The world of kiruv (קירוב)—bringing non-religious Jews closer to Torah and a religious Jewish lifestyle—has changed considerably over the last sixty years.
The objective has not changed. The generation has.
The people being reached are different. The Orthodox community itself is different. The economic world is different. The people capable of financing kiruv are different. And perhaps most importantly, the question today should not simply be how to bring someone closer to Torah, but what happens to that person after we succeed.
The Earlier Models of Kiruv
Beginning roughly in the 1960s and 1970s, several distinct approaches to kiruv developed.
One approach was strongly yeshiva-oriented. A non-religious Jew would first be introduced to basic Torah concepts and then gradually elevated toward serious Torah learning, including Gemara (גמרא). The objective was not simply greater observance. The hope was that the individual would eventually adopt a serious yeshiva and Torah-centered lifestyle.
Another approach, represented by organizations such as Aish HaTorah, was broader. The objective was to bring a Jew closer to Torah at whatever level he was prepared to reach. There was not necessarily an expectation that every successful participant eventually look or live exactly the same way.
If someone became sincerely observant while remaining more Modern Orthodox in lifestyle and appearance, that could also be considered a success.
For decades, these approaches represented much of the structure of the kiruv world.
But the Jewish world of 2026 is not the Jewish world of 1975.
The Lakewood Kiruv Model of the 1980s, 1990s and Early 2000s
To understand what should come next, it is important to understand how the relationship between Lakewood and kiruv developed during the late 1990s and all of 2000s.
During those decades, a new generation of successful yeshivish businessmen was emerging. Many had spent significant years learning full-time before entering business and remained strongly connected to the yeshiva world. As they became financially successful, they wanted meaningful ways to participate in Torah and Jewish communal life beyond simply writing checks.
The Natural Sponsors of Kiruv
The natural Lakewood base supporting kiruv generally came from three groups: the young successful yeshivish businessman, the successful businessman who had himself once been non-religious or less religious and later moved to Lakewood, and the successful Orthodox businessman who grew up out of town in a broader environment and later settled in Lakewood.
These people were particularly suited to supporting kiruv because they had financial resources while also being comfortable interacting with Jews outside the traditional yeshiva environment. They could understand both worlds.
BMG itself serves a different primary purpose as a major institution of advanced Torah learning. The practical financial and personal support for ongoing kiruv therefore naturally developed among these successful members of the broader Lakewood community.
Kiruv provided such an opportunity.
A successful businessman could travel to Israel as part of a kiruv program, meet non-religious Jewish students, learn with them, spend Shabbos with them and develop personal relationships. Several times during the year, groups could also come to Lakewood for a Shabbaton, where they experienced Shabbos meals, Torah learning and the atmosphere of an intensely religious community.
This accomplished two things simultaneously.
For the non-religious participant, it provided exposure to serious Torah life. For the successful Lakewood businessman, it created a meaningful personal outlet through which he could become directly involved in helping another Jew rather than limiting his contribution to financial support.
But there was an important distinction that perhaps was not always fully considered.
Lakewood was an extraordinary place to expose someone to Torah. That did not automatically make Lakewood the natural place in which to cultivate a newly religious young adult over many years.
Jerusalem historically offered something different. Religious and non-religious Jews lived in much greater proximity. A secular Jew becoming religious did not necessarily have to cross immediately from one completely separate social universe into another. There were yeshivas, neighborhoods and institutions specifically accustomed to people moving gradually from secular life toward greater observance.
Lakewood developed differently.
It is an extraordinarily concentrated Torah community, but precisely because of that strength it can be difficult for a young secular Jew to enter. Much of the social environment consists of people who were born into observant families, attended yeshivas from childhood and understand the community’s language, expectations and social codes instinctively.
A baal teshuvah (בעל תשובה) who has already spent many years in yeshiva can certainly enter that world. Some arrive in Lakewood in their thirties or forties, already married with large families, after having spent years developing within serious yeshiva environments. By that point they understand the culture and can function within it.
That is very different from bringing a twenty-three-year-old secular college graduate directly into Lakewood and expecting the surrounding community automatically to become his natural environment.
He may admire what he sees without knowing how to belong to it.
That distinction becomes even more important when dealing with young singles. They do not yet have spouses, established families, permanent rabbanim, professional networks or their own social infrastructure. They are being asked not merely to adopt mitzvos (מצוות), but potentially to enter an entire community whose assumptions and social language were developed by people who have lived within it from birth.
Therefore, the old model of occasional Lakewood Shabbatonim should not automatically be confused with the requirements of building a permanent Lakewood kiruv infrastructure.
A Shabbaton can inspire someone.
A weekend can demonstrate the beauty of Shabbos.
A successful businessman can establish a meaningful relationship with a participant.
But creating a life is something entirely different.
If Lakewood is going to become a serious destination for young Jews becoming religious, it cannot be treated merely as an interesting kiruv project or a meaningful outlet for wealthy businessmen who want to do good.
It has to be built deliberately.
In that sense, the model should perhaps borrow something from the Jerusalem experience: an environment where Jews at different stages of religious development can interact naturally, where the newly observant person does not immediately feel that everyone around him has been living the same lifestyle since birth, and where growth can occur gradually without requiring immediate cultural assimilation.
Creating such an environment inside Lakewood would require intentional planning.
It would require appropriate rabbanim and educators. It would require educated professional mentors. It would require housing and social infrastructure. It would require employment and career connections. It would require Shabbos and Yom Tov families. It would require an appropriate environment for singles and eventually for young married couples.
Most importantly, it would require recognizing that kiruv cannot remain a hobby.
For the donor, a trip to Israel or a Shabbaton several times a year can be tremendously meaningful. But for the young Jew whose entire identity and future are changing, this is not an extracurricular activity.
It is his life.
If Lakewood wants to cultivate such people locally, the objective therefore cannot simply be to reproduce the old Shabbaton model on a larger scale.
The objective would have to be much more ambitious:
to create within Lakewood a serious, permanent and professionally organized environment where a Jew coming from the secular world can gradually build a Torah life without being expected to arrive already knowing how to belong.
That would transform Lakewood kiruv from an occasional encounter into something closer to a Jerusalem-style pathway—adapted to the particular strengths and realities of Lakewood.
And that distinction is essential to understanding what the next generation of kiruv would actually require.
The Instagram and TikTok Generation
Today’s young Jews have grown up with Instagram, TikTok and unlimited access to information.
They are often highly educated while simultaneously being extraordinarily exposed. Before developing even a basic understanding of Judaism, they may already have encountered virtually every philosophy, religion, political ideology and lifestyle imaginable.
That exposure creates tremendous distraction, but it can also create a search for meaning.
There are young Jews who genuinely want to know what Judaism says. They want to understand Torah, Jewish identity, purpose and mitzvos (מצוות). They are not necessarily rejecting the professional or modern world. They are asking whether Judaism can provide something deeper within their lives.
That requires a different conversation.
A twenty-seven-year-old who has finished college, graduate school or a master’s degree and is entering medicine, healthcare, finance, technology, law or another profession is very different from the eighteen-year-old backpacker who walked into a yeshiva in Israel forty years ago.
The kiruv structure has to recognize that difference.
The Orthodox World Has Also Changed
The population doing the kiruv has changed as well.
Over the last generation, a financially powerful Orthodox business community has developed, particularly in New York and Lakewood.
There are now substantial numbers of Torah-observant businessmen in their forties, fifties and sixties who have built successful businesses in healthcare, real estate, financial services, software, technology and numerous other industries.
This has created a different model of the successful religious Jew.
Many are deeply committed to Torah, yeshivas and mitzvos while simultaneously participating fully in the modern business world.
They may have large homes. They travel. They ski. They take vacations. They dress differently from the stereotypical yeshiva businessman of thirty or forty years ago and may be considerably less uncomfortable displaying financial success.
They are products of the Torah world without necessarily withdrawing from the professional world.
For the educated secular Jew considering a religious life, that can be an important model.
It demonstrates that serious Torah observance and serious professional ambition do not necessarily contradict one another.
Who Exactly Are We Trying to Bring?
Before discussing programs, buildings or fundraising, however, there is a much more fundamental question:
Who exactly do we want to come?
Is the target someone who is completely non-religious but intellectually interested in Judaism?
Is it someone who has already independently become somewhat observant but has no community or direction?
Is it someone who spent six months or a year in an Israeli yeshiva, became inspired, returned to America and is now floating between two worlds?
Is it an alumnus of Aish HaTorah or another kiruv institution who wants to continue growing but does not necessarily want to become a conventional full-time yeshiva student?
These are very different people requiring very different programs.
This creates a fundamental strategic question for Torah Links or any similar organization:
Do you want to be a general store, or do you want to be a specialty store with a specific direction?
A general kiruv organization can welcome everyone. It can provide Shabbos experiences, lectures, classes, trips, social events and introductions to Torah.
There is tremendous value in that.
But once an organization wants to produce deeper and longer-term results, it has to decide what type of person it is particularly equipped to develop.
The Lakewood opportunity may be precisely in becoming more specialized.
Who Should Represent Torah?
Once we decide whom we want to reach, the next question is equally important:
Who should represent Torah to that person?
For an educated college graduate or professional, the front-line leadership should include people who themselves have substantial secular education and professional experience.
They could be established or retired physicians, lawyers, financial professionals, businessmen, academics and other accomplished professionals who are articulate and worldly while simultaneously deeply Orthodox and completely committed to Judaism.
A role model should represent a life that the participant can realistically imagine himself living.
A twenty-eight-year-old graduate of an elite university entering medicine, finance or technology may have tremendous respect for a traditional yeshiva scholar. But that does not necessarily mean he can envision becoming him.
There may be a cultural disconnect when the primary person representing Torah has little secular education, limited professional experience and little familiarity with the world from which the participant comes.
That does not diminish the importance of the traditional rebbe or talmid chacham (תלמיד חכם). Quite the opposite. A serious program requires genuine Torah authority.
But there is a distinction between Torah authority and front-line mentorship.
Rabbanim should establish the Torah standards and answer serious religious questions. Professionals who have successfully lived in both worlds can become mentors and role models.
Imagine a retired physician learning Gemara with a medical student.
Imagine an experienced attorney mentoring a law-school graduate.
Imagine a successful financial professional learning with someone beginning a career on Wall Street.
The profession establishes a common language and initial credibility. Torah creates the deeper relationship.
If the participant ultimately decides that he wants complete immersion in the traditional full-time yeshiva world, excellent institutions already exist in Israel and America for precisely that purpose.
He should be encouraged toward them.
But that does not have to be the only destination of kiruv.
The Lakewood Model
There is an underserved population of educated Jewish men in their twenties and thirties who already have some serious interest in Torah but have not found their permanent place.
Some have returned from Israeli yeshivas.
Some have completed college or graduate school.
Some are beginning careers in healthcare, medicine, finance, technology, real estate, law or business.
They are no longer complete beginners, but neither are they fully integrated members of an Orthodox community.
Lakewood possesses something unusual that could serve this population: an enormous Torah infrastructure existing alongside an increasingly sophisticated business community.
Those two assets could be connected.
A participant could spend a year studying Torah seriously for approximately half the day while spending the other half working or training within an actual business.
Local Orthodox businessmen would then become part of the kiruv infrastructure itself.
Instead of merely writing checks, they could sponsor participants, provide internships, subsidize employment, offer mentorship and introduce participants to professional networks.
A healthcare businessman could mentor someone entering healthcare. A financial professional could work with someone interested in financial services. Similar relationships could exist in real estate, technology, accounting, law and other industries.
The participant would encounter Torah not merely as something taught in a classroom but as something lived by successful adults.
A One- or Two-Year Path
The first year could emphasize Torah foundations, Hebrew skills, Gemara (גמרא), halachah (הלכה), hashkafah (השקפה) and practical Jewish life while maintaining limited professional employment or training.
The second year could gradually increase professional involvement while maintaining a serious daily Torah-learning schedule.
This addresses a question that inevitably confronts the educated person becoming religious:
What happens to my career?
The answer should not necessarily be that he must choose between the two.
For the appropriate person, Torah development and professional development can occur simultaneously.
Others will discover that they genuinely want full-time yeshiva learning. They should have a clear pathway into an appropriate established yeshiva in Lakewood, Israel or elsewhere.
Whether Torah Links itself should operate every component is another question.
Perhaps its function should be identifying, recruiting and developing participants while partnering with existing yeshivas and businesses for the specialized components.
An organization does not have to own everything in order to create the pathway.
Kiruv Cannot End With Inspiration
A successful Shabbos, lecture, trip or inspirational weekend can open a door.
But Monday morning still comes.
The young person wakes up and asks:
What do I actually do with my life now?
He needs Torah.
He needs a rebbe.
He needs friends.
He needs community.
He needs a livelihood.
Eventually he wants marriage and a family.
Kiruv therefore has to build a bridge rather than merely an entrance.
The bridge must take someone from college into Torah, from Torah into community, and from community into a productive Jewish adult life.
A Different Fundraising Model
This approach also changes fundraising.
Today’s successful Orthodox businessmen understand investment, management, accountability and measurable results.
Instead of simply asking a businessman to sponsor another kiruv event, ask him to help develop an actual person.
His contribution does not have to consist exclusively of money.
He can provide an internship.
He can subsidize a salary.
He can provide several hours of mentorship every month.
He can make professional introductions.
Eventually, perhaps, he can provide employment.
The donor then becomes a participant in the kiruv process rather than merely its financier.
Instead of saying, “Give $100,000 to kiruv,” an organization could say:
Support five young Jewish professionals for one year. Fund their learning stipends. Subsidize their employment. Provide mentors. Measure where they are after twelve months and again after twenty-four months.
That is a very different fundraising proposition.
But What Happens When Kiruv Succeeds?
There is one final issue that may be more important than everything else.
What happens when kiruv actually works?
A non-religious young man becomes observant.
A non-religious young woman becomes observant.
Eventually they may marry people from similar backgrounds.
Everyone celebrates the success.
But then something becomes apparent:
They frequently do not have an Orthodox family behind them.
A person born into the Orthodox community possesses an enormous infrastructure that he may barely notice because it has always existed.
Parents.
Siblings.
Grandparents.
Cousins.
In-laws.
Family friends.
These relationships provide Shabbos and Yom Tov invitations, advice, babysitting, introductions, jobs, emergency assistance, financial help and countless other forms of support.
A newly religious couple may have virtually none of this.
Friends and neighbors are important, but friends and neighbors are not always family.
When everyone leaves for Yom Tov to visit parents and grandparents, the difference becomes particularly visible.
Who Becomes Their Family?
This may be one of the most overlooked questions in kiruv.
Are we responsible only for bringing someone into Torah, or do we assume some responsibility for what happens afterward?
Historically, supporting Torah could be relatively straightforward for a successful American businessman. He could support a yeshiva in Israel, visit the institution, meet the students and feel that he was participating in Torah.
Kiruv brought the responsibility much closer to home.
Organizations such as Torah Links created an opportunity for successful religious Jews to do something directly for their non-religious Jewish brothers and sisters.
But once it works, the question becomes:
What is the next step?
If we persuade someone that Torah is his home, there has to be serious thought about whether we are prepared to help provide that home.
That does not mean supporting someone indefinitely or creating dependency.
It means recognizing that someone without an Orthodox family may require assistance that someone born into the community receives naturally.
He may need help obtaining his first serious job.
If he cannot initially command a sufficient salary, perhaps a business or donor needs to subsidize part of his employment while he develops professionally.
He may need housing assistance.
He may need career guidance.
He needs Shabbos and Yom Tov invitations.
He may need help navigating dating and marriage.
After marriage, the young couple may need help establishing themselves.
Most importantly, they need permanent relationships.
They should not disappear from an organization’s attention once they are counted as a successful kiruv story.
A Community Within the Community
There also needs to be serious thought about where these families will live and how they will integrate.
A newly observant husband and wife can find it difficult simply to move into an established Orthodox neighborhood where everyone else already has twenty or thirty years of family and social connections.
Perhaps there needs to be a deliberate community within the larger community.
Not a permanent baal teshuvah enclave that separates newcomers from everyone else.
Rather, a landing place.
A concentration of families with similar backgrounds, surrounded and supported by established Orthodox families who consciously accept responsibility for helping them integrate.
The objective should ultimately be integration, not separation.
But integration takes time.
Someone arriving without parents, siblings, cousins and lifelong friends should not be expected simply to manufacture that infrastructure overnight.
From Kiruv Organization to Family
This may ultimately be the missing piece.
The first generation of kiruv concentrated primarily on bringing the Jew in.
The next generation must also ask how to build the Jew a life once he comes in.
That means Torah learning.
It means rabbanim.
It means professional mentorship.
It means employment.
It means marriage.
It means housing.
It means friendships.
It means community.
Sometimes it will mean financial assistance.
But above everything else, it means relationships that continue for years rather than months.
If Torah Links or another kiruv organization says to a non-religious Jew:
“Come. Become part of our family.”
Then success creates a responsibility.
We have to be prepared to become family for him.
That may be the real next generation of kiruv.
Not simply inspiring another Jew to become religious, but helping him construct a stable Torah life in which he and his children eventually no longer feel that they arrived from somewhere outside.
The ultimate measurement should therefore not simply be how many people attended an event, how many went to Israel, or even how many became observant.
Look twenty years later.
Did he remain connected to Torah?
Did she remain connected?
Did they build a stable marriage?
Did they develop a livelihood?
Did they become part of a community?
Did they raise children who naturally understand themselves as part of the Torah world?
If the answer is yes, then kiruv has accomplished something considerably greater than producing another religious individual.
It has created another Jewish family.
And perhaps that should be the real measure of success.
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