Sparkly – Hashem says that you need to keep the whole Torah, and what your Rabbi says doesn’t change that. If your Rabbi says that one doesn’t need to keep the whole Torah, then he is an apikorus. However, I will be dan l’kaf zchus and assume that wasn’t exactly what he said. I suspect from your posts that he is being understanding/tolerant/realistic regarding where his particular Congregants are holding and giving over the message to them that they don’t have to “throw out the baby with the bathwater” and give up on everything just because there are certain things that they don’t feel they can handle right now. Kind of like the way, when one works with people who are becoming baalei teshuva, you are supposes to encourage to “take baby steps” and grow at their own pace.
But there is a very big difference between saying that one does not have to cover their hair or keep certain halachos, and saying that you know it’s the halacha and it’s a goal to strive for but you’re not holding by it. Even the second thing is something that should be said with caution, and only in certain circumstances. In general, we do say that any Jew who grew up Frum should be keeping all of the halachos. However, sometimes, there can be specific people who are having a hard time with specific things and have to work on things at their own pace. Since you mentioned that you almost became OTD, I suspect that you fall in that category. It sounds like you have an understanding Rabbi who is working with you, but you have to be careful about making statements like, “if someone is MO, then they don’t have to cover their hair.” If that were really the definition of MO, then it would be in the same category as Conservative and Reform when they started (in other words Kefira which is worse than OTD).