I wrote a long statement and decided to just write a short(er) piece on the issue with R’ Shmuly and his ilk.
Open Orthodoxy is the Conservative Movement of old – plain and simple. Just with a new spin (though it’s not the first to have such a spin in the history of Judaism). Instead of allowing practices for many traditionally minded Jews that wanted to fit into American society (like being able to drive on Shabbos, family purity, marriage laws, details of kashrus etc.) and still not feel guilty about their Judaism, it is bending hashkafa to allow for many observant and traditional Jews again on the border of Orthodoxy that want to fit into America’s very pervasive and narrow-minded secular culture. Just like with the Conservative movement, “out of town communities” are the first to face the issue head on as the general populace is less educated than areas with high density populations of observant Jews as a whole. In short, the modern American Jew does have that hard of time to eat kosher, go to a shiur, or even to walk to a shul…but he or she does have a problem believing in a morality system that all the media and many of their acquaintances so strongly disagree with.
This is serious. Even in a sense more so than the Conservative movement that while tragic, did not affect the Orthodox movements and remained distinct. Open Orthodoxy is not distinct. They want their conversions recognized, their wisdom lauded, and they want to be accepted by the Orthodox. They already have their supporters in the ranks of modern leaning Orthodox like even the RCA (it was to my knowledge a hotly contested matter if YCT grads should be accepted at least until recently) and forced the Rabbinate in Israel to change course in their acceptance of conversion policy by using political force. This is not just am aratzim saying dumb things (R’ Shmuly is not someone I know personally but from what I hear he is a very nice person who just does not know better, same with the previous OO Rabbi in Phoenix who I did meet that just was clueless to the lines of Orthodoxy vs. non Torah thinking). The leadership do know what’s what, though they play the ignorance card. At least the early talmedei chachim in Conservative movement were doing it for the position and money! This is worse. This is a religious matter. They feel altruistically that Orthodoxy must be drastically changed. This should be an alarming matter for anyone that is believing Torah Jew.