Why Should I Be Embarrassed That My Father Is a Baal Teshuva?

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Hi, this is David Elsky with our question and answer series. I'm the daughter of a baal teshuvah and I feel like people look at my family different. I went to a regular Bais Yaakov school and would never dare tell anyone that my father is a baal teshuvah. Why is there a stigma? I don't really understand. Hey, welcome to my world. >> [laughter] >> The difference is I wear it on my sleeve. I'm not smart enough to to have ever pretended. You know, this uh There was this guy who comes to my house like Joey Shiva guy speaking half English, Yiddish, you know, and uh you know, you should have said he was like yeah, do do you ever remember me? I said you know, I was like no, no, no. So, he finally laughs and he was a German guy, that's why he picked up Yiddish so easily. He was a guy from Germany who came totally non-religious to um to uh Aish HaTorah. And uh and he decided to come from and he's worked very hard to um to fit in and not let anybody know where he came from. So, I I said at the time, this is story's maybe 25 years ago. So, I said at the time, I said I don't know what's what's the big deal. He goes, now you don't understand in in the from velt, you know, it's a genai, it's a bad thing to to be a baal teshuvah. He said, you, okay, you and everyone knows

Jump to a moment

1. 0:00Hi, this is David Elsky with our question and answer series. I'm the daughter of a…
2. 1:01And uh and he decided to come from and he's worked very hard to um to…
3. 2:03family and the wife said what do you do? You you make Bali Chuba? I don't…
4. 3:03right. And so therefore I have because I came from a family that was not Shomer…
5. 4:05is not something that baal teshuvah necessarily comfortable with. So, if you're going to come in,…
6. 5:06so it's on the one hand, there are baal teshuvah who um are not ready to…
7. 6:11be a little distant uh from taking on completely the community standards. On the other hand,…
8. 7:13uh from, you know, 40 to 20, you know? And um And the when the some…
9. 8:14baal teshuvah helping them mainstream in the world and deal with unique problems that baal teshuvah…
10. 9:14people. What they call in sociology, the dislike of the unlike. But whatever doesn't kill you…

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