AviraDeArah

AAQ – i think you gave the answer to your own question by saying that chazal take into consideration how people feel when making gezeros – they do! Because they’re making gezeros. A rov applying said gezeros cannot say “well, nowadays people feel a need to swim at the beach on shabbos, so let’s invent some ad hoc halachik device allowing them to”. Likewise when manhigim enact rules such as chasunah takanos, or filtering standards, they definitely have the feelings and reactions of their constituents in mind; not their opinions though.

Here we have a question about something that is discussed in the poskim as based on sugyos in shas – these discussions are unrelated to people’s feelings entirely.

Damoshe – let’s be real here. being asked why we didn’t enjoy the world in our generation….i doubt any of us will be asked that, as we enjoy a LOT more comfort and pleasure than literally anyone who has ever lived before. curtailing one’s dairy eating to cholov yisroel and eschewing breyers ice cream, opting instead for kleins, will not impact in the slightest the taanah of the nazir that he is choteh al.hanefesh by withholding legitimate pleasure from himself. If anything, in our time we’ll be asked why we engaged so much in material pleasures when we had an unprecedented ability to sit and learn

The 1st perek of mesilas yeshorim spells it out clearly: good is in olam haba, we get there by doing the mitzvos. Full stop.

By framing it as either generational or hashkofic, you are saying that it’s possible to view a halachikally sensitive issue in a lense that strips it of that dimension – I’m sorry, but that’s very sketchy. For a torah Jew, there isn’t a non-halachik perspective worth contemplating

“I am not asking about the halachik angle of this, just peoples prospectives”

This is a halachik and hashkafic question. The fact that it can be opened for discussion based on perspective or any other factor other than halacha and hashkafa is a very good example of MO mentality.

When the Gaon was about to be niftar, his last words were about the great opportunity one has to do mitzvos in this world. He lovingly grasped his tzitzis and said “for a few kopeks one can buy eternal life”. He was niftar mitoch love for the mitzvah of tzitzis that is now brazenly being referred to as a zecher…

Yeshivish, i really don’t see how to explain this to you any other way, since you’re very wrapped up in framing my very thought out and developed positions as mere mirrors of an MO abrogation of halacha. I also explained why most gedolim do not hold of pursuing techeles and why even those that hold of it (including my rebbe rav Belsky) do not make a big deal about it for their talmidim. To my knowledge, the only rabbi of note who instructs people – quite frequently i might add – to do so at the expense of giving important tochacha to his girlfriend-having constituents is rabbi shechter.

Yeshivish – anyone can get haskamos, especially grandchildren of gedolei yisroel(i had refrained from calling him by name because of the kovod of rav henkin) who put on hats and make themselves appealing to choshuve people. Haskomos usually say that they did not read the contents. If the contents of a sefer are not the result of serious study, then we are forced to reinterpret the haskama, not the sefer.

Rav Moshe gave haskomos to a lot of people he didn’t agree with, but the wording was very revealing. I recall a mizrachi guy who wrote a sefer on rashi, and rav moshe refers to him as Mr in the haskama and writes very pareve things about him – fitting who he was.

As for bizui talmidei chachamim, if you notice, I am careful about how I speak about rabbi shechter, rabbi willig and moreso rabbi yoshe ber Soloveitchik. That doesn’t mean they are immune to criticism and that they have acheived the status of people to whom we are to submit ourselves to as subjects of “lo sasur”. Nor does it mean that because someone is a gavra in learning that his opinioks suddenly become daas torah when the Torah community has ignored or disavowed them. Shlomo carlebach was a serious talmid chochom at one point in his life; it doesn’t mean what he did was ok, and he admitted that himself. Rabbi yoshe ber likewise wrote in 5 drashos that MO is not going to reach great heights (he was a brisker after all) but is necessary to save Judaism, and that the yeshiva world wouldn’t last….of course Judaism is alive and well in the Torah world, and is a flickering candle in MO – puk chazi!

Bemakom chilul hashem ain cholkin kovod le’rav – it’s not a “kulah” as in kulos and chumros, to point out the spiritual bankruptcy of a divergent movement, whatever individuals are involved and however knowledgeable they are in Torah. If one day, my rebbe rav Belsky would have chas veshalom gotten up and said to ordain women – ad kan; there’s no emunas chachamim when a chacham changes the Torah or violates it.

Yochanan kohen gadol ended up becoming a tzeduka after being kohen gadol for 80 years! It’s possible.

As for being mevatel an asei with techeles….we haven’t had it for 1500 years, and we pasken that ain techeles maakeves es halavan; we don’t consider the baal hamaor’s shita of it being hotzaah in reshus horabim either…the brisker rov may have been choshesh, but he didn’t go travelling the world trying to find techeles either – he had more important things to do. Certainly then, when a house is on fire, you don’t run to save the plastic cups…MO is awash in sin, not “kulos”, plain old aveiros, some willfully, some because of ignorance, but malei avvon either way – MO leaders should save what’s important, and not pretend that nothing’s wrong.

Syag, sorry but the 2nd condition you mentioned – that he be interested – is not among the halachos pf tochacha; it says to do so even if he screams at you “ad hacaah” until he hits you.

Regarding being qualified, you are correct – it’s also to be done without onaas devorim, “lo sisa alav chait” means don’t bear a sin because of him, that he is doing and that you could have stopped, snd don’t bear a sin yourself because of him i.e. the way you’re treating him.

Avi – all is indeed known, Hashem knows the future and sees it happening, but Hashem gives us free choice; that’s the old contradiction and dropping one part of it because it lets you feel secure with an Uzi won’t solve the problem. It remains that nothing can happen to you without it being from Hashem – that’s the chovos halevavos in shaar bitachon, the nefesh hachaim and virtuall every machshava sefer ever. We have a mesorah even that every minute thing that happens is hashgacha, even though there is seemingly a shitah that says that small things might not be – the seforim explain that rishon to mean that it’s relative…we don’t see the hashgocha in the small things, so le’umasaeynu it’s as if it isn’t there.

For a very good explanation of the ohr hachaim and this topic in gener, see rav chaim friedlander’s sifsei chaim; the ohr hachaim doesn’t mean that you xan6chNge6a gezera from shomayim…he means that with bechira, you can be meorer dinim on a person and they can be judged in shomayim more severely than not – it’s like when someone is in a tzara lr be’idna dirischa, things happen that otherwise wouldn’t, but “hakol tzafui veha’reshus nesunah” is axiomatic. When paroh said to Hashem “why are you blaming me? You decreed that bnei yisroel should suffer” Hashem answered “who asked you to be the shliach?”. Wicked people end up being the shluchim for bad things and good people the shluchim for good things.

Rabbi Soloveitchik fits into category B as mentioned above; those who believe Hashem caused the holocaust but eschew giving reasons. This opinion was very popular after the war, and still is among balebstishe people. It’s not treif, it’s just putting your head in the sand in my opinion. Also, many rabbis after the war did not want to offend survivors – this has a basis in chazal, as the gemara says it’s onaas devorim to tell someone that you’re suffering because of your sins. Rav avigdor miller, and the gedolei olam such as Rav Shach had no problem saying repeatedly that it was a punishment, but others did shy away from it, so that is worth mentioning.

GH – there it is….i was waiting for someone to just dismiss all criticism of MO as being Taliban/fanatical zealots…. you extremists with your tanach and shulchan aruch….you all belong in saudi Arabia!

It’s that exact attitude that’s endemic in MO, where if you simply want to keep normative halacha and hashkofa, you’re compared to the taliban.

Do you think that the yeshiva world, even in its most right wing element “locks women up” to have babies and cook? If you think that, you’d do yourself well to stop watching Netflix and reading false blogs and actually spend time in Lakewood, monsey etc

Ubiq – if anyone’s hocking a kup, it’s people who come with reform-esque innovation and then get upset at people who dislike mesorah being trampled on

“Mainstream” MO means different things to you and I. To you, it’s basically rabbi shechter and rabbi willig. To me, it’s the 95% of barely frum people who call themselves such and the 90% of RCA rabbis who have fallen prey to many of the taanos I mentioned.

2. In what context would Rabbi Lamm call anyone a caveman?
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He referred to the yeshiva world as cavemen; he knew exactly what he was saying. He felt enlightened and smarter than jews who only learn Torah and didn’t go to college. He also called conservatism “valid”, then backpedalled and gave a whole shiur on the philosophical meaning of valid…he knew what he was saying.

3. Equating is very different than comparing.
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Many MO rabbis, including norman lamm, have said this. Equating the two was a step above the maskilim who loved secular wisdom more than Torah. So the quasi maskilim in YU, including dr belkin and Bernard revel, said simply that they’re equal. What goes on in gush in their reckless “parshanut” is also haskalah-oriented. To their credit, rabbi willig and rabbi shechter do not seem at all to be using academic, haskalah methods in theit torah studies and psak, aside from using nationalism to justify deaths on the part of the latter. As an aside, I don’t see why people who continuously say that rabbis are not infallible and that you can argue with them suddenly run to defend one of theirs from criticism. Is it only ok to accuse, chas veshalom, the brisker rov of having OCD and dismissing some of his psakim(as heard from an MO rabbi) but not ok to say that rabbi shechtets personal nationalism influenced him to err in halacha?

4. “This is not mainstream either. Just to be clear, someone following a Kula because they were taught to follow a Kula is unlikely to know it’s a Kula, just like if one were to be raised in a world of Chumra, one could easily confuse Chumra and the standard Halacha. It’s quite difficult to run headlong into a Kula if you’re unaware it’s a Kula. And if it’s a Kula, although it may not be ideal, it doesn’t make it wrong, the same way that other people rely on Kulos. In terms of Chumros regarding Ticheiles, that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. Certainly a majority of the Modern Orthodox world does not agree with Rav Schachter (as @DBS can tell you, Rav Willig is very vocally opposed). ”
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If you want to see MO style “psak”, read shu”t bnei bonim. He’s a gush type posek; unfortunately he lost relatives in a terror attack a few years back. The whole sefer is him picking out a random maikil shita and making it viable in the face of overwhelming opposition.

I was not referring to rabbi shechter’s kashrus psakim. He follows standard halachik jurisprudence. After Rav belsky’s petirah, I still eat OU for the most part. Most of my diatribe doesn’t apply to him. Re techeles – my point is that senior rabbis such as rabbi shechter spend undue time pressing techeles and avoid the 3 chamuros that his constituents are invovled in routinely and communally.

5. “Regarding feminism, I don’t think that is mainstream either. The MO world is opposed to female rabbis (as @DBS could tell you, Rabbi Willig is very VERY vocally opposed to this [it’s practically in his backyard! {he lives in Riverdale}]). If they weren’t, they would jump ship to the OO. In terms of the latter part of this one, please define your terms: What do you define as meta-halacha?”
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Feminism has many forms, but firstly there are a lot…i mean, a LOT of RCA rabbis who want to ordain women, the “bnei bonim” guy included. The fact that they’re held back by prominent figures such as rav gedalya dov schwartz, rabbi shechter and rabbi willig, is changing. Just read “the commentator” to see what MO youth and future rabbis want. What’s considered OO now will be mainstream MO within 10 years, and people like you, who seem relatively level-headed, will find a home in a place like Ner Yisroel or other college-friendly yeshivos kedoshos. The very fact that while in the yeshiva world, no rabbid would think of such a thing, and in the MO world, senior rabbis need to reign in the younger ones and come out with proclamations… speaks volumes.

As to other forms of feminism; it’s being taught in high school, stern college…the ideals of careerism,  dismissal of gender roles as outdated, believing that women are better now than they were in Europe when their life consisted of piety and family duties, as well as the “we can do it too” of learning gemara…the growing movement to do things like wear tefilin, cast off head coverings because they’re “oppressive”, rethink chazal as chas veshalom being a “male perspective”…all this is discussed in YU and common place in MO circles. The development of “yoatzot” in the spirit of “by women for women”, all of this and plenty more are mainstream.

Meta halacha is letting other considerations besides what people need for legitimate tzrochim and the crucible of halacha to weigh in on how a psak should be made. Examples of which would be the psak of one MO rabbi that abortions are ok for a woman to be able to put herself through college

9. The minchas chinuch,( ill look it up imyh where) says that goyim are Chayav misa for not enacting proper courts to carry lut the other 6. The 7 mitzvos, which include homosexuality, are not chukim..the rishonim say that they are all understandable and goyim who did not receive a Torah are expected to believe in a God who demands these rational minimum requirements. Goyim are obligated to enact a beis din to carry out the other 6 laws, and since they’re all capital offenses, they must enforce a death penalty on any of them. I don’t think your drush has any relevance here; Hashem brought the mabul becsuse of goyim writing kesubos from men to other men; it’s something very simple, and the fact that MO circles even discuss the possibility of goyim allowing same sex marriage is appalling. Leskaen olam bemalchus shakai, our job is to create the world in the kingship of Hashem by having his will manifested and enforced.

A lot of people shouldn’t consider themselves orthodox; but they do. there are entire orthodox LGBT and feminist organizations.
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10. I don’t know about admiration as much as Hakaras HaTov or learning lessons from them. Take Moshe Dayan, for example. A Menuval? Yes, but Jewry owes him a great debt of gratitude: if not for him, we would not have access to Mearas HaMachpeila, the Kosel, Har HaBayis, etc. In terms of learning lessons: try Steven Covey. A Goy gamur? Yeah, but a Yashar person, who tries to lead his life in an ethical manner (one of my Rabeim called The Seven Habits “The Mesilas Yeshorim for Goyim”).
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Ever hear of an MO house in Israel with pictures of hertzl on the walll? I have. Ever hear the glowing praise heaped on golda Meir, while she said that she can take care of “the charedi problem” “in one day with the army” (yes she did say that)? MO has a loving protrail of zionist leaders and before the State, we had access to the kosel…and you know what? There was no problem of Women of the wall, or reform trying to disgrace its hallowed place with their filth.

MO revels in stories of shimon Perez and others as some sort of friend, they’re called “heros” and their books are available in jewish book stores.
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11. See above, 6. It’s not adding, but rather applying. Judaism attributes value to the feminine, but what is the Torah’s view on how that effects how we think about women in the modern age?
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The Torah should be the sole source of how we view anything, including women. Rabbi yoshe ber Soloveitchik famously said that the way chazal talk about female psychology, tav lemaysav tan du etc…is a metaphysical reality and a constant. I wish MO would follow the person they call their leader, but sadly most do not. Mostl think that today’s women are different and enlightened. They can learn gemara because they’re so much more educated and smarter, etc..
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12. See whoever-said-it’s comment about the difference between the state and the land. The state bears supporting because it protects Jewish lives. If not for the state/army, millions of Jews would be fair game to Arabs.
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It wouldn’t need to save jewish lives if it wasn’t made to begin with. A better solution would be to let the USA take over as a territory; it would serve america’s foreign policy interests, and they would protect the jews living there and not perpetuate the chilul hashem that the state creates every day

When it comes to things like pareve secular culture, there is an argument for demystification; that small doses will prevent the development of a desire to have it – but that would be limited to children’s books, dr seuss for instance….but that category is becoming more and more closed off, as modern day writers are bent on explosing children to toe’vah. I don’t particularly agree with that approach in the first place, but I understand those that do – rav hirsch advocated it directly and explicitly for that reasn in his time. He spoke only of secular literature; not vocalized music and definitely not interaction between genders.

I’ll repond to rebdovid first, as he started the thread.

I too, was in a boy’s only school, and the rebbeim as well tried to teach us a little bit – guess how many listened and didn’t make fun of how “extreme” the rabbis are? Almost none; actually, just one – me, even though at first I was counted in that number as well. The MO home and the TV culture (nowadays it’s the smartphone and social media) taught us how to think and behave. What was normal on TV was normal to us.

Every one of the boys in that school was in contact with girls; no exceptions. Every one of them watched R rated movies and worse, sometimes behind their parents’ back…when you open the door to the yatzer hora, he kicks it down. In a co-ed school, imagine telling teenage boys not to look at the girls. You’re putting the michshol right in front of them and saying the equivalent of “don’t think about a pink elephant”, but magnifying it by a ten fold with raging hormones and daily availability.

Just how many “more religious” children were damaged by their daily exposure to members of the opposite gender to justify a kiruv project? I’m not a chabad chossid, far from it, but if you want to see school-kiruv in action, look at their mahalach – they put a few non-frum students in with a (gender separate) group of frum kids, the frei get shlepped along with the majority. The ratio is about 1:10 I believe. Either way, we don’t sacrifice our own children for kiruv.

Would you give your children experimental anti-cancet drugs that they don’t need, if there were a chance of them being fatal, in order to help other kids who need the drug?

Aside from what everyone knows goes on in hallways and stairwells, whatever rules a school makes against intergender relationships, do you really expect pubescent students to simply not follow their hormones when exposed daily to available and willing stimuli? It’s preposterous. The reason why we keep away from contact with members of the opposite gender (henceforth MOTOG) is because more exposure equals more of a yatzer hora. What we see and hear everyday influences us.

Most MO schools separate genders for limudei kodesh, but there is still quite a lot of mixing elsewhere, as well as in extra curricular activities. Is it a surprise then, when relationships or casual aveiros develop?

Many MO believe in this as a shitah, that it’s better to be exposed and remove the mystery, and that even sinning is natural and unavoidable anyway.  They liken it to drinking alcohol. They say, “are you that weak that you can’t even be around women and not have hirhurim?” That is completely against how chazal view the yatzer hora – “yisrachek odom es atzmo meod meod meod (3 meods!) Min hanashim”…be very,. Very, very distant from women. Does that mean we can’t work with women? No, because poskim say that you could, since you’re too busy working to have hirhurim.

Teenage boys are too busy being teenage boys NOT to sin if they are with girls.

The difference lf course, is that alcohol is not assur and social interaction with women is. That’s not a “chumra”. Shulchan aruch, from gemara, is clear that even asking “how are you” is assur gamur. I asked rav belsky once if maybe “how are you” nowadays has no intention of “kiruv daas” and is no different than the permitted “good morning”, he answered that there is still a difference and that one should not say “how are you”. Granted that may not be the accepted standard even in the Yeshiva world, as many rebbetzins have addressed me so, but to socialize and have full kiruv hadaas is definitely assur.

It seems that you’re “right wing” MO and that you’re consistently quoting rabbi willig, who is on the far right of the MO world. Indeed the differences between that minority and the yeshiva world are far less than I’ve described. He influences people who are interested in learning and who have inspired themselves to transcend the world they come from, but the MO world is still pretty much the same as it would be without him and rabbi shechter. Unfortunately, they have not accomplished much in changing MO or even YU, as YU has grown increasingly polarized between the handful of people who take yiddishkeit seriously and the rest who are barely religious. Growing up I had heard of rabbi shechter and heard him speak a couple of times, but he had zero influence on me and my family.

If everyone in MO were like him and rabbi willig, the taanos list I wrote would be much shorter.

“Among the newly announced policies, the university plans to update its “diversity, inclusion and sensitivity training” to focus on “diverse student groups, including sexual orientation and gender identity.” Administrators will receive initial training in the coming semester, and one for faculty, staff and students will be developed. The Counseling Center will also ensure that its staff includes a clinician with “specific LGBTQ+ experience.” Additionally, a “warm line” will be created in the coming semester for YU students to discuss or report concerns about “non-inclusive” harassment or bullying.”

Official YU statements quoted by its student newspaper. Does this sound like a yeshiva, or a liberal leftist college?

My intention was never to insult any particular person – if you read my losts6, I have a very positive opinion of my high school english principal. I have a lot of good things to say about jews who may not be totally observant; that is not a contradiction to any of the taanos and issues of MO as an entity that I raised.

שקר שנאתי ואתעבה, תורתך אהבתי

I don’t think this only applies to gedolei hador – each and every one of us is capable of despising what Hashem hates and loving what He loves. We are not supposed to hide our heads in the sand while MO ideology degenerates and influences the Torah world. Neither are we to pretend that there are other, valid opinions about any of the issues I raised. It’s not hateful to say, for instance, that conservative judaism is not authentic. It would be hurtful to our cause to make a conservative Jewish person feel bad or offend them; but knowing right from wrong, emes from sheker, is a source of eternal perfection – it is, in rav avigdor miller’s lingo “true knowledge”, a palpable understanding of emes that accompanies a person into olam haba.

If you’ll notice, I omitted many differences between MO and the Yeshiva world. I omitted things that are not black and white, assur and mutar, including going to college, how one dresses, secular names, and other things that are common in MO. I was careful to mention only the things that relate to akiras hados, the uprooting of Torah and abrogation of halacha.

Dbs – it’s great that you’re learning! Keep it up!

camp morasha is a co-ed camp; interactions between young people in a camp can undermine months of growth in yiddishkeit. I hope your part of the camp is totally separate.

Camp Agudah is a boy’s camp with two parts; regular camp and masmidim. Masmidim learn 3x a day, and the rest of the camp does not. Some boys need a bigger break from the intense work they put in the rest of the year; bitulo zuhi kiyumo.

As for rabbi willig’s answer to teaching girls gemara…. pirkei avos is mussar. It is like the agadetas that women have learned in tzena urena for hundreds of years.

Teaching it is not the same as teaching gemara and halacha, and I’m surprised that rabbi willig said this; it’s not “situational”, it’s a simple distinction. The chofetz chaim allowed teaching tanach and halacha; tanach is a b”dieved but allowed, and halacha is necessary.

Rebdovid did not just ask for questions; he asked for taanos, and that is what i responded to – I didn’t have questions because i was MO and know exactly how things are and what kind of spectrum there is. Let him try and answer my taanos, but to do that you’d have to either make believe that the 50ish bochurim/yungeleit in YU who are farkoifed on rabbi shechter represent the masses of MO(but there would still be plenty to criticize), or just “reexamine” the issues i discussed.

Gadol; no one’s doubting that there were and are ehrliche people in young israel shuls, be they mispalelim or rabonim. Many gedolim had YI shuls, and I’ll add Rav Pam to that list. Being active in political life and learning Torah is an Agudah value system; it has no bearing on MO or the miasma of secular culture that MO mixed-swims in.

2cents – take a survey in an MO shul and give multiple options – was the holocaust A) the result of unchecked racism, jews not having a country and military… but no merciful god would ever do such a thing, B) a gezerah from Hashem that we don’t understand, or C) the culmination of a hundred years of gedolim warning against assimilation, reform and defection from Torah.
In a MO shul, you’ll get 65% A, and 35% for B. In a baalebatish shul, you’ll get 90% for B and 10% for C, and in a yeshiva you’ll get 50/50 between B and C. ​

I realize people will say that this is random and that I’m generalizing, but please, give it a try! I davened with these people, went to school with them… Puk chazi, go out and see!

Re, rabonim coming out of co ed schools – gedolim such as Rav avigdor miller, rav yitzchok sheiner, rav gifter and others went to public school. Actually, i think more roshei Yeshiva went to public school than MO.

Re, rav avigdor miller…to claim he has any relation to YU when he repeatedly bashed MO (he was one of my early influences…im insulted for his kovod) is ludicrous. His YI became a shul of mevakshei Hashem. He raised the mechitzah at night; many left but he didn’t care. He denounced an announcement that a kiddush was being made at a conservative temple, and said “we will not mention conservative temples in this shul”, many more left… He didn’t care. He also changed the name eventually to Bais yisroel of rugby when he moved.

Could be that it’s a troll post, or it could be that he was not expecting the excoriation

Damoshe – are you aware of how many “mainstream” MO schoolchildren are involved with NCSY? Happens to be I may have named the wrong organization; I saw this website years ago, though if not NCSY it was definitely a mainstream MO organization. I have to be honest and admit when I’m unsure or unaware of something.

If you want to see what goes on in the heads ot YU students, read ,their student newspaper. Their editor a few years ago said that many in the orthodox world aren’t ready for articles written by a stern college student cataloging her premarital aveiros. They pulled the article after some of the rabbis in YU were upset. Emphasis on some. They routinely run anti-torah articles.

The fact that rabbi hershel shechtet and rabbi willig teach at YU has little bearing on the state of the MO community. By their own standards, they are not run by rabbinic authority – also, there are thousands of MO rabbis who are not rabbi shechter and rabbi willig. They are almost the only torah-dig people in the movement.

Let’s not forget that every divergent movement has had its better elements. Saul liberman was not as off compared to the rest of the JTS faculty; does that mean conservative judaism is now leas treif?

To illustrate the divide between rabbi shechter and the MO community…he routinely advocates for the wearing of techeles. He is telling TV and smartphone obsessed teenageers to wear techeles before giving up their girlfriends.

Not that he is without criticism. The fact that he tolerates the open violations of Torah in YU by remaining there is not justifiable. That includes the toeva club, teaching gemara to women, inviting apikorsim and anti-torah speakers like marc shapiro…and his “teshuva” where he says that losing jewish life is an acceptable loss to maintain the state of Israel, because the state is the lifeblood of the jewish nation… he bought into nationalism and used it halachikally to defend the loss of jewish life.

No, rabbi shechter, the source and lifeblood of jewish life is the Torah, and it will keep us no matter what.

Also, the rambam deals with your question about how beis din used to (and still could) use force to make a man divorce when he is obligated to (emphasis on when he is obligated to….a woman saying she’s not happy is not an obligation) he says that since a jew wants to do the ratzon Hashem deep down, you’re really doing what he wants! This rambam is often called “the chasidishe rambam”, but it’s the way this halacha works.

Coffee addict; Rav Belsky explained the following: on yom kippur we bring two se’irim. They look identical, one goes to azazel as a symbol of the aveiros of klal yisroel, it dies a violent death to show the results of sin, and the other is brought in the kodesh hakedoshim.

When yaakov and eisav brought their gifts to yitzchok, chazal say it was yom kippur. They brought two se’irim; when yaakov came in, the re’ach of gan eden filled the room. When eisav came in, the pischa shel gehinnom opened underneath him.

Yom kippur and the yomin noraim are times to discern truth from falsehood, to be mavchin and indeed to judge what we are doing. If that drives a wedge between people who are not Torah Jews and those of us who strive to be, then so be it. I can think of no better time to engage in the self improvement one achieves by casting off all foreign junk and tumah that defines MO.

Not too long after the debate team episode, the following happened. I was davening at a MO shul most shabbosim, and things started bothering me. Why was the rabbi more concerned with people applauding his speech on shabbos (something many poskim allow, as it’s not musical…together with tosfos… it’s not a big kulah to be maikil), than with the crowded mixed mingling and hand shaking etc by his constituents during a “kidush” that was anything but kadosh? I had learned that if one merely looks at a woman for pleasure he is not cleansed by gehinnom…at this point i asked him, and i said I didn’t want to come to kiddush anymore.

He said he’s happy that I’m learning, but i should be wary of being extreme. I’m going through a phase. He’s a rabbi.

The clincher was during a shalosh seudos… this was when a bill had been proposed to legalize toeva marriage in NY (it was sadly passed in 2011…this happened several years prior). The rabbi said that chazal talk a lot more about honesty in business than they do this issue. Apparently preaching to the choir (MO people are very into business honesty) overrides the Torah’s most basic and fundamental obligation to fight evil and despise that which Hashem despises.

I got up in protest, I said “no, i will not hear minimizing capital offenses and abominations of Hashem”
bentched outside, and never returned to that sin-agogue.