[3][6] Hence, a baal teshuva is a Jew who transgressed the halakhah (Jewish law) knowingly or unknowingly, but has completed a process of introspection to "return" to the full observance of God's mitzvot.
[9]The baal teshuva movement began to appear as an identifiable movement in the United States in the 1960s, as a growing number of young Jews raised in non-religious homes in the United States started to develop a strong interest in becoming a part of observant Judaism; many of these people, in contrast to sociological expectations, became attracted to observant Judaism within Orthodoxy.
[citation needed] The Baal teshuva movement was also inspired by the sixties and seventies counterculture, especially the counterculture of the 1960s and the Hippie movement (Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach tried to channel the counterculture and its music into a Jewish direction through his music and teachings[10]), the Woodstock Festival, the drug subculture, the new interest in Eastern religions (Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan tried to channel that interest into a Jewish direction through his writings) and the spirit of youth rebellion that pervaded[citation needed] US high schools and college campuses.
It was in recognition of this phenomenon and in response to it that the earliest emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, went out to connect with these people and "recruit" them to Judaism.
"[12][13] Although the effects of the Holocaust and the sway of the counterculture movement led many to abandon their religious upbringing, others were willing to experiment with alternate liberated lifestyles, and as part of this experimentation it was intriguing to them to explore Jewish Sabbath observance, intensive prayer, and deeper Torah and Talmud study.
[14]In 1986, New York magazine reported: The people making this sweeping change in their life grew up in a secular world.
[15]The baal teshuva movement also appeared in the former Soviet Union, which at that time had almost completely secularized its Jewish population.
In the middle of this, there arose a new interest in learning about and practicing Judaism, an urge that the Communist government had long attempted to stamp out.
Foreign rabbis, often young students in Chabad Yeshivot, came on visits in order to teach how to learn Torah and how to observe Jewish law.
Rabbi Aharon Feldman observes that: Decades of indoctrination by the secular school systems and the media in Israel have failed to have any effect on the sense of identity which most Jews feel with Judaism—as recent surveys have shown.
Followers of Chabad can be seen attending tefillin booths at the Western Wall and Ben Gurion International Airport as well as other public places, and distributing Shabbat candles on Fridays.
Early twenty-first century researchers have debated the "drop-out" rate from this movement and the reasons for it[19] and new challenges that are now presented.
Meaningful religious life requires knowledge and learning takes time, something that many young families lack.
The vast majority of American Jews do not know how to read a Hebrew prayer book, and this makes it difficult for them to participate in an active manner in synagogue ritual.