Home › Forums › Decaffeinated Coffee › Respecting each other › Reply To: Respecting each other
PBA: I think you’re making an incorrect assumption (well, your assumption might be correct but I don’t know that every community agrees with it). You assume that Hocheach Tochiach means publicly, on a communal level, taking a stand on any widespread violation of Halachah and not allowing it. And you might be right. However, the Derech that the “MO” communities hold on this issue is not that way. They assume that, for whatever reasons (and there are a few that might be legit) we cannot apply Hocheiach Tochiach to that extent. So yes, “MO” communities as a whole would not ostracize someone who doesn’t keep Shabbos or who eats pork. They might realize that there are other, inherent, obligatory separations from these people (e.g. you can’t trust their Kashrus). But these communities wouldn’t reject such a person on principle. They would reject, as DaMoshe says, the thief or the molester because he hurts others. Where does that Chiluk come from? Probably nowhere. But social norms develop all the time. Just like a Chareidi community would reject someone who doesn’t wear the uniform, even if there is no source for such a thing in Halachah.