Damoshe – are you aware of how many “mainstream” MO schoolchildren are involved with NCSY? Happens to be I may have named the wrong organization; I saw this website years ago, though if not NCSY it was definitely a mainstream MO organization. I have to be honest and admit when I’m unsure or unaware of something.
If you want to see what goes on in the heads ot YU students, read ,their student newspaper. Their editor a few years ago said that many in the orthodox world aren’t ready for articles written by a stern college student cataloging her premarital aveiros. They pulled the article after some of the rabbis in YU were upset. Emphasis on some. They routinely run anti-torah articles.
The fact that rabbi hershel shechtet and rabbi willig teach at YU has little bearing on the state of the MO community. By their own standards, they are not run by rabbinic authority – also, there are thousands of MO rabbis who are not rabbi shechter and rabbi willig. They are almost the only torah-dig people in the movement.
Let’s not forget that every divergent movement has had its better elements. Saul liberman was not as off compared to the rest of the JTS faculty; does that mean conservative judaism is now leas treif?
To illustrate the divide between rabbi shechter and the MO community…he routinely advocates for the wearing of techeles. He is telling TV and smartphone obsessed teenageers to wear techeles before giving up their girlfriends.
Not that he is without criticism. The fact that he tolerates the open violations of Torah in YU by remaining there is not justifiable. That includes the toeva club, teaching gemara to women, inviting apikorsim and anti-torah speakers like marc shapiro…and his “teshuva” where he says that losing jewish life is an acceptable loss to maintain the state of Israel, because the state is the lifeblood of the jewish nation… he bought into nationalism and used it halachikally to defend the loss of jewish life.
No, rabbi shechter, the source and lifeblood of jewish life is the Torah, and it will keep us no matter what.