During the final days of this election, the words “conservative” and “liberal” are being bandied about, and some people even toss around “orthodox” and “unorthodox” to describe methods and behavior.

In the world of politics, most of the Orthodox are conservatives, and most of the Conservative Jews I know are liberals. In the world of theology, of course, the word Conservative means something entirely different than in the world of politics. Actually, the theological Conservative movement was originally founded to fight Reform and “conserve” Judaism, but as we sadly learned, you can’t stop a sheker with another falsehood or half-truth.

The concept of the word Orthodox was always interesting. Rav Mordechai Gifter used to say, “I am not an Orthodox Jew. I am a Torah Jew!” But I am not sure if that ever caught on in the world of pulpit rabbis and synagogue creation. In any event, back in the day, Orthodoxy was struggling, and sometimes you had to be unorthodox in order to remain orthodox, and the onlooker would call you very conservative for it. I hope I haven’t confused you. I have certainly confused myself.

I knew a ben Torah whose English vocabulary was not his strong suit, though his hashkafah was as steadfast as they come. Steeped in Torah, he needed someone to help him buy a suit for his wedding, and that someone was me. This was long before there were frum-owned clothing stores on every corner of every Jewish neighborhood, when we would shlep into the garment district in Manhattan and buy direct from the manufacturer. I took him to a man who lived near us on Long Island, and I explained that the chosson needed a few suits, but they had to be conservative.

The bochur was flabbergasted. “Chas veshalom!” he blurted. “They must be Orthodox!”

I find myself thinking about those struggles, even those I recall from my youth, from Parshas Noach through the parshiyos of Avrohom Avinu. I find myself retelling the stories of kiruv, of the battles fought with chochmah and steadfastness in neighborhoods across the tri-state area. Many of those neighborhoods once had thriving Conservative synagogues alongside fledgling Orthodox ones. One by one, the Conservative synagogues now stand empty and are sold to yeshivos and botei knesses.

Many towns had their Noachs, men who saved themselves and their families, and some towns had their Avrohoms, men who transformed the lives of multitudes. Noach and Avrohom are not only two figures in the Torah. They are two types, each of whom makes his mark in a different way.

I thought about this after a long call from my younger brother, Rav Zvi, who was recently driving from Toronto to Chicago and realized that he needed a minyan for Mincha. The closest shul was in Hamilton, Ontario, and he thought that there would perhaps be nine men and a Sefer Torah. When he walked into Adas Israel, he was amazed to find some fifty people davening Mincha. A Mincha minyan in a small Canadian city an hour from Toronto was something he did not really anticipate, and as a native of the once-fledgling community of Woodmere, he asked how it came to be. He learned about the rov, Rav Mordechai Green, who arrived in the 1950s, an era when everyone in the small towns of America and Canada was sure that Orthodoxy was going the way of the dinosaur. Rav Green wrote down his story in a book, Living with Miracles, and my brother pushed me to get it and read it. I was amazed at the steadfastness and confidence of the rov, and I’d like to share a bit of it with you.

When Rav Green went to Hamilton to give a probeh on Shabbos, he gave drashos built on the Rambam that were filled with too much pilpul. By the end of Shabbos, he realized that he was way over their heads. He had given two pilpulim, he didn’t think he was getting the job, and so he came to the Sunday morning breakfast interview with the baalei batim feeling relaxed. Nothing to lose is a wonderful state for a candidate.

Then one of the younger men, Mr. Abe Hotz, stood up. “We need more than a rabbi,” he said. “We need somebody who will get the women down from the balcony into the main sanctuary. If we want to attract people, we can’t have a mechitzah.”

Rav Green was not shocked. Traditional Orthodoxy was under siege across North America. Shuls were leaving downtown for impressive suburban buildings with no mechitzah, and rabbanim had trouble finding Orthodox pulpits at all. He had heard this speech before. But he was relaxed, and so he smiled and asked Mr. Hotz what business he was in.

“I sell scrap metal.”

“If you don’t believe in your product,” said Rav Green, “you can’t sell it. Do you believe in your product?”

“Of course!”

“Do you want to be a winner or a loser?”

“A winner.”

“Winners believe in their product. We’re Orthodox. We’ll build a shul with a mechitzah, and we’ll be the biggest shul in this city.”

Mr. Hotz broke into a grin. “I like the way this man talks. That’s my man!” And that was that. Rav Green had the job.

Now, Mr. Hotz did not want to hear the philosophy of Orthodoxy, and Rav Green knew it. He did not give him a third pilpul. He spoke to him as one salesman to another. “I spoke his language,” he wrote. “We were both in sales, and we both understood that if you don’t believe in your product, you can’t sell it.”

The mechitzah stayed. The Rambam stayed. The rov did not sell Mr. Hotz a discounted version of Torah. He sold him the full version in a vocabulary Mr. Hotz could hold in his hands. He changed the language, not the product, and that is precisely why a rov sometimes has to be a salesman. Somehow, the confidence and clarity were exuded, and everyone was on board.

Well, not everyone. The people of Hamilton were not all Mr. Hotz. In those early years, Rav Green writes how he constantly met people who tried to talk him out of an Orthodox shul. One was a real philanthropist, a man who supported a wide array of Jewish causes in the city. He told the rov that he was going to do him a favor and not give him a penny. If he somehow managed the down payment on a building, he’d never be able to carry it and he’d be stuck. “Let me save you the effort,” he said. “I’m not supporting you now, and so you won’t need to come to me to beg me to bail you out.”

Rav Green answered him in kind. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “We will raise our own money, and we will build our own building. And this will be the only institution in town that does not bear your name.”

And so it was.

I think about Noach and Avrohom. Noach built the teivah with total steadfastness and saved his family. Avrohom opened a tent on the road, fed travelers, and only when they had eaten did he tell them Whom to thank.

I don’t know if they had different convictions, but they certainly had different deliveries. Maybe when Avrohom pitched his tent, he included with it a different pitch.

Just Saying