Dear Avira,
I can’t get any clarity out of your posts. It’s hard to project what level of the yeshiva hashkafa you’ve absorbed. The yeshiva is not a very regulated place. All kinds of behaviors and perspectives are tolerated. Any Rosh Yeshiva who is worth his salt is not afraid of a contentious talmid. You seem to think that the yeshiva is like an engineered social experiment. That is far from the truth. So I”ll just post what I take issue with.
1) Mixed swimming is documented in many testimonials. And it comes across like it wasn’t a big deal to anyone.
2) In our day everything all Jewish rituals are being taken seriously. Uman and Meron. Techeiles and black on black. All kinds of kashrus. Eruvin and techumin. Shluach hakan and peter chamor. Everything and anything can be everyone’s business tomorrow. These were fields for the expert or those with the know how. Today, all of us are taking up positions that we know little about.
3) European Jewry endured a lot. I don’t know what you think Haskalah was or wasn’t.
4) There were big debates about how much the poskim have authority over tradition. There were communities that were too traditional. As well as communities that were too transitional.
5) Historically, the ‘Gedolim’ is not the same as having the most influence or the most talmidim.
6) Nowhere was I discussing a new torah ch”v. All these letters show is a call to basic observance. Not a hashkafa or a lifestyle. [I feel like this is where your missing a lot of info. Your making a schism out of what is almost universal.]
7) MO did not grow out of what I know as haskalah. If you thing observance was absolutely amazing before haskalah, am I to believe that the seventeenth century letters denouncing immodesty were made up ex-nihilo?
8) What’s the difference between a Rabbi condoning or throwing up his hands and saying what can I do?
9) If tznius stops at gender seperation in day to day life, than I concede that Chasidim are fully compliant with tznius. Maybe the most since שלשת ימי הגבלה.