Over a recent Shabbos, I was shmooozing with a friend. (Those of you who know me personally, and especially my wife, won’t be surprised about that!) This friend is a voracious reader and he always checks out what I’m reading and often recommends books to me. On this particular Shabbos, he showed me a parsha sefer that he had recently purchased and was greatly enjoying. I read the introduction to Sefer Vayikra and the particular piece on the parsha that he had pointed out. I enjoyed them both very much. But it was something else about the book that really struck me, the back cover.
You know how a self-help business book will ask questions like: “Do you want to learn the top three sales techniques of the highest grossing salesmen in the country?” or “Do you want to know the inside scoop on the organizational techniques of the Fortune 100 CEOs?” Well, the backcover of this book asked questions like (I’m paraphrasing here) “Do you want to have a deeper understanding of how the haftorah relates to the parsha?” and “Do you want to gain clarity on how the seemingly arcane laws of the Torah apply to modern times?”
Then came the kicker, and this one is a direct quote (as best as I can remember it) “Do you want to learn parsha with the enthusiasm of a baal teshuva?”
It’s very encouraging to see people who not only respect and admire BTs but who think that they are often setting an example for FFBs to follow.
I remember the rabbi at a reform shul once said something similar. He was giving a talk about how he wished that all his congregants had the enthusiasm and knowledge of those who had converted.