WOW – I’m grateful that I could put a smile on your face, and you made me laugh too. If I was in NY I don’t know if I would’ve extended the invitation.
I am so sad to hear how much damage these people are doing to your emunah but I hang on your words because I am going through something so similar right now. There is a divorce going on and many people who I loved so much and looked up to ( rabbonim and baalei tzedaka both) are willing to destroy two children in the name of rumors/motzei shem rah (money?). People who I thought for sure would be concerned only with truth are willing to condemn these kids based on what they assume is fact based on what they heard from involved parties.
You can support a friend without condemning his enemy and that is what I would have expected from them all. I would have expected them to stay unbiased. I am so disappointed and shattered to see how dishonest and petty some of these people actually are and how far they will go (one person wrote an “objective” letter to the court describing negative behavior he witnessed the father do. No mention that this man PAYS HIS RENT to the mother’s parents) My faith has been shattered, I no longer know who to trust and I can’t believe that this is what our religion has spun into. But as I told you, this isn’t religion, this is the yetzer hora trying to suck me in. Maybe if we grab on to each other we can still find that gravelly path Hashem laid for us.