Shocking Study of Modern Orthodox OTD Rate

It’s not ironic at all. Israelis may do things differently as, for one, they have a different culture to deal with so they may have to play by different rules. So this has no bearing on American Jewry.

MO, starting from Rabbi JBS, on the other hand, touts modernity as a reason to do things differently whereas traditional orthodox tout absolute fidelity to halacha and daas Torah as their banner. Though, again, the Yetzer Hara is happy to target everyone.

Hakatan: Just to clarify, Modern Orthodoxy also had Daas Torah, just not yours.

The reason why MO has a higher OTD rate then other groups is because all the yeshivish, litvish and chassidish boys and girls who are frustrated with the insular way of life they are forced to lead got fed up and found a more enlightening derech to Hashem. Unfortunately, after years of being forced to observe the mitzvous instead of teaching them how to love it, all the mitzvous seem abhorrent and they go off the derech completely. You should think of MO has the Jewish Safety Net which is the last step before people go completely off.

Mods, why is it that the threads about Weberman were all closed, yet this thread remains open, allowing Hakatan/Joseph to spew his hate filled views?

I think I’m going to write a hate post also. Not necessarily what I believe, but enough facts to make it legit. I’m gonna start working on it tonight. Let’s see if the mods post it.

Oomis, I think the reason a Y”K is not mechaper on BA”LCH without mechilah is because the person hasn’t fixed the aveirah; it’s like “toivel v’sheretz b’yado”. In fact, at times, the offended is obligated to give mechilah, and the offender, having done his due diligence in [sincerely] attempting to appease, can get a kaparah from HKB”H even without mechilah from chavero. I don’t think it has anything to do with which is more chamur per se.

Surely, though, a lack of BA”LCH, even in someone who seems to display exemplary BA”LM, indicates that his BA”LM is false. I think the reverse is true to some extent as well; the ultimate bein adam lachavero is performed as part of one’s avodas Hashem, which is only sincere if it includes bein adam laMakom (assuming that it’s not deficient merely because of a lack of knowledge).

It’s definitely more pleasant to deal with someone who excels only in BA”LCH than with someone who excels only in BA”LM, but both are severely deficient.

Actualy the problem with Kastner was not really that he was a Zionist but rather that he was an accomplice to mass-murder as was basically proven in a court off law and transcribed in full by the the secular zionist BEn HEcht in his book Perfidy.

So Satmar quite understandbly does not glorify a man that was for the most part a murderer who did one thing to “try and allow people to ignore his entire “resume” that so happened to save the Stmar Rebbe’s life.

far east, I did not imply, CH”V, that Rabbi JBS held more of secular knowledge than of the Torah. That is, however, an MO phenomenon, even though he explicitly stated that it’s better to avoid culture as much as possible. For some reason, the practicality of this part of his address seems lost to MO.

GAW, I am not defending that “cult”, as you call it, and I don’t necessarily agree with anything/some things/everything that they do. And I have stated numerous times that the Yetzer HaRa targets everyone.

But that was not my point. My point was and is that as opposed to traditional orthodoxy, MO is unique in that it is mattir issurim and its very birth was based on a now-known-to-be faulty premise, that traditional Orthodoxy could not survive in America. Not only can it and does it, but even “Ultra-Orthodoxy” thrives. Back to MO, Zionism alone is a major problem. This has all been discussed repeatedly.

anon1m0us, MO does not believe in Daas Torah like traditional orthodox do and, from what I understand, MO frowns on the whole concept; they obviously do believe in psak halacha from a Rav, though. If I am wrong here and MO does teach “daas Torah”, I would be interested in being corrected on this. This is irrelevant to the point of the matter.

As I stated above, I was discussing a movement, not a person or persons. I did not mean to “hate” anyone, CH”V, only to point out the spiritual dangers of MO.

For the record, I have never posted under any other name and I do not do so now; nor do I expect to do so in the future. Therefore, the “Joseph” references are not appreciated as they are false.

You should think of MO has the Jewish Safety Net which is the last step before people go completely off.

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It’s not. What really happens is that those who don’t want to go completely off live at the fringes of their communities and keep just enough of their community’s minhagim to maintain a level of social acceptance. They become Chassidish-lite or Yeshivish-lite, and in some cases they do so for personal reasons and keep their kids in charedi chinuch in the hope their kids will not fall as they did.

Those who want out leave, plain and simple. They’re more apt to become self-hating Jews than even deformed or preservative, let alone MO.

I agree with this. I would also expect a Chatholic Church type investigation into YU. I would not be shocked if R’ Norman Lamm will have to give up his pension and/or settle in a lawsuit.

The difference between that & the other case is that YU will probably cooperate, while the other sect has acted like the Mafia by threatening, attempting to bribe & denounced the victim, so that no one else dares speak up.

The difference between that & the other case is that YU will probably cooperate,

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It took a lot to get NCSY to cooperate during the Lanner case.

Frankly, Rav Shtarker’s Beis Din is the only one qualified to handle these cases.

“Absolutely INCORRECT. That is not the history of MO – MO was started as a way to keep pre-WW2 Americans who wanted to retain some standard of shmiras hamitzvos from falling off altogether. Rav Soloveichik was a pessimist who felt Yiddishkeit had to be diluted to meet the demands of American life.”

That is abolutely INCORRECT. MO started because FRIM jews did not know how to survive outside the shtatel. They came to America and was lost. Rav Soloveichik taught them how to be a frum jew and do the avodas hashem no matter what country one lives in. I actually laughed out loud that there is a notion of “Yeshivish Lite”. Most of them are commonly known as BUMS!

Health- ANYONE can argue on R’ Moshe zt’l! Just because he was a gadol does not mean everyone follows his psak. A great example is carrying in Boro Park, a place R’ Moshe assured, but yet you have THOUSANDS of frum Jews (maybe chassidim are the new Mo) carrying every shabbos. You have hundreds of Sefardim carrying on Ocean Parkway!!

(maybe chassidim are the new Mo)

I’ve been saying that for a while.

DaMoshe,

I don’t know their shittos, but there may be a difference in opinion between different generations of Ralba”gs.

It was the present Rav Ralba”g’s father, who set up his hechsher as a business venture that was aimed at those who just wanted to keep the very baseline standard of kashrus, who accepted gelatin at one time.

I knew Rav Y.C Ralba”g AH and I don’t think he would have eaten some of the things he supervised himself. He was not even competing with the OU but looking to find ways that traditional people who kept kashrus, of whom there were many at the time, could have more choices.

As for MO, until about a generation ago it was a diving board from which the sons and daughters of its stalwart members, especially those who wanted to enter the pulpit rabbinate, jumped down to the conman movement and even lower. Its members were similar to those who call themselves traditional in EY – baseline kashrus, shul in the morning, shopping in the afternoon.

Then, when the going became a bit easier for shomrei Shabbos in the workplace after the civil rights movement and, more importantly, when the Torah-true world was more firmly established in the 60s and 70s, MO had already dropped its “shvachers.” The remaining MO, who were more Torah-committed but tended to be of second-or-third generation American stock rather than immigrants and first-generation Americans like those who rebuilt yeshivos and Chassidus, began to move to the right. They started to look to the rabbonim and even the Rebbeim from Europe for leadership, as they realized their rabbonim lacked in scholarship and did not represent Torah values.

Now, it is only a matter of time before the right wing of MO (most of those who are committed to MO), most of the yeshiva world, and Chassidim who want to enter the modern world mostly to be able to raise families with dignity, converge. Gone will be welfare dependency on the one hand, but more important, “Torah uMada” will be buried with dignity, in favor of intensive Torah learning combined with secular studies for parnosso only. Even 25 years ago, I knew of no serious YU student who wasted his life studying philosophy or anthropology – most leveraged their year in EY to finish YU in three years or transfer to Columbia engineering school before going on for a law degree or MBA.

Left out will be the left wing MO, who will jump down to YCT (a malignancy that cannot last but a generation) and then to “renewal” or who knows what, and those who choose or are socially pressured to choose an isolationist way of life. The former will sadly join the secular Jewish malaise, and the latter will find it difficult to cope and eventually become a small minority.

Regardless of the above, the dropout rate among people who truly follow MO, as opposed to those who just go to MO shuls, cannot be 50%. Calling the crowd that was never observant “MO” is like calling the Israelis who come every Shabbos to eat at a Chabad House in Thailand or India “Lubavitchers.” It indeed WAS about 50% in the 50s and early 60s.

Naysberg

Please list ONE mitzvah D’ Rabbanan they violate. Please do not list chumras.

However, having quite nobly served its purpose, it is quietly fading away as its constituents realize that in a free society, you do not have to bend in any way, or accept kefiradige thought (aka Western philosophy) in any way to succeed.

Even 25 years ago, I knew of no serious YU student who wasted his life studying philosophy or anthropology – most leveraged their year in EY to finish YU in three years or transfer to Columbia engineering school before going on for a law degree or MBA.

These two statements prove each other. Like “Bear” said, Torah U’Maddah is a relic of the draw of knowledge (which unfortunately doesn’t exist in the most part. Now people just want their degrees so they can afford Yiddishkeit.) Perhaps it still exists for Yechidim to use Maddah as a tool for Yiddishkeit, but most (IMHO) “MO” don’t hold of it.

There was never any real draw of knowledge. There was an era in American history when everyone felt they had to become more “American,” not realizing that the American “melting pot” ideal never could work out, especially for people like us who have a way of life that is far older and far richer than that of the “Americans.”

Many Jews, even those who wanted deep down to retain Yiddishkeit, succumbed to that ideology. There was never any attempt by anyone other than Rav Soloveichik and R’ Bernard Revel to use madda as a tool for Yiddishkeit. For most, it was just a tool to keep Yiddishkeit palatable enough during an era of assimilation for the sake of conformity.

The one YU rabbi I know who fell for the madda trap preached to deaf ears – and rightfully so. He faded away and sold out for an easy position after starting off as a vocal advocate for Jewish issues. No one of any integrity wanted to listen to what he had to say.

I have suffered far more for wont of a good plumber or electrician than I have from not having access to a good doctor. I can figure out the results of a blood test, or even get online and figure out what I have, and get hold of medication on my own. I cannot fix even a simple leak without spending time that I don’t have and money on tools I’ll use once and then lose track of. With Obamacare looming, and engineering jobs (another formerly good field for frum Yidden) moving to India, I think some people ought to use their minds for learning at night and their hands for working during the day. What’s more, with surgery becoming more automated, I have no problem with Ramesh from Mumbai operating on me (I am now in Asia and I plan to have minor elective surgery done here by a local doctor because it’s something a mohel or even a cosmetician can handle), but if I were building or renovating a home, I’d prefer that the complex plumbing and heating systems of today be installed by a Yid with a Yiddishe kop.

Health: I looked up what R’ Moshe wrote about an eruv in Manhattan. He originally wrote that he held it wasn’t good. However, he wrote that yesh al mi lismoch, and he would not be against those who used it, because they did have a valid opinion to go by. He even wrote that this is a machlokes in halachah and Hashem is rejoicing over it!

Later, R’ Aharon Kotler wanted to sign strongly against it, and asked R’ Moshe to join in signing a letter. Out of respect for R’ Aharon, he signed. He write a letter saying that while he initially wrote a different opinion, he signed that letter for R’ Aharon.

So to the claim that nobody can argue on R’ Moshe, even R’ Moshe himself said that he understood the opinion that the eruv was good even though he didn’t agree, and felt there was nothing wrong with relying on those opinions.

Some people may realize that medical school tuition is a waste now.

The only way you can get ahead in medicine is through blatant or subtle insurance fraud. The problem is that in the end, you get caught. Otisville Medical Group is not a very profitable concern, and you can even end up in a facility where your chavrusa is a real Dwek.

RSRH and TIDE are the polar opposite of MO and TuM. See what Rav Schwab, rov of RSRH’s TIDE Kehilla, said about MO and TuM.

See what Rav Schwab zt’l, rov of RSRH’s Kehilla, said about MO itself. It’s published in his Seforim.

Well, I wrote my hate post. The mods didn’t publish it. Mods, why can people write terrible things about MO, but I write something about chassidim and it won’t get published?

So they only post the ones that aren’t true?