The Spiritual Awakening of the Jewish People: Three ‘Tipping Point Events’

Some of the observations evident to me during the years of research I pursued before writing (together with Richard Horowitz) the now renowned article and accompanying demographic chart titled “Will Your Grandchild be Jewish?” were the clear trends in the Baal Teshuva Movement.

Before 10/7, 2023, there have been two critical events which triggered exponential increases in non-religious Jews returning to a more traditional Jewish lifestyle.  The events in question being The Six Day War and The Yom Kippur War.  It is important for anyone interested in appreciating  sociological trends to not only understand these two ‘tipping point events,’ and the more recent ‘tipping point event,’ Hamas’ invasion of Israel during Simchas Torah, but more specifically, the reasons why these events served as catalysts for the teshuva movement.

The Six Day War was really the start of the modern teshuvah movement.  The spiritual awakening in 1967 was driven to a large extent by Jewish pride engendered by the miraculous victory that breathed a spark of life into the lives of many Jews at the time.

Soon after the Six Day War, outreach centers sprang up in the United States. The first campus Chabad house opened in 1969 at UCLA. Esther Jungreis founded the organization Hineni after renting out Madison Square Garden in 1973 to speak about the importance of living Jewishly, and Aish came into existence in 1974 in Jerusalem.

In Israel, this period was also followed by an incredible upswell in Jewish identity. Rav Shlomo Wolbe, began giving lectures to secular Jews that were later published as the works Bein Sheishes Le’asor and Ohr LaShav. As Herbert Danziger explains in his book Returning to Tradition: The Contemporary Revival of Orthodox Judaism, “The Six-Day War powerfully brought home to Jews, even peripheral Jews, their connection to the Jewish people and provided an impetus to explore Jewish identity and Judaism as a lifestyle.”

Similarly, the aftermath of The Yom Kippur War resulted in a second major impetus to the teshuvah movement.  The national trauma in the wake of heavy losses made people reevaluate their deeply rooted ideas of what it means to be Jewish.

The teshuva movement in Israel after the Yom Kippur War was also given a significant boost when a few celebrities, like filmmaker Uri Zohar, and prominent scientists, such as chemistry professor Doron Aurbach and mathematician Eliyahu Rips embraced an Orthodox lifestyle.

The aftermath of the horrific massacre of Simchas Torah in 2023 has in many ways triggered the most expansive spiritual awakening ever.

The spike in Jewish awareness following The Sixth Day War and The Yom Kippur was based more on as sense of Jewish pride and the acknowledgement of the Hand of G-d which ensured that the  tragedies that were anticipated ended in open miracles.  In stark contrast, the spiritual awakening which was triggered by the horrific genocide of the Hamas invasion on 10/7 is more a result of the existential crisis that has followed.

In the USA tens of thousands of American Jews received a sobering wake up call when many roommates and classmates who were supposedly loyal friends suddenly and inexplicably became outspoken supporter of Hamas. The bubble for many naïve Jewish students burst in earnest.

The ubiquitous propaganda campaigns against Israel coupled with insidious indoctrination of a generation based on fallacious woke ideological tenants based on colonialism and intersectionality, caused thousands of students to view Israel as evil.  As if this betrayal was not enough of a shock, the upsurge of antisemitism globally caused many left-leaning Jewish students to realize that they were not welcome even if they articulated sympathy for the so-called “innocent civilians” in Gaza.

In short, 10/7 triggered an identity crisis for tens of thousands of Jews causing them to want to understand more about what it means to be a Jew that has caused such hatred. For many Jews who are part of the Gen Z/Millennial age cohort, this identity shock was further compounded by the feeling of nihilism and loneliness resulting from living life in cyberspace in a virtual reality.

The responsibility of all of us who care about our disenfranchised brothers and sisters following the shocking events of 10/7 is more profound now than ever in modern history.  The myths perpetuated by many pseudo liberals of ‘holding hands with other cousins in Gaza at the campfire’ has been dispelled forever.

At a time when thousands of beautiful Jewish souls are seeking a new solid footing since the carpet has been pulled from underneath them, it takes little more than an invitation to a traditional Shabbat dinner or simply taking an interest to ensure that the arms that they embrace are fellow Jews rather than the many groups with dubious agendas preying on these vulnerable souls.  It is your choice whether you will look back in the years ahead and know that you were part of the solution or (G-d Forbid) – because you were too busy or too tired to care – will be counted as part of the problem.