RebDovid, DBS, Mesivta bachur and puttinginmy2cents –
Please don’t judge the coffee room participants as a single group. Especially by 3 posters. It is no different than what you ask of them.
Also, I just want to say I appreciate your quest for achdus, and many of us join you. It is a rough road because not everyone is nice, and it is very hard to oppose a movement without it being taken personally (I’m talking from any side). Legitimate claims against modern orthodoxy are automatically construed as personal attacks. And when someone to the “right” tells you that you are doing something not in accordance with halacha, the most natural response is to point out all the wrong in their communities as well. Is there a solution? Sure. But not in a chat room. I don’t think you could even support your favorite ice cream flavor online without people calling you names. It needs to be done in person, and with kindness, and with an ability to hear without feeling attacked. (again, I’m talking all sides)
I did learn something valuable from this thread today. I grew up in a modern orthodox system but there really was no modern orthodox system. It was orthodoxy made modern. I have a nephew who spent summers at Kollel in Morasha. He is a serious learner and perhaps proudly Modern Orthodox (I honestly never asked) but his life does not resemble the life I grew up in. There is a tremendous chashivus to learning, daas torah, tzniyus, tfila bitzibur, seperation of boys and girls in casual settings etc. Do they do things that make me scratch my head? Sometimes. And in that there is room for discussion. They are closely connected to YU but do not give ANY support or empathy to the LGBTQ community.
So what is it that I learned? That Modern Orthodoxy is not one single derech. It has questionable hashkofos, but not everyone seems to have “taken them on”. There is a need to differentiate between Modern Orthodoxy and modern versions of orthodoxy. I will not whitewash things that are wrong with Modern Orthodoxy, but the “label” seems to be too broad for anyone to understand who they are yelling at or why there is so much hatred. We need to drop the lumping and state our specific issues, and we also need to accept that there people who are angry because they are ferociously defending the distortion and watering down of halacha. If it aint you doing it, then remove yourself from the equation. But understand the need to fight this as we fall further and further away from the way things should be.
Too long, really sorry about that. But I dread another chat room casualty….