Since I am machbid on Cholov Yisroel in Israel, and most of the shaloch manos I got are either cholov stam, or other things I don’t like, like certain types of nosh and spring drinks, I put all the stuff I don’t want in an eco-friendly bag, and next time I go to town, I plan on giving it to the first homeless person I see. Its quite a bit of stuff, ranging from a box of cereal to candy bracelets and even some gummy worms and drinks. I figure when they are done eating the food, the eco-friendly bag will be of use to them as well.

I come from a very large Jewish community. I grew up in the metropolitan area of a big city and the majority of the Jews in the suburb I grew up in were unaffiliated. There are like three yeshivish families there because two of them run shuls and the other one is stuck in that suburb because it is very difficult with mortgages and stuff.

The rest of the frum community is completely modern orthodox, and I daven at the modern orthodox shul because that is where my friends all are. The minhag hamakom is not to cover your legs, however, I do because as I have become very close to the yeshivish part of the nearby city, and aspire to lead a yeshivish lifestyle, and covering my legs is part of integrating into the yeshivish community, along with taking on a ton of other nuances as well that the suburb I grew up in does not necessarily take on.

But maybe there were learning differences that turned into mental health issues. I know for me, I had a number of developmental issues as a kid, and I, Baruch Hashem, got soooo close to normal, that all anyone could do for me was medicate me in order to neutralize the rest of my issues, hence the reasons that I am on ADHD, Depression meds… etc. If I did not have to overcome developmental difficulties, I would not be on my medications because I would not have been able to verbally explain how I am feeling and my symptoms.

I think that Centrist Orthodox Judaism is fine, provided that tznius is kept at all times, at the bare minimum, knees, collarbone, elbows and married woman completely covering her hair.

As a student in a modern orthodox school, I feel that there is no push for hashkaffic growth here, and that bothers me quite a bit. I know that other modern orthodox seminaries do push for hashkafic growth, like mmy, and kiruvy type places like machon maayan, but I feel that anything is only legit if it is a path that encourages hashkafic growth.

shuli, those are all very good questions. As a baal teshuva, I often wonder about the same things. I try to keep a few things in mind when I think about the size of our mechitza verses the size of the mens mechitza. I will just list them to make it easier.

1. Mechitza size: One thing I have noticed in yeshivish circles is that unless it is parshas zachor, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Simchas Torah, there is no real push for a woman to go to shul. Therefore, if most women do not come to shul on a weekly basis and the men have to come every day, multiple times a day, to daven at shul, it makes sense for them to have a bigger section of the mechitza. Just think about it like money. The shul pays the bills to run the electricity, ner tamid, someone donated a bunch of things like the bimah and stuff, and if the men use it more often, then it makes sense to give them a larger section, especially when there are more men.

2. Women reading megillah: I just finished hearing women laining the entire megillah in Jerusalem. Its not really so common in Yeshivish, or lubavitch circles, but the modern orthoox crowd does it in order for there to be equality in a halachically permissible way. It is completely muttar for a woman to lain megilla, however, it is assur for her to lain in front of men because of Kol Isha.

3. As a baal teshuva who had to lain for her bat mitzvah five aliyot of lech lecha, the haftorah, and the brachos before and after, I would like you to know that it took me A YEAR to prepare for that occasion, I spent half an hour a day practicing in my room with the door shut. Thousands of dollars spent on tutoring (even though I already knew the trope because I learned them when I was nine years old). The biggest relief for me as a religious woman is that I have no obligation to lain, or have any other honors during davening. I knew the aliyot I lained for my bat mitzvah perfectly, but even then, I literally cried hysterically while laining most of it and didn’t stop crying until I started reading the haftorah. I can guarentee you that you don’t want to do that- I am happy and eager to leave that task to the men.

I hope this helps, if you have any other questions, don’t be shy to ask.

OneOfMany- I am saying that you appear to have been really happy with your mainstream bais yaakov school. The bais yaakov school I went to in 12th grade was not mainstream, but it pushed me to grow hashkafically so quickly, that at one point- I tried rebelling, and at another- I was convinced that I would not cover my legs when school ended (i only fell into that temptation when taking out the garbage a few times, but I was wearing a long skirt…

I should probably just give you a comparison between my public school and the bais yaakov so that you get a clear understanding.

On a typical day in public school, I woke up at 5:30 am to be able to say brachos and with tons of excitement, do nagel vasser, al netilas yadiyim, and say brachos, then I would eat breakfast, and leave the house by 7 am so that I could get to school on time and be able to park my car as close to the school as possible so that I could leave as quickly as possible during lunch to go home for open lunch. I would enter the school, we had block schedule, a days and b days, on A days, thanks to the large, secular Jewish population in my town, I had hebrew first for block one, it was an hour and a half and started at 7:40 am. This class did not teach anything religious at all because of church and state. I still keep in touch with that teacher and my mom hired him to be my ulpan teacher. After that, I had the next block free- an hour and a half of free time. I would spend half an hour doing home work- maybe 45 minutes, and study a bit, then I would see some teachers in order to clarify course material, and then the rest of the time, I would just walk around the school hallways with music on my ipod. Then, I would have lunch (and go home), then I had physics. Then, I had English. Throughout my time in that school, I read the most inappropriate books in history. I read the odyssey, romeo and juliet, and other dirty books. We had to read 200 pages or more a semester of free choice. JEWISH was considered a genre. It didn’t matter if it was Rabbi Shach’s biography, or a novel by Chaim Potok. They were still considered, in my teacher’s eyes, a Jewish book. We had to read from different genres each time we picked a book, so I started reading my sister’s keeper and only read enough to do school projects on it and called it a day. I would come home, and work on righting whatever essay, research paper, or what ever I needed to write. I had no friends to hang out with, and NCSY was my entire social life. I was not even allowed to spend shabbos away from home outside of my home town, luckily, there are two yeshivish rabbis in my town, and one of them got semicha from ohr somayach, but still, politics aside, my life was extremely boring.

Bais Yaakov:

After never wearing a uniform for my entire life, after never covering my legs when it is 80 degrees outside, after being bullied for being amish, after having to ride in cars on road trips on shabbos, after not having a social life outside of ncsy. Two weeks before school started, I decided to sign up for this CHAVAYAH- but I didn’t know that word existed at the time.

Its 6:30 am, my alarm clock beeps, I roll out of bed, exhausted due to lack of sleep. I wash my face, stare at my brown glasses, put them on, I sit on the ledge of the bathtub because i am so exhausted that I can’t even stand- yet. I finally stand, just wishing I could go back to sleep. I mean, I have permission to sleep in if I am to tired to drive, but I know my mother won’t let. I can’t even swallow the protein bar in front of me, and I regurgitate what I did swallow. I then- still half asleep, get into my car and start driving. I literally am BLASTING non-Jewish music on the radio in order to keep alert for the whole ride. I turn my music off once I enter the frum community, at which point, I am basically awake. And proceed to start my school day. “Button your Button” “Where am I supposed to turn in my cell phone” Over there. Enter Davening room. Long drasha by principal- must be awake to get on good side, there is to much at stake for me to even try falling asleep. Girl next to me rubs my shoulder, and I prop my head up, then I nod off a few minutes later. Eventually we start davening shacharis. I can barely sense my kavannah. I am pretty sure I only said one paragraph. Davening ends, I am exempt from physics, so I get free period, I do homework/ sleep. “Why don’t you just use an empty classroom to study?” “Aren’t they locked? I have never used empty classrooms to study…” Find empty classroom… feeling isolated and bored. I work on scholarship essays. I have no internet access, but that is the only thing that drives me nuts. “If you use the internet, your laptop will be taken away- forever”. Finally, a bunch of classes, I can’t register a thing that is going on, except for the fact that I have a lot of teachers that are interested in being there for me. I also have a lot of culture shock because I constantly hear about all the strict interpretations of halachos, and i have to drop out of the halacha classes in order to avoid complete culture shock. Not to mention, my social studies teacher was my mom’s social studies teacher! Then, English as the last class, and I go home. My brain completely fried. Luckily, I have a million free periods, and nobody seems to believe that I can actually learn any of this stuff on my own- so I don’t actually have to do my homework…

then perhaps i should have spent my 12th grade year at the mainstream bais yaakov in my community instead?

1. Tights are also skin tight

2. Socks are skin tight

3. Obviously, I am wearing a skirt over the leggings…

they are married to rabbis.