BS”D
I think it is time to close this thread.
First of all, I apologize for even getting involved as I see that what happened is that Gitty hijacked her mother’s thread and turned it into a thread about HER rather than what it was meant to be which was a thread about HER MOTHER.
Second of all, it is becoming an excuse to present all kinds of krum viewpoints.
Standards were more lax in the old days because it was barely socially acceptable to be frum and that was the best schools and shuls could do to keep people in the fold. In those days there was still some of the “miss work Saturday and look for another job on Monday” and even if you had your own business, it was hard to bring it to the level of a B&H because banks weren’t too anxious to extend credit to a shop that would not open Saturday. You could barely wear a yarmulke on the street without getting a rock in your face – and a Jew could just as soon be the one throwing that rock, especially if you were a “refugee”.
You know that, yet you do not want to acknowledge it in your nostalgia for the old days which were just that – old, not good.
This reminds me of the old excuse that between WW1 and WW2 standards were much lower – yes, of course they were because Europe was in a horrible depression and anti-Semitism was rife. Many could not even afford cheese, let alone worry about cholov yisroel, and hemlines were short because fabric was expensive and in short supply.
I and most of my baal tshuva friends would have found little in the old frum lifestyle just as I see little real yiddishkeit and no emmes among the less observant, along for the ride, crowd that is found in every community and tends to look more numerous than it really is.
What is more, at least in my world, they are the ones who really have nothing except huge bills every month from overly high mortgages and lease payments that they fund with scams that, while illegal, are neither big enough nor creative enough to make the big time chilul Hashem headlines.
Now, things are different and we have the ability to keep halacha as it should be kept. And that is what we are doing. If someone is uncomfortable, then there are still communities and shuls that are close to the old standard. But the shallowness there is amazing, as is the lack of a real feeling of community and the real frum values that are the rule in the more strict communities.
Gitty WAS shown another way of being frum; she did not accept it either. Now, she is here looking for validation and acceptance – to have her cake and eat it too.
Teenager is not looking for an easy way out; she has found herself but is being encouraged to get lost again by Gitty and other posters here. Stay the course, Teenager – yesh sachar lepeulatech – and don’t let the ones who aren’t as strong as you are, frum or frei, take you down with them. And don’t feel you have to save the world – if you want to help people with emotional issues then please get proper training so that you don’t end up doing more harm to yourself compared to any help you can provide to someone else. Whatever you do, don’t listen to losers explain away their own loserkeit by saying others are at fault.
Anyway my day off is over; I am going back to my no posts rule as I did not accomplish a thing except getting fooled by a confused young lady who is far less sure of herself and far less mature than she makes herself to be, and helping to throw a thread off track.
I should have responded at the very beginning in the spirit of “hake es shinav”, because some people need to be broken down so that they can rebuild again.