BS”D
My front row seat is here, in the FSU, where I am part of a community that should not even exist after 70 years of Communism and 20 odd years of balagan, punctuated by the Nazi churban.
For me, moving to EY where it is so much easier to keep the Torah and Mitzvos than where I am is about the difference between the front row seats at HASC and the first row of the mezzanine.
As for the chilonim, and that is what they are – don’t kid yourself – what they are doing is the same as going into your kitchen and tarfing up your dishes with bosor vecholov while they are claiming to cook for a woman who just gave birth.
I know that the Arab bakeries do very well on Pesach and Yom Kippur. I also know that the pintele Yid and the yiras Shamayim that we inherited from Sinai causes people to realize that they should not tell a survey taker that they ate at a famous bakery in Jaffa (may it burn to a crisp and be replaced with a yeshiva) on Yom Kippur. In fact now a small crocheted yarmulka is part of the rapper style and does not even mean its wearer is in any way shomer torah umitzvos.
One small optional mitzvah is nothing against aveiros that are desecrating that which belongs to ALL of us and is NOT the property of the medine or its misleaders.