Haimy:
In the current system, Chassidish and Yeshivish, the emphasis has swayed in favor of the external trappings of Yiddishkeit, with markedly little attention to Emunoh, Ahavas Hashem, Yir’as Hashem, Avodas Hashem, etc. In concert with that, our children are not guided or taught to love Torah and Mitzvos. If this attraction is absent, then our children go through their youthful years being guided to robotically fulfill their mandates of going to yeshiva, shul, etc. We fail to provide an adequate role model for them. It’s not the talking during davening, but the diversion of attention from the precious tefiloh to the mundane issues of the idle chatter. Giving mussar on the talking issue misses the greater problem of viewing tefiloh as a necessary obstacle to overcome so as to continue on with one’s day. You get the gist.
It may be useful to create more safety nets to catch those who are disillusioned. But it fails to repair the ho-hum attitude about being a Yid, gifted with the Torah and 613 paths to become closer to HKB”H, with the opportunity to do with the continuing heritage from our Avos, Rebbeim, with HKB”H cheering us every step of the way.
While I daven for the complete failure of the worst missionary organization to affect Klal Yisroel, known as Footsteps, I wish for our ship to become puncture proof, not patched from leaking. We have rendered our community holey, instead of holy. טעמו וראו כי טוב ה. A true Torah lifestyle is great, and that cannot be a message of mussar, but an inviting message of hope. We have created a serious attitude problem. Just making replacement safety nets misses the real issue.