Reply To: Going off the Derech

yitzyshalom-I understand what you’re saying, however the Torah tells us not to follow the ways of the goyim, to put fences around our mitzvos, and to listen to the Rabbonim. What Rav would give a heter to go to a bar? Or watch filth? Or to steal?? I’m sorry to say, that a goyishe version of judaism, or an Americanized version may be the only ‘palatable’ judaism for some people, but it is a modified/distorted version of the original. Perhaps it’s better than nothing at all, but I wouldn’t raise my children to think this is judaism. People who put themselves at risk hanging out in bars, yet calling themselves religious, are setting themselves up for failure! After a few drinks, who knows what could happen? They are mingling with goyim, and people who give in to immorality and indecency. A Torah Jew doesn’t belong in a place like that, regardless of whether they’re haredi or not. You have to ask yourself, what’s the reason for the Torah in the first place? Isn’t it to set aside a nation of people who will be different from the rest, a people who will live a life of morality and decency, ethics, and honesty etc amidst a world filled with just the opposite? We are not supposed be like the rest of the world, so why should we blend right in? Yet it sounds like you believe we should ‘do what the Romans do’ bc it’s fun, and our kids want fun too. I agree with some of your points, about perhaps the haredim focusing on certain external things as THE measure of observance, when a person who doesn’t want to conform, could be just as machmeer in their mitzvos, and as close to Hashem. But in my opinion, in general, it is the haredi way that is the closest to getting it right…