February 6, 2026|י"ט שבט ה' אלפים תשפ"ו A Song, a Pushback, and the Question of What Leads to Real Avodat Hashem By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Someone recently sent me a video entitled “Real Yidden.” It’s a sharp, almost satirical critique of what the creators see as a neo-Chassidic wave sweeping parts of Orthodoxy. The song pokes fun at a culture of religious performance: eating mystical foods from Kerestir, spending Rosh Hashana in Uman, endless farbrengens, guitars and faux-Davidic spirituality, helicopter trips to Meron, celebrity singers as spiritual guides, and a calendar packed with yahrzeit pilgrimages. It mocks those who sing about Kabbalah but don’t know Chumash and Rashi, who speak of sefirot and kelipot but don’t know “Ravina and Rav Ashi.” Its punchline is simple: if you want to succeed on Yom HaDin, open a Shulchan Aruch. That’s what our zeides did. The path forward is mesorah: yirat shamayim, Torah, and avodah.

The song is clearly an attempt to argue that certain expressions of religiosity risk missing the essence of Judaism in the name of Judaism. One can understand the frustration behind that critique. A Judaism of music, atmosphere, and slogans without substance can become thin very quickly. Inspiration detached from learning and halachic commitment can feel like a performance rather than an avodah.

At the same time, the question is more complicated. Historically, only a minority of Jews were great scholars. Most people were not talmidei chachamim. The challenge has always been: what inspires the broader community to live lives anchored in Torah and mitzvot? If a style of religious culture motivates people toward observance, gratitude, and a sense of God’s presence, that matters. The real question is not aesthetic but teleological: does a given path lead to the fundamentals of Judaism – serious Torah study, commitment to halacha, and a life of aspiration?

There is undeniable power in tradition. A method that sustained Jewish life for centuries deserves enormous respect. At the same time, Jewish history is not a story of static preservation alone; it is also a story of principled adaptation.

Consider the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah at the dawn of the Second Temple period. They confronted a religious crisis after the destruction of the First Beit HaMikdash, a society that had drifted into idolatry and spiritual complacency. Their response was not merely to preach harder, but to restructure religious life. They formalized daily prayer, expanded blessings, and shifted spiritual responsibility from a Temple-centered elite to the daily practices of every Jew. These were radical innovations designed to cultivate personal religious engagement. Adaptation, in that moment, was not a betrayal of tradition; it was the means of rescuing it.

We see a similar dynamic in the educational revolution of Yavneh. When Rabban Gamliel was replaced by Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, access to the beit midrash was expanded dramatically. The Gemara describes hundreds of benches added to accommodate new students, including those who were not yet “tocho k’boro.” The leadership chose inclusion and exposure to Torah as a strategy for growth. It was an unconventional move, but it recognized that the survival of Torah sometimes requires widening the door.

The Torah itself hints at a plurality of religious entry points. The Midrash debates how Avraham discovered God: as a child with simple faith or as an adult after long intellectual searching. The Torah never settles the question. My Rebbe, Rav Michael Rosensweig, once suggested that this silence is deliberate. Avraham’s origin story is left open to teach that there are multiple legitimate paths to God. Some arrive through emotion and experience; others through analysis and inquiry. Extremes exist on both sides – emotionalism without substance, or cold intellectualism without heart – and both can miss the point. The task is to find the path that actually brings a person to the fundamentals and to remain accountable for where that path is leading.

For me, the goal is clear: a life of spiritual aspiration. That means working on middot, cultivating gratitude, and living a life of chesed. It means serious Torah study and meaningful tefillah. Any religious style – neo-Chassidic, Lithuanian, or otherwise – should be measured by whether it reliably produces those outcomes.

Two additional observations feel especially relevant today.

First, people tend to seek in Torah the same kind of stimulation that motivates them in the outside world. Someone who is energized by intellectual challenge in their professional or academic life will likely find their deepest religious motivation through rigorous Torah study. We should not underestimate how powerful serious learning can be as a spiritual engine. For many, depth is the inspiration.

Second, in our current cultural moment, transmitting a disciplined, rational, text-centered approach to Judaism may require more intentional effort than it once did. We live in an age saturated with imagery, music, and emotional immediacy. The quieter virtues of patience, analysis, and sustained study do not sell themselves. If we believe that a “cold,” rational approach is part of our mesorah, then we must actively teach its beauty and relevance rather than assume it will be absorbed by the next generation by osmosis.

The pushback expressed in “Real Yidden” is therefore not just about one subculture. It is about a perennial Jewish question: what kinds of religious forms actually cultivate enduring avodat Hashem? The answer will never be one-size-fits-all. People are different. Communities are different. But each person and each movement must ask honestly: is this path leading me toward Torah, halacha, refined character, gratitude, and responsibility – or away from them?

In the end, authenticity is not proven by style, costume, or soundtrack. It is proven by the life it produces.