Not too long after the debate team episode, the following happened. I was davening at a MO shul most shabbosim, and things started bothering me. Why was the rabbi more concerned with people applauding his speech on shabbos (something many poskim allow, as it’s not musical…together with tosfos… it’s not a big kulah to be maikil), than with the crowded mixed mingling and hand shaking etc by his constituents during a “kidush” that was anything but kadosh? I had learned that if one merely looks at a woman for pleasure he is not cleansed by gehinnom…at this point i asked him, and i said I didn’t want to come to kiddush anymore.
He said he’s happy that I’m learning, but i should be wary of being extreme. I’m going through a phase. He’s a rabbi.
The clincher was during a shalosh seudos… this was when a bill had been proposed to legalize toeva marriage in NY (it was sadly passed in 2011…this happened several years prior). The rabbi said that chazal talk a lot more about honesty in business than they do this issue. Apparently preaching to the choir (MO people are very into business honesty) overrides the Torah’s most basic and fundamental obligation to fight evil and despise that which Hashem despises.
I got up in protest, I said “no, i will not hear minimizing capital offenses and abominations of Hashem”
bentched outside, and never returned to that sin-agogue.