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One thing Christians don’t get about Judaism is why we don’t proselytize. It’s because we want a world where people do acts of mercy, justice, and loving kindness. What you believe is really inconsequential in comparison to what you do. Doing the thing is what counts.
There is no real focus on salvation, but more on redeeming all of humanity. We follow commandments as part of dedication to doing better and wrestle for insight about how to follow those best. Belief? It’s an orienting tool, nothing more. But for Christians, it’s a mandate.
How can we shape another’s belief? We are busy trying to find the best approach ourselves. Our own beliefs are constantly questioned. Assessing beliefs is impossible. But deeds, deeds can be assessed and improved and critiqued.
There’s an idea that the Chabad crowd have that if every Jewish family lights Shabbat candles for one Shabbat, then God will redeem the world. It isn’t the belief that matters, it’s the act of saying the blessing and lighting the candles. I don’t think that’s the case, myself.
But it contrasts so starkly with the Protestant concept that faith and belief is the cornerstone of salvation and reconciliation with God. And that’s just a contrast Christians need to understand about their sibling faith if they want to understand.
From the Jewish perspective, we are happy to share the process of deliberations on how and why to do the best actions. But we don’t really care if you believe something we don’t, so long as you live an upright life. And joining our family is not necessary.
There certainly have been decent, just, kind, and wise people of all faiths (and none) from every culture and milieu. They might have never even heard of Jews. And that’s ok. That doesn’t take anything away from their contributions.
Has Judaism always been like this? No. There were times when Jews were trying to attract people to join them, but the response to such action was often quite violent. And that was a mistake on our part. We learn and change, sometimes by trial and error.
And it’s ok to be imperfect, to not understand God’s mysteries and ineffability. We’re AM/FM radio receivers who have heard of Wi-Fi. We will always be learning, the process of studying how to act as best we can is forever ongoing. That’s humanity at its best.
Anyway, it’s late here, I am probably going to get some sleep after having a stomach bug. But if anyone has the temerity to use this thread as an excuse to proselytize, do me a favor and gently but firmly mock the heck out of them. Because that’s just how some people be.
It is ok to carry baggage with you, we all have it. But we need to perceive it and to be able to put it down for the sake of being able to listen.
Evangelism is persuading (one way or another) others to carry your luggage for you. And drop their luggage.
Evangelism is persuading (one way or another) others to carry your luggage for you. And drop their luggage.
Just a bit of metadata here; no, I am not particularly frum, these thoughts came to me on a Friday evening and I do tweet on Shabbat because it is not something I consider work, but lots of JTwitter does turn their phones off as part of observation. And that is cool.
If you want to help me out a bit with getting me to therapy sessions, I do take PayPal donations, as student loans are crushing me underfoot, my DMs are open for info, but please please no attempts to proselytize pretty please. I need help with transitioning. Not conversion. 
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Giving help is hard. We all have shortfalls. Asking for help is also hard, and particularly so for me. But we gotta acknowledge our weaknesses and try to address them as well as capitalize on our strengths.
