M,
Some have pointed out that kiruv works when a person feels loved, and less so when someone convinces the other that Torah is emesdik. This has been my observations as well — people become close to chabad, to Aish, or whatever, when they enjoy Friday night dinner, etc. But not because we discussed whether there is a god, and if so, blah blah blah.
I actually had the opposite experience. I became convinced that the Torah was true based on personal study before I interacted regularly with frum Jews. My subsequent road to joining the frum community served up a mixture of warm, friendly experiences and cold, upsetting ones. Thank G-d, knowing that the Torah was perfect, even if individual Jews had flaws and made mistakes, helped me keep going down the road.
But if this is true, that means that in theory kiruv could work for anything.
Absolutely! Only I wouldn’t use the word kiruv, but salesmanship. Large grocery store chains employ psychologists to help develop a presentation that maximizes impulse buying (simple examples: note how the staple foods are often grouped on opposite sides of the store, and kids products are lower down, commonly with brightly colored cartoon characters that stare straight out into kids’ eyes, happy and creepy). Christian missionaries pull out all of the psychological stops: they act warm and caring, treat you like a hero if you accept their faith, and make you fear things that go bump in the night if you don’t accept. Auto companies are pros at making customers feel successful and beautiful in their vehicles. Salesmanship is not a good or bad thing – that depends on what is being sold. And that’s why kiruv (to bring close) is different.
This seems disappointing because it means to me that we’re not *really* doing kiruv, just pushing on people’s psychological buttons, and manipulating them.
If the goal of kiruv was to get people to come back for more Shabbos dinners, or to double the sale of gefilte fish (sorry, zahavasdad!), I would agree with you. But the goal of kiruv is to help someone to start their path with Hashem, and if the gateway to that path is made sweet, why would that be dishonest? On the other hand, I think it’s important for those creating warm kiruv environments to mention that not every environment may be as warm, and that the goal is a relationship with Hashem.
But if it doesn’t…
Even if it doesn’t, the person still did some mitzvos, which is a huge zechus both to him/her and his/her people!