the spark of his Jewish neshamah had been snuffed out. He had deviated so far off course that he had no pull whatsoever toward his Jewish roots. This was a direct outcome of abandoning Torah and mitzvot.
Torah is the potion of life. When a Jew holds fast to Torah and mitzvot, even to a small degree, he feels a part of the Chosen Nation. One day, the small spark of Judaism will ignite and burst into flame.
But when he crosses all boundaries and does not distinguish between Jew and gentile, claiming they are all mankind, he has proven that he is light-years away from Hashem, the Torah, and his fellow Jews.
