“Even the classic “proofs” for Orthodox Judaism a la Rabbis Kelemen, Gottlieb, and Mechanic are passe. As an article in the Jewish Action a few months ago put it” “Proofs for the Torah?! That is so 90’s!””
I don’t know that they were even a good idea in the 90’s. I think they’re more stuck in the 60’s and 70’s when there were socially liberal, hippie baalei teshuva. That’s over. If they want to have any success today, I need to go after the weird kid with no friends who gets made fun of for wearing a MAGA hat in public. B’zman hazeh, those are the only people who are going to give up a secular life for an extremely rigid religion.
It would be more accurate to say that people aren’t giving up hedonistic lifestyles no matter how much you try to reason with them. I googled this alleged recent Jewish Action article but could not find it on their website. If it does exist I’m confident it was not written in the same context as presented here The argument of “proofs of Torah don’t work” is not stuck in the 60s and 70s . That mindset is about as old as Judaism itself. Ever since then in free societies like the US people claimed that Orthodox Judaism has no answers so as truth seekers who did their own independent research they can not avoid coming to the conclusion that whatever was believed by the intelligentsia in the time and place they happened to have been was the ultimate truth. It made no difference what that belief actually was and what nonsense it is considered today. In not free societies they joined activist political and social movements who falsely promised the world will be a utopia when they take over