Joseph: And if it is heresy? Therefore what?
apushatayid: Yes, there are some people who choose not to do mitzvos and others who simply don’t know how to do them well, or don’t know that they should be doing them in the first place, etc. But again: what is the nafka minah? We should be supporting and encouraging people who want to take things on, not rejecting and demeaning them because they aren’t all the way there yet.
Subtitle please: A) Not all Conservative and Reform folks deny the existence of God or the divinity of the Torah, and B) Even for those that do, it is still better for them to keep some mitzvos than none. Even if they are doing them for the wrong reasons, like if they don’t believe that they are specifically commanded by God to do them, that doesn’t negate the fact that they are doing them. Where does hatred come in? Seriously, look around you. Try searching “reform” in the Coffee Room search box and see what you get. There is zero compassion, there is zero understanding, just hateful criticism and gleeful superiority.
Abba_S: I’m surprised that you have never heard of anyone leaving Orthodoxy for Reform or Conservative Judaism. They are all over the place. Organizations like Footsteps are full of people who still feel an attachment to Torah and to Judaism, they just need a new environment to practice. You seem to have a lot of misconceptions…not all OTD are rebellious and angry. And OTD is NOT a contagious disease, that their siblings will go OTD also if the OTD child is not removed from the house. And OTD is not “a goy”. I personally would be delighted to welcome an OTD child into my house, but I would be very saddened that he really had nowhere else to go.
The Goq: 100%
zahavasdad: If not constrained by university policies, what would you ideally do in the situations you mention? McDonalds and the Zen Buddhism table. I’d really like to know.
Sparkly: I don’t think you understand what MO is. I live in an MO community and 90-95% of the married women cover their hair, 100% of the men wear a yarmulke while not at work and 98% at work.