Nobody, you are NOT a nobody. You made a few really good points. we happen to live in very judgmental times right now. Half the population is (whether they will admit it or not) always judging the other. It is a two-way street, many Chareidim tend to think that those who do not follow their complete derech are OFF the derech – that they alone hold the keys to Olam Haba. The non-frum among us tend to likewise judge those who choose a very machmir lifestyle, as being old-fashioend or out of touch with the needs of modern times. Both sides err. There is a shvil hazahav, where people can follow the Torah, but live in today’s world. We can learn to live and let live and always try to be mekareiv instead of marchik other Jews. With the kind of divisiveness and exclusionary lifestyle that is rampant today, it is a bigger challenege than it ever was. There is a mindset that needs to change on both sides.
I see women all the time who have a great deal of difficulty with going to the Mikveh, much less covering their hair. Since none of us has ever been privy to HaShem’s intent about hair covering in maried women i.e. precisely WHY it is required and HOW it is required to be accomplished, but we merely SURMISE what those reasons may be, it would be a really good thing if people would be happy to see the mitzvah being fulfilled in ANY manner. Again, to take it away from this hot-button issue, if someone has never been kosher and is starting to keep kosher, would you criticize him for eating something that is clearly kosher, though perhaps not from the hechsher that YOU might use yourself? If you have diabetes and eating pastries can kill you, should the bakeshops be required to leave their most beautiful cakes and pies out of sight or design them less attractively, lest you walk by and cannot control yourself? The answer is – learn to control yourself. All of Torah is about learning self-control. Whether it is Kashrus, not stealing, not behaving illicitly, keeping Shabbos, even the halacha of not hating someone in our hearts for having wronged us, all of the laws teach us something about controlling our yetzer hara. We cannot simply do whatever we want. Nike is wrong – we should not “just do it.”
Women do need to be modest in their behavior, dress, demeanor, but some would argue what exactly constitutes “modest” behavior. Would anyone argue that Devora Hanevia was immodest for leading the Jewish army against Siserah? If a frum woman or ANY Jewish woman were to do that today, all the rabbonim would come out in protest. Yet, somehow, it was not looked upon as a bad thing in Sefer Shoftim. In fact, Yael, the real heroine of that story, who actually did some things that would be looked askance by frum standards (Yichud with Siserah, flirting with him in order to get his guard down, getting him drunk in order to kill him), did so in order to save Am Yisrael, as did Esther Hamalkah after her, and Yehudis during the time of the maccabees. None of these women were traditional in their behavior, but none of them would be thought of as untzniusdig.
Sorry to get on a soap box today – I apparently have way too much time on my hands this morning, and these are issues that really get my attention.