WHEN people tell me, this is my passion, I am skeptical. I am reminded of a line attributed to Rabbi Abraham Joffen (1885-1969): A person wants to master the Talmud in one night, and he wants to sleep that night as well.
If youre truly passionate, you dont sleep at night.
Youre bothered.
Disturbed.
Focused.
Consumed.
And that fire of yours scorches the people around you.
Once in a while, I must imagine, Steve Savitsky cools down.
Maybe at 3 a.m.
During waking hours, however, keep your fire extinguisher ready. Youll need it for yourself. That is, if youre around Steve Savitsky who, indeed, is truly passionate.
It gets hot.
It doesnt stop.
Savitsky is on a mission.
He is, you might say, not awol on aol.
And were not talking military or computers here.
Actually, in Savitskys view, AOL is, yes, missing in action.
AOL stands for affordable Orthodox living.
Where?
Who?
The cost of Orthodox Jewish life has become absurd, he says.
Case in point: First, you do a great spiritual job. Just the kind the Orthodox Jewish community prides itself on. The kind everybody said was impossible 60 years ago when the the Orthodox Jewish community was written off for dead.
You convince a young married professional that an observant Jewish life is a good thing. Kosher. Day school. Shabbos. The works.
Then, you blanch.
Steve, the young professional says as he calls up Savitsky, Your model doesnt work. I cant afford it.
Orthodoxy works spiritually.
It doesnt work economically.
The model is the way Orthodox Jewish life works in America today. Kosher food? Expensive. Day schools? Say you have four kids, Youre in for $40,000 to $80,000 annually (depending on where you live and on the age of your kids).
Housing? You need to live within walking distance to shul. The way the Orthodox Jewish community has styled itself these days, houses close to shul are not $300,000. Theyre more likely $600,000 or $1,200,000 at least on the East Coast.
And if you a resident of Colorado think youre in for a second-hand burn from Savitsky, you should give thanks that youre not living in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. If you are, Savitsky will scorch you Orthodox living on the East Coast, he declares, has become ridiculously unaffordable.
THATS why he said it this past weekend in Denver.
The truth is, Savitsky is actually a softspoken man with a great sense of humor, leaving his audience chuckling frequently as he lays out his ideas in between a dose of Torah commentary here, a comic observation there.
But beneath that unruffled demeanor and logical unfolding of ideas is unmistakable, relentless, unstoppable passion. People mistake Savitskys calmness for complacency at their peril.
Savitsky is the former president of the Orthodox Union and now its chairman of the board.
As chairman, he says, he can pull back from many of the details of running the organization and focus on big projects.
Like AOL.
Affordable Orthodox Living.
In a nutshell, Savitskys passion is this: Select five Orthodox communities around the US at, or near, the tipping point.
Poised to grow if they had some help.
Some big help.
Help, for example, from the Orthodox Union.
Provided that they help themselves by putting together a business plan to respond productively to what the OU has to offer.
Lets say that 20 or 25 Jewish communities around the US undergo a bit of growth. That wont make a national difference, says Savitsky.
Thats why hes traveling the country trying to identify the five Orthodox Jewish communities ready to take off.
Five communities that grow dramatically can make a national difference.
To become the next Baltimore, says Savitsky, or, at least, the next Atlanta. (Baltimores Orthodox community has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 30 years.)
This is Savitskys business plan:
Show the East Coast Orthodox Jews now out of a job, or tired of the financial pressure show them how they can live a nicer, less pressured, more viable more affordable Orthodox Jewish life somewhere else in America.
Like, in Denver?
Houston?
Portland?
Savitsky is meeting with Orthodox communities around the country at the tipping point.
He wants to see not just growth potential.
But a business plan.
Say, reduced day school tuition for the first four years for a family that relocates from the East Coast.
Things like that.
And something else: cooperation.
If a community is divided, squabbling, consumed with its own passion around community politics, Savitsky is not interested.
All the players have to be around the table, cooperating.
Savitsky makes a point of saying hes not interested in building only the modern subcommunity within the Orthodox community.
Hes interested in growing affordable Orthodox life. His idea is population growth, based on redistributing some of the Orthodox population on the East Coast to five strategic cities around the country.
In these five new foci, if the haredi Orthodox subcommunity there grows, great.
If the Chabad subcommunity there grows, great,
If the modern subcommunity grows, great.
Thats Savitskys passion.
AOL.
OH, just one other thing. Whats so great about these communities outside the New York area?? Its not just the dollars.
Its the simchas ha-chaim, as he puts it in Hebrew. Roughly translated: the quality of life.
No need to travel 90 minutes just to get to work, and 90 minutes just to get home.
Its the slower, more relaxed life.
Its the nicer human relations.
Its the greater likelihood that various segments of the Jewish community will be less insular and isolated from one another outside New York.
Savitsky, a resident of Woodmere, one of the Five Towns, gets it why Jews who live outside New York have a certain degree of pity on the Jews who think its terrific to live in New York.
Steve Savitsky is on a crusade.
The Talmud says that after the destruction of the Second Temple, only fools prophesy.
So heres a fools prophecy: I think Savitsky is going to succeed.
His passion is the real item.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
