Together and Separate
Now it's not a bad thing, chas v’shalom, to be part of a frum community, to be meurav im habrios. Everyone should move into the frummest community he can find and become one of them. Very good! You live together with them; you follow their customs, their standards. It’s not bad at all, chas v’shalom; it’s very important. And you should utilize the tzibbur for that, to make sure that you’re living up to their standards and you get along with everybody. That’s a very important part of successful living. You'll live happily according to their standards and you get Olam Haba too.
But you have to know that it’s only the minimum and when you come to the Next World you'll see there's a difference, a tremendous difference, between those who lived according to the standards of the frum community around them and those who went above and beyond; those who didn’t let the זֹו ב זו בוָי of the environment, the lack of appreciation for greatness, hold them back from that shleimus.
Why is Avraham all the way up front? Because he was a man who sought to be different; he sought to be better. He was an akshan – he was the ancestor of am kasheh oref, a stubborn people – and he refused to be limited by the criteria of those around him. He refused to be cramped and encumbered by even the good ones. That’s what made him great; it’s what made all the Avos and Imahos great too - the desire for shleimus, to disregard the lower ideals of the environment and make something out of yourself that is way above, way higher, than the standards of your chaveirim.
You know, they tell about the Gra that when he was young, he disregarded his environment. He lived in a very good environment but he disregarded them and he did what he thought was right. It doesn’t mean he disregarded them completely; certainly not. But if you want to go further than your environment, if you want to be great, then to a certain extent you have to not care what the world will think about you. You have to not be cooled off by the less idealistic people that surround you.
