The question is, what do you mean by that? Certainly they’re not frum Jews. But they certainly are Jews. As soon as a Conservative Jew or Reform Jew does teshuvah, he’s a Jew; he doesn’t have to go through any ceremony of conversion. So therefore, they certainly are Jews.
But there are ‘Jews’, and then there are Jews. In one sense, they’re Jews. In a technical sense they are Jews because they were born from Jewish mothers. But the love that we have to feel towards our fellow Jews does not extend to Reform Jews. Because in the sense of sharing in the privileges of being part of the Jewish nation, no, they certainly have no share in those privileges.
Now, some people don’t like to hear that, but I’m talking the truth. It’s hard to love your fellow Jew. It takes work. Some people bandy the word ‘love’ around, they love ‘everybody’ they say. But the truth is that they don’t even love their own brothers and sisters. That’s the plain truth, they don’t get along with their siblings and now they’re willing to love everybody?!
The answer is that it’s a phony. It’s all a bluff. You know, it’s hard to love a fellow Jew. It’s very difficult. And now you want to go and extend it to everybody? Don’t be ridiculous! In order to love somebody like you love yourself, he has to be like yourself. And if he doesn’t have your ideals, then you can’t love him like yourself. Certainly, you should try to help them. Certainly.
You have to help goyim too. And a fellow Jew who is not observant, if you can lead him back to Judaism, that’s a very big mitzvah. Of course we have pity on him and we care about him and so we’ll try to bring him back. But to say that you have to love him like you love yourself? No, that’s out of the question.
TAPE # 490 (December 1983)
