That is not just my feeling, it is the assessment of a majority of Americans. According to Gallup, “Not only are Americans feeling grim about the current state of moral values in the nation, but they are also mostly pessimistic about the future on the subject, as 78% say morals are getting worse and just 18% getting better.” Moral decline can be seen in the deterioration in civility, the increase in litigation, the lack of integrity, out-of-wedlock births and breakup of families, vulgarity, promiscuity, and immodesty. As quickly as we have progressed technologically, medically and scientifically, morally we are rapidly going backwards, confused about basic fundamental values and institutions that much more primitive people understood clearly.
Perhaps this decline can be explained by another recent Gallup poll that reported that belief in G-d among U.S. adults has reached a new low. Belief in G-d provides a moral anchor and a moral compass, rules and regulations from an objective and absolute source of truth and decency. Breakdown of faith breeds relativism, a subjective interpretation of right and wrong. When morality is determined by popular opinion instead of objective truth, by needing to be compatible with comfort and convenience rather than mission and service, by the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, rather than sanctity and holiness, the result is moral decline.
In this morally regressive environment, it is understandably tempting for the Jewish community to turn inward, to focus on protecting ourselves and our families from the increasing dangers of shifting sands around us and we should. However, we must also rise in this moment to turn outwards. Judaism and Torah were never intended only for the Jews. While we don’t believe in proselytizing in the sense of recruiting non-Jews to convert to Judaism, we fervently believe in promoting the Torah’s truths, values and ideals to the entire world. That has been our mission since our inception and one shudders to consider what the world would look like if we remain entirely insular.
Consider this letter written in 1806 by John Adams, second U.S. President: "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other Nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations."
The language of the founding fathers came from the Torah. Three names for G-d in the Declaration of Independence — Creator, Judge and Providence — are unmistakably Jewish names for G-d. They did not come from the Greeks or Romans. As the world is becoming more and more uncivilized, it is time for the Hebrews, the Jewish people, to once again model, teach, preach and civilize man.
Last Shabbos, 3 Tammuz, was the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe, R’ Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. While most associate his legacy with a love for all Jews and sending emissaries to any place a single Jew lives, the Rebbe was also a force and influence for the non-Jewish world. In 1983, the Rebbe launched a campaign to promote the seven Noahide laws. He referenced the Rambam who explicitly rules (Hilchos Melachim 8:10): “Moshe Rabbeinu commanded from the mouth of G-d to convince all the inhabitants of the world to observe the commandments given to the children of Noach.” Said the Rebbe, it is our duty and responsibility to work to influence all people to lead the righteous and decent life which comes from compliance with the Seven Noahide Laws.
Earlier, in 1974, Rav Soloveitchik shared a similar vision: Our task was and still is to teach the Torah to mankind, to influence the non-Jewish world, to redeem it from an orgiastic way of living, from cruelty and insensitivity, to arouse in mankind a sense of justice and fairness. In a word, we are to teach the world the seven mitzvot that are binding on every human being.
This is no time to retreat, to shy away from our mission, to blend in or conform with the confusion and chaos that is around us. The world is relying on us to set it straight, stand for truth and to once again, civilize man.