I may not get to replying to each poster, but I’ll try.
As others pointed out, I was not implying that being honest is not important, or even necessarily less important in practice than preventing massive chilul Hashem and being concerned for the welfare of the society that we live in.
Nishtdayngesheft summed up my intention in that statement very clearly, though I disagree with him about center MO – iI didn’t grow up in Avi Weiss world; the problems I’m describing are endemic everywhere in MO, in varying degrees. Also, the reason there’s a lot more talk in chazal is because toe’va was extremely uncommon and even a taboo discussion for yidden for thousands of years…chazal aren’t going to talk about toe’va with behemos that much eithrr, because it’s an unthinkable very rare sin. Busines, stealing, cheating, is extremely common everywhere. It affects the day to day life of every Jew, so naturally there will be more talk of it. That doesn’t detract from the importance of understanding toe’va when society decides it’s perfectly fine and that it’s hateful to oppose it.
Gadolhadora – what exactly is hateful about exposing false Judaism? Do you consider it hateful to bash tax-evaders or slumlords who happen to be charedi?
Avi – this was 2007. No one knew that eventually children would be exposed to such things. No one predicted drag queen story hour. Even if they would, the way to prepare them would be to give shmuzzen about it, not to have them engage in developing their own opinion about something Hashem decided on before the world was created. Our own feelings and opinions about something basic in Torah really don’t matter. Also, the rules barred us from using Torah sources – it said so explicitly….even if they would have allowed it, there would have to be an opposing team from a jewish school that would have to argue against it. Would you want your children arguing a case for toe’va? Da ma lehashiv is important, and we get it from learning, not secularizing a Torah concept to teenagers and having them debate it from a socio-economic and humanistic perspective.
In my debate team experience, I encountered something else. One of my teammates was a young man from a traditional but not entirely frum bukharian background. We were debating the draft issue, and at one point, the opposite team had raised the topic of women in the army. My teammate said that women need to stay home with the kids. The opposite team said this was sexist, and went on and on about how women are perfectly capable to fight wars.
The judges approved. Where did this person get that idea from?
Re, mixed schools. There are cases where a mixed school is necessary to prevent a community from sending their kids to public school. Tell me, does it show how strong MO is if we say that all their community would send their kids to public school if we made gender-separate schools? Or does it further speak to their distance from Torah. Also, at this point, we’re talking 3rd, 4th generation of students. Their parents and grandparents went to MO schools…when do they graduate from “about to send their kids to public school”. Regarding money… come on, people always scream about how little charedim make and how well-off MO professionals are. If they cared they’d be able to afford it just fine. Rav Moshe allowed mixing until 6th grade for this reason, but seeing the way kids are today I highly doubt he would allow it past 4th grade…i think anyone who teaches that age would understand why I’m saying so.
The seridei aish was heading a kiruv program…hardly surprising, as the kids would have been mixed either way. The same goes for schools that are mixed to prevent public school.
Rav Breuer’s yeshiva system was and is totally separate. The yeshiva and the girls school happen to be amazing institutions, not as well known, but I’ve been impressed with every talmid I’ve seen go through the system.
Just having a small community is not justification for mixing – small kollel communities make a bais yaakov and a yeshiva and they get by.
Re, labels and judging – judging individual people is up to Hashem. Calling out community-wide failure to uphold basic Torah principles is within our responsibility, and should bother us. Is it possible that a MO individual will be on a higher level than me in shomayim? Definitely! That doesn’t matter much to me in practice.
Mindful – what open violations of torah law are acceptable to be done in the open in front of charedi rabbonim? Taking tzedaka to learn? Do you believe that until BY, women learned gemara and rishonim just like men? BY was the first institution for education at all for women, started by charedim with the backing of gedolim. Before that, women were largely iliterate for thousands of years. There were a handful of women who chose to learn more, and they weren’t silenced….they aren’t silenced now either.
In the time of chazal, rishonim, women almost never learned anything and the halacha was that lechatchila, women shouldn’t be taught even chumash inside the sefer. They had tzena urena and that was enough.
Were you “deprived” of an education in that rambam? The same rambam says that when women learn chumash, they get rewarded but it’s better not to, and for gemara/mishnah, they’re simply not allowed to. Sometimes studying things is, *gasp* not allowed…
Add that to the list, MO decided to abrogate the halacha against teaching gemara to girls.
Whatever you’ve read online that “opened your eyes” from some hack MO or worse…tell me, what traditional source have you discovered that shows that charedim changed things to make women inferior?
Referring to women by their husbands name is not unprecedented; referring to them by their name is also not new… it’s found in gemara vis a vis choshuve women, but regular women were usually not named.