No to get too personal here, but I was that kid. I had the issues, and I had the questions. And then I got angry. I fought with my rebbeim. I asked questions, and people got angry at me for it. So I began to read. And read. I read the Koran, the New Testament, Kant, Plato, Aristotle; Spinoza & Descartes- I read Moreh Nevuchim and Shaar HaYichud, the Kuzari and…started calling R’ Avigdor Miller. And reading his books. His clarity – the fact that somebody cared to think about all this – made a tremendous impression on me.
I used to wander, late late at night, thinking, thinking , thinking…
After thinking, writing – and finally, finding one understanding Rebbe, I found a base that made everything else worth fighting through. I left high school with a base, a basis, that stays with me today.
Minyan Gal – offering me Judaism lite wouldn’t have worked, nor has it worked for a dying american conservative & reform Jewish population in the swamp of intermarriage and disinterest, where a check to the UJA apparently has not been able to fill the need for meaning, which in a two generations won’t even exist. And it never stops with Judaism lite, it means throwing out all the basic principles of Judaism; a Judaism not worth fighting for. At least when you have nothing you can’t fool yourself that you have something. That what the Israelis do; if there be Judaism in their lives, they want it to be Orthodox. And that’s why the Baal Teshuvah movement there has broken three hundred thousand.
What I wanted wasn’t something lite; that was more garbage. I wanted something real.