BS”D
I hate to say it, but sometimes I think that there is a time to say “shygetz aross”. Part of the problem is that there are some in our communities who are indeed so far from Torah both bein adam lamakom and bein adam lachaveiroi that they literally need to be run out of town.
Instead, they often control the communities because they have those cash businesses – and because they keep the TV’s in the closet and the rest of the aveirois for when they are “unter vegens” or on vacation and no one sees them.
Was it Reb Michoel Ber Weissmandl ZYA who required “emmes” as a prerequisite for living in his community (Mt Kisco)? Maybe a group of people ought to come together and form a similar community today.
On the other hand, the idea of a “religious” person not committing any sins is an Xian one! All of us are living as imperfect Jews because we are imperfect people. For one it may be a problem with watching what she shouldn’t on TV, for the other he has a cash business, and yes, for the 3rd his shortcoming has to do with what used to be called 42nd Street. Yes, you can become a naval birshus hatoirah – but that is not what we aspire to and those who are at that level are really not regarded very highly in most communities – even if they have money, they are often the subject of much “mikve nayes” that is not very positive.
Nowhere does it say that if you keep kashrus lemehadrin you will not cheat on your taxes. The difference is that if you are keeping kashrus lemehadrin you (probably) know what you are doing is wrong and you do it only because you are tempted and think you will not be caught, or you think you are back in the old country where the poritz is out to get you and therefore you want to get him first. If you have secular values of anything goes, and no right or wrong, or right and wrong being what society decides is right and wrong rather than what Hashem has told us is right and wrong, then why not cheat? The problem for a secular person with a secular mindset is only that he will be caught and go to jail and lose everything, not that what he is doing is wrong, because he does not have a sense of absolute right or wrong. I know many secular people, and most are law-abiding only because they don’t have the guts to break the law – when you speak to them they say, well, what that lawyer did with the escrow is the same as I would have done if I were a lawyer and had access to client monies.
As for kids playing outside being regarded the same way as TV, where is this the case? Nowhere that I know, and that includes Satmar.