what is your definition of?

OTD doesn’t believe in g-d and throws of the whole religion.

MO, Yeshivish & Chassidic are all regular frum yidden they just have different outlooks. With the merger of the OU and agudah I think MO is coming back to be similiar to Yeshivish & Chassidish.

OTD is people who are PUSHED OUT , not people who have left.

lc: You didn’t hear? It’s now the Union of Agudas Yisroel Orthodoxy.

Regular frum Yid: You. Everyone imagines themselves as centre of the spectrum, and everyone else is left or right of him.

OTD doesn’t believe in g-d and throws of the whole religion.

Nonsense. I know many people who are OTD, not atheists, and don’t throw out the “whole religion.”

The Wolf

“OTD is people who are PUSHED OUT , not people who have left.”

Doesnt the “O” = Off? Since when did it signify a specific reason why one was off. One could have fallen off, walked off or have been pushed off. Off is off. The why might determine how you deal with that person and help put them back on the proper path.

First of all, that doesn’t negate the fact that he is still OTD. As apushatayid pointed out, if he’s off, he’s off. Could be any circumstance why or how.

Second of all– guess what, a Jew who does some mitzvos but not others is still a Jew and still practicing Judaism. Perhaps not perfectly, but he’s still doing it. It boggles my mind how people can have so much hatred in their hearts toward our non-frum brethren that they would go so far as to think that the Torah is all or nothing. It’s not. Once again, Chabad is way ahead of the rest of the frum world on this.

I once heard a beautiful story about a lesbian couple that one of the women had been raised as a Jew and the other as a Catholic. The Catholic Church (obviously) rejected them, they tried out Buddhism, and eventually made their way to Judaism. Their local Chabad rebbetzin welcomed them warmly, with no judgment, and provided them with Shabbos candles every week. Unfortunately, the Jewish woman was diagnosed with cancer and died at a very young age, and her partner wrote a wonderful letter to the rebbetzin thanking her for all of her warmth and support over the years (what a tremendous Kiddush Hashem!)

This rebbetzin was interviewed for a Jewish radio station and the interviewer asked her why she got involved with these women, knowing that they were romantic partners.

The rebbetzin responded, “I’ve never heard of a halacha that says that if someone doesn’t keep one mitzvah, that means that she’s exempt from all the others.”

Bottom line: mitzvah observance and Torah study is precious to Hashem, regardless of the quantity or context. If a person decides not to be Orthodox, that’s not a signal for us to give up on them completely, shun them from the community, and all but spit in their faces. On the contrary, we must meet them at their level, treat them with utmost compassion and respect (but not condescension) and, to the best of our ability, enable them to perform whatever mitzvos they DO want to do.

If Torah observance was all or nothing, literally zero people would be “practicing Judaism” according to you, Joseph. Because literally nobody in the world does it perfectly.

“literally nobody in the world does it perfectly.”

There is a difference between not doing something perfectly and making a conscious decision to simply ignore something, or worse, publicly flaunt what one chooses to ignore. Performing 612 out of 613 mitzvos perfectly, but deliberately ignoring that last one does not make one a .9983686 tzadik, it makes someone a 100% sinner.

Any idea of how to do kiruv in a college setting. Its kind of weird to just walk up to someone and be like i want you to come to my house or wherever and that way youll get a chance to do kiruv on them.

You dont walk up to people on a college setting, you have to run events that people would want to go to. It has to be some combination of Judaism and social setting

Exactly opposite Abba they take it out on the people who ruined it for them their grievance is not with HKBH the Torah lifestyle is wonderful but if the people who are supposed to instill love for HKBH do hateful things that message is lost.

Goq: While they may think they are hurting their parents, teachers, friends or others, the OTD are only hurting themselves. While they think they are the center of attention, the friends and family ignore them resulting in suicide and other antisocial behavior. I am not a social worker but I think early intervention might solve these problems at a lower cost to society.

Sparkly: While legally once you are born a Jew you are always a Jew. People who act like they are a ” Goy” are called a goy. What I mean by taking learning seriously is that more and more MO are learning the Daf Yomi. The only MO I deal with are those who come to the Mincha Minyan, which is why I think they are taking learning and davening more seriously, so this may not be indicative of MO as a whole.

Sparkly

Yeshivas and Seminiaries do not teach you this, however prostelizing is not really acceptable in the greater world and can get you into trouble if done incorrectly.

College Campuses and even more so work place environments, you have to be real careful what you say and do. You can be punished for prostelizing. A simple example. You are in an office with a co-worker who is not religous and you hear them over the phone discussing their friday night plans which includes going to McDonalds and Having a cheeseburger and then driving elsewhere. You are not allowed to say anything.

On a college campus you might see a table for Zen Budaism and someone you know is going over for that table. you cannot stand near that table and block people from going to the Buddiast table with the statue of the Buddah. The dean can reprimand or expel you for doing so.

Groups that do kiruv on college campuses and workplace environments know how to maze through these things (Regardless of what might have been heard, Hillels, Chabads etc are welcome on college campuses, just as long as they follow the rules..which isnt as hard as you think)

Sparkly:

1: I did not write kicked off, I wrote pushed off, by circumstances and lifes experiences.

2: “most mo dont wear a kippah.”

How do you know this? Do you personally know a majority of “MO” people, or have you polled them? I think you are wrong because the overwhelming majority of people I know who claim to be MO do in fact where a kippah. Still, I can not, and will not make a blanket statement that “most MO do or dont do X since I dont know the majority of MO adherents to make such a statement”.

“they dont cover their hair or theyll barely cover their hair.”

Again, how do you know this? My personaly experience says you are wrong, but my personal experience is not enough to make blanket statements about a large group of people.

“i dont need to cover my hair when i get married”

I will assume you are a male then? If you are a female, you DO need to cover your hair, in public because the Halacha mandates that you do.

“but i choose to because im more religious than mo.”

This is a mistaken statement, you do it because you choose to? Thats nice and all, but where is Hashem in the equation? doing it because Hashem said to is why you should, not because you choose to. Doing something because you choose to (or not doing something for similar reason)removes Hashem completely from the equation and your religiousness hardly matters.

“but i choose to because im more religious than mo.”

I’m frummer than you are, I’m frummer than you are

🙂

Joseph: And if it is heresy? Therefore what?

Therefore you cannot state that their adherents “practices Judaism”.

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/condemnation-of-jerusalem-parade/page/2#post-616562

A heretical denomination cannot be described as practicing Judaism.

“but Judaism is still Judaism and even if they reject parts of it, that doesn’t negate the fact that they’re still practicing in some way.”

“The only people who call themselves practicing Jews who really, truly aren’t, are Hebrew Christians (so-called “Messianic Jews”).”

These 2 statements of yours are contradictory. The so called messianics also practice in “some way”. According to you, whats the difference what the person rejects, so long as they practice in some way you should consider them pacticing judaism”.

The difference is that belief in Yoshke is 100% incompatible with Judaism. Even a Jewish atheist can be said to be practicing Judaism in some way, but an idol worshipper, absolutely not.

Reform and Conservative Jews who don’t keep the entire Torah aren’t just keeping what they do keep because “they like doing it for whatever reason”. It’s not just for fun. Many of them believe that they are mandated by halacha, some do it because it helps them feel a connection to HKBH, and others do it to connect with the heritage. All of those are valid reasons and are very much connected to Judaism. Even if you believe that there is only one right way to practice, that doesn’t mean you have to deny your brethren a place at the table. You might strongly disagree with their lifestyle, but that doesn’t warrant denying that they’re a part of the tribe. Reform rabbis wake up every morning and put on tefillin, daven, learn, officiate at funerals, teach Torah, and promote chessed. If that isn’t “practicing Judaism,” I don’t know what is.

The standard at my MO high school to be considered frum was Shabbos, Kashrus and Taharat hamishpacha. Now obviously, Shabbos and Kashrus have wide variances in observance, but basically, if your intent was to observe, you were considered in.

Conservative is basically its own halachic movement that uses halacha as a guide, and claims to adhere to it, but they accept every lenience and make their own if they feel like it (driving to shul on Shabbos ok).

The chatam soffers reform is NOT the reform of today. The reform of today believes that halacha is valuable, and you should do as much of it as you can, but its an individual choice. This is much different than the views of the past that many of the laws were ridiculous, etc… Todays reform recognizes the value of all halacha, they just “pasken” that its not mandatory (but it is still aspirational) and they also change things to be egalitarian.

” Judaism isn’t all or nothing.”

In Belief, IT SURE is

In Practice,far from it

A large portion of the members of the Reform and Conservative religions are complete gentiles and not Jewish. This is a result of over a century of intermarriages, invalid conversions, children/grandchildren/etc. of intermarriages and invalid conversions, and half a century of paternal descent.