Home › Forums › Decaffeinated Coffee › Modern Orthodoxy › Reply To: Modern Orthodoxy
OURTorah:
I appreciate the sincerity and thoughts expressed in your posts. But I disagree with both its premise and conclusion.
None of us knows whom are anyone’s friends, whom are their family members, in which shul do they daven, which day schools/Yeshivos they attended, etc.
None of us also knows who is “accepting and loving” and (if any) who is not. I haven’t seen anything in this thread about hating MO people, CH”V.
To illustrate this point:
The Satmar Rav, a known great anti-Zionist, is reputed to have cried when he heard of an Israeli soldier that died. Why would an Anti-Zionist cry over the death of a Zionist soldier? Because that soldier happened to be a Jew.
VERY importantly, however, this did not change even one iota his definition of right and wrong. Zionism was still the same tumah, heresy, idolatry, shmad, et al. as it was before. But he still mourned that Jew.
Unless someone explicitly states it, I don’t think you have a right to accuse anyone that they “aren’t accepting and loving”.
Just to further clarify the point, and not to make a direct comparison:
If you knew of a Reform or Conservative (or perhaps something less offensive) community that was successful, happy, learned lots of Torah and thought they were the greatest Jews alive, how would you respond if they posted here “so we all agree that we have a legitimate derech, too, right?”
Unfortunately, the answer to that question is, of course, “Absolutely not; you do not have a valid derech.” That doesn’t mean we love MO any less than we do Traditional Orthodox Jews. But we dare not accept as a valid Torah derech, anything that is, lihavdil, heresy or idolatry, or even general laxity, as stated by our gedolim.
In addition, this point remains even if this hypothetical Reform or Conservative group were the greatest philanthropists in the world and learned Torah 24/7. Because, very simply, a valid Torah derech cannot have in it anything that is against the Torah.