Describing Differences Between Jews

Come on.

MO, while resembling traditional Orthodoxy in many ways, is not compatible with traditional Orthodoxy (though TIDE is compatible).

MO, including Rabbi Herschel Schachter as per his shiurim, believes in Zionism as a religious part of their religion. As in, for example, they believe it’s potentially worth sacrificing Jewish lives for the State of Israel (not just to help people there). That’s a huge break from, and wholly incompatible with, traditional Orthodoxy.

As well, MO holds that Torah and, lihavdil, Maddah both have intrinsic value. This is also not traditional Orthodoxy. It’s just Torah that has intrinsic values, even if we also study secular subjects for permitted (e.g. practical) reasons.

Not to mention the mixing of the genders and teaching gemara to girls, et al. which are all incompatible with traditional Orthodoxy.

I guess you would consider the GRA, MO since he held that maddah has intrinsic value.

Horribly untrue. I know that this misinformation is part of the battle cry of those who put Torah and Madda on the same banner, but it is far from the case.

The Gra pursued knowledge, and so did many Gedolei Yisroel, the Chazon Ish included. That has absolutely nothing to do with making it a partner of Avodas Hashem.

If there is one thing truthsharer is correct about it may very well be that the GRA was modern orthodox. HaRav Shimon Schwab zt’l said the chareidim are the real modern orthodox.

Selected Essays, pp. 90-91:

“And now we address ourselves to our chaveirim bedeah, our achim bemitzvos of the Orthodox Rabbinate of America. Ad masai? How long do you want to remain a branch, without becoming part of the tree? . . . We say to our achim b’mitzvos, “have Rachmonus with yourselves, and lemaan Hashem, part company with those who have given obscene semichah to to’evah clergymen” . . . Have rachmonus with yourselves, and break off your professional relationship with those who, for instance, consider Yishu HaNotzri merely a failed moshiach . . .We implore you . . . to part company with those gravediggers of Torah. I know it is a painful subject but it is unavoidable . . . We call on you to join us, the true Modern Orthodoxy , which is a generation of sincere mevakshei Hashem”.

Rav Schwab is referring to previous statements of his that MO is today outdated and “anything but modern”:

Selected Essays, p.89:

Depends on who is asking and why. I would just say that there is a fundamental code of Jewish observance, the Torah, but just as some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla, some Jews have certain customs that differ from others, but all are within the bounds of the fundamental Jewish law from the Torah.

If they are talking about Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, then the answer is that the Torah teaches us fundamental precepts and requirements of religious behavior within our daily lives, and some Jews follow all or most of these laws as they were passed down through the generations, and some do not.

Mas, Please don’t. Today’s Modern Orthodox is not a movement; it is a community. While Rav Shwabb was trying to change their focus when they were still developing, they are now completely developed. There is nothing to be gained by picking fights.

Nothing fruitful became of any such conversations here, and it is not Lito’eles unless you feel cornered by their arguments. It is fine to read these things to reassure yourself that the Taanos aren’t correct, but it’s no use and of no purpose to Darshen Barabim.

Moreover, in a time when people are running away and changing ideas, it is indeed scary and dangerous, and should be dealt with. Once the dust settled, and people are brought up in a certain Derech, it’s just the way it is. It’s a different community with some different ideas, and it’s time to accept that.

At this point, I’m better off keeping my pen off the paper. Fine.

Some of the anti-MO posters in this thread (assuming they’re not all the same person, i.e., Joseph) are making a mistake by definiting Modern Orthodoxy in terms of Torah uMaddah. I’d guess that if you asked a bunch of self-described Modern Orthodox Jews (from the US as well as various other countries) what being MO means to them, most of them wouldn’t say anything about YU or TuM or “the Rav.” After all, it’s not as if all MO go to YU and define their religious identity in terms of the Rav’s philosophy.

I believe that most MO Jews would say the following: being MO means being Orthodox but not wearing a uniform associated with those farther right (black and white, velvet kippas, etc.), not having a bias in favor of more machmir interpretations of everything, and holding by rabbis who dress and think like them.

If this is indeed what MO means in practice, then at least according to these variables, DaMoshe may be right that MO is most consistent with pre-haskalah Yiddishkeit. Jews didn’t have a conformist uniform before the haskalah (aside from das yehudis); that probably started with the second or third generation of chassidim and spread to other groups after that. The present drive toward increasing stringency among the right-wing of Orthodoxy today didn’t exist yet, because that came about as a reaction to haskalah and reform.

However, there may be other ways in which charedi Judaism today is more consistent with what people believed and practiced pre-haskalah (such as people’s attitudes toward mysticism and Torah-science conflicts). It just depends on what variables you’re looking at.

“being MO means being Orthodox but not wearing a uniform associated with those farther right (black and white, velvet kippas, etc.), not having a bias in favor of more machmir interpretations of everything, and holding by rabbis who dress and think like them.”

Your last point essentially proves that MO is by definition TUM. The rabbis are without exception YU educated and ordained. So their congregants who “think like them” are de facto Maddaites (note that I am not being intentionally offensive here, or I would have called them Scientorahlogists again).

Are you actually saying not all MO communities have YU rabbis because some of them come from KBY? Puhleese.

I don’t expect that rabbis are lecturing about tum philosophy at the pulpit. Regardless, if that is the rabbi’s hashkafa and the community follows him, they are practising TUM whether or not they know enough to know that.