Rav Mandel: Some Yidden Aren't Meant To Keep Mitzvos, And That's OK

A surprising revelation from an up and coming gadol.

I have long been a huge fan of R Mandel and his Bitachon Weekly. He has a strong focus on mental health, and his approach to yiddishkeit is far healthier than what is often preached in Yeshivish yeshivos.

However, this past Bitachon Weekly shocked me - in a good way: In it, R Mandel says that Hashem does not necessarily expect every yid to do mitzvos. For those who are in certain situations, such as Tinok Shenishba, Mental Health issues, and OTD, Hashem may have a different job for them in mind. While I’ve always felt this to be the case, I’ve never seen a mainstream frum rov profess this before.

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The quotes are from the booklet above. The style is hard to read, and for that I apologize, but I didn’t clean it up as I wanted to be as faithful to the source as possible as it is such a chiddush.

Naomi told Rus and Orpah that they should go back home, and marry “Joe Shmo” and “Barry the Sheigitz”. For good reason she was called Naomi (sweet). She personified the pleasant way of the Torah - דרכיה דרכי נעם. She understood where these girls were coming from, and she didn’t demand from them what they weren’t capable of doing.

And

…it’s extremely important to stop going around with feelings of guilt about Aveiros that you are either completely not responsible for, or at least they are much less severe than you make them, and you an be possibly quite may be an O'ness (person who acted involuntarily) who is not responsible - אונס רחמנה פטריה, or like a baby who grew up grew who among the gentiles - תינוק שנישבה.

More (emphases mine):

A Yungerman from Eretz Yisroel was married to a woman who went off the Derech, Rachmana Litzlan, and took 3 of her children with her after they divorced. He is happily remarried with a large family, and he keeps a connection with his 3 non-frum children. He tries to make them frum, but they tell him that they simply don’t have the Kochos HaNefesh (emotional strength) to become religious. He has aggravation, which is understandable. I explained to him that just like a Yid can get a Mitzva for eating on Yom Kippur (since he is a חולה מסוכן - his life is at risk), so too are these children in a world of basic survival. Like Naomi was M'chazek her gentile daughters-in-law to go and get married to Moavi men and start a new and happy Goyish life, There is a place and time for ּובחכרת בחיים - choose life! Just keep alive! You’re not up to all kinds of Chumros, and sometimes even basic Yiddishkeit isn’t for this person. People with serious physical and/or mental problems may have a totally different Tachlis as for what they should accomplish on this world. Notice how the Chovos Halvavos says that Bitachon is good for Ruchaniyus and also for those in an Olam HaZeh mode. Even a normal Yid may have certain areas in his life where just being a basic human is all that’s expected from him.

While this may seem almost kefiradig, R Mandel has a source in Chazal:

The Chasam Sofer Zatzal speaks about one of our greatest Tzadikim in history who wasn’t Chayav (accountable) on a very much forbidden Aveira since she¹ couldn’t help it. When Yaakov was angry at Rochel for saying הָבָה-לִּי בָנִים, וְאִם-אַיִן מֵתָה אָנֹכִי - Give me children of else I will die!” - since he considered it K'fira - Chazal are against him. They say כך עונים את המעוקות - That’s how you talk to a broken person!?

While R Mandel is absolutely NOT saying we don’t have to keep the mitzvos, what he is saying that we can be much more understanding of those that do not. We can include struggling Jews and OTD jews and LGBT Jews and nonreligious Jews and accept them for who they are with the belief that for them, this is what Hashem wants from them. It will remove the judgmentalism from our community and the unfortunate all-to-common approach of “unconditional love-bombing” which is there just so the person becomes frum again. I suspect with an approach with R Mandel’s, we will have both people feeling more comfortable inside yiddishkeit without the toxic pressure to do everything perfect and outside people feeling more accepted as they are. It is an approach that needs to and should spread, on this chag of zman matan toraseinu. Torah is for all, but its not all-or-nothing, even if you are frum.

1. The parsha booklet has “he” here, but that makes no sense in context and is an obvious mistake.