Wow, this conversation sure got people riled up quickly. It’s interesting that simple titles (MO, OTD, Yeshivish, Chassidish, etc) can carry so much individual meaning – which may mean something else to each person. It’s certainly helpful to have a universal taxonomy of religious viewpoints in Judaism. Unfortunately, this classification, while necessary for basic conversation and relationships, is limiting. As is obvious from this discussion, many people can’t agree on definitions for each phylum. I think that each distinction has a spectrum of shades and differences. People cannot fall directly into one category; rather, they fall somewhere on the span of it. If anyone were interested in this enough, they could create a system which would place everyone into their individual compartment along the scale, much like a personality test. However, I think that would be unintelligent and an utter waste of time. We don’t need to be boxed into a category – even smaller classes with more titles would constrict us. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. We’re each different and individualized. We’re all trying to climb up the ladder in kedusha and dveykus and ruchnius, but it seems to me that if we give ourselves an ambiguous categorization we may feel that climbing up is so much harder. We don’t need the labels to serve Hashem properly.
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