Reply To: Lowering our standards for a good cause.

There was a literal pikuach nefesh (risk of losing souls) due to assimilation in rural America. If a Jew would not attend shul which was far from his farm, his entire family would become lost from Klal Yisroel. The “former Orthodox buy now COnservative ” rabbinate decided that better to desecrate the shabbos and remain Jewish, than lose all Jewishness – therefore they lowered the “standards” to allow driving to shul on shabbos r”l. They did it for “a good cause”, to save souls, but created a movement which is not Torah Observant. This rabbinate, many of them had smicha from frum yeshivos, used various “heterim”, but we know that it was against normative halacha (even though one can actually be mechalel shabbos to save a person from shmad – that does not apply to Jewery in America driving to shul on shabbos). Standards were lowered, and Conservative Judaism was born.