The Splintering of Crown Heights

Op-Ed by Yeshoshua Werde

In shul the other day, a friend approached me about a mutual acquaintance – an intelligent and good-natured young man who had visibly left the folds of our community.

“Tell me,” I was was asked, “what happened? He seemed like such a good boy! Is his family normal? Are his parents divorced? Is he on drugs? Was he abused? Why did he leave?”

Many a reader will be quick to point out the impropriety of the questions. Beyond the various implications of loshon hara, however, there is an equally troubling undercurrent– one that is eating away at the very heart of our community.

You see, while I don’t agree with the actions of this young man, I also understand that the totality of his experience is one beyond a simply defined problem. By boxing in this young man’s actions, the well-meaning questioner had not brought a salve to his spiritual wounds. Rather, he engaged in an exercise of selfishness. By viewing the young man as having fallen prey to an easily defined “problem,” the questioner has only dealt with his own cognitive dissonance.

Today we live in a fractured community. Beyond major political issues at the top, we’re suffering from a general splintering, affecting every member of the community. Today, many individuals have created their own sub-communities here in Crown Heights. Shuls, each one built around a class, a common theme – or the absence of one – have taken the place of a larger community infrastructure. In and of itself, these new communities can be quite positive. For the first time, people are attending shul with new excitement; friends are coming together for the sake of spiritual growth.

And yet it seems, we have lost the forest for the trees. For by creating these new communities, we have created a means to falsely identify one another.

“Oh,” we can say, “so-and-so trims his beard? What do you expect – he comes from this group.”
“So-and-so is aloof, looks askance at others here in our community? What do you want? He’s a member of such-and-such.”

Forming such tribes allows for false identifications and gross oversimplification of complex issues– such as the roots of a young man leaving the community.

Further, by sub-dividing ourselves in an attempt to better identify who we are, we forget our commonality. We forget that we are all brothers and sisters, members of klal yisroel– and chasidim of our Rebbe.

By filing others away so neatly, we’re able to wash our hands of ‘the other.’ Why make ourselves uncomfortable by dealing with what we find unfitting, if we can easily view it as merely another demographic? Frayak, Farmer, Zealot . . . the list have how we view “the other” goes on.

Though it may sound trite, I can find no better answer than a call for us to come together as individuals. If we focus on our relationships with one another – then we’ll be able to grow as whole.

The time has come that we forge new bonds of friendship. We need to view others as individuals – not categorize them by superficial identifying markers – strengthen each other in our Avodas Hashem.
Then, instead of seeing a person’s social, spiritual or financial plight as a threat that must be explained away, we can see the G-dly spark within and bond that we share.
Perhaps, then, if each one of us reaches out to someone else– if we help one another– be it b’gashmius or b’ruchinius– we can grow together.

Yehoshua Werde is the Founder of the Besh”t Center and director of the Torah Learning Project