heres where im confused. why the conservative apologetics?! i mean for goodness sake! look at how they started. i dont care how l’shem shamayim it was (or at least according to the guy who started it) its WRONG. since its inception it has been wrong. especially now that its become more of a political statement than a religious identity (much in the same way that reform has). “i dont think of X as moral…i dont think hashem would have wanted that so lets change it” really. but…hashem just said not to…whatever…
all of you who are defending conservative judaism in this thread are pulling wild yotzim min haklal out of a borsalino and saying “oh please go easy on conserative…they have one or two tzaddikim in s’dom” shkoyach. i know a conservative girl who just married a goy. her parents pray in a conservative temple and she married a goy. why? not because of some rebellious nature thing…but because her parents didnt give a blasted darn about who she dated or fooled around with as long as she didnt do the deed until she married (which is a sham anyway). so is it any surprise that she married a goy? the parents are gonna pay for the wedding because “whatever makes their daughter happy.” you know whos crying and reissing kriya? the grandparents who are orthodox.
the conservative movement started on the premise that “oy siz shver tzu zein a yid so lets make it easier.” STOP! i dont care what you think you know about halacha and hashkafah or anything torah related. just look at how it started. ITS FLAWED!!! es laasos lahashem hefiru torasecha obviously isnt true because orthodox judaism is doing WAY better than conservative judaism. fine. so you have a guy who started an “oy siz shver tzu zein a yid” chassidus. shkoyach. fine. fast forward a hundred years and look at conservative now! they have a rabbinate! and yeshivos! and HASHKAFAH!!! BASED ON WHAT?! ON OY SIZ SHVER TZU ZEIN A YID?! AND PEOPLE HERE ARE DEFENDING IT?!
i dont care how shomer torah umitzvos you say you are. i sont care how much tzedaka you give. i dont care how many times you toivel in the mikveh or are megalgel b’sheleg or whatever you think you should do to make yourself frummer…if you identify as a conservative jew you are identifying with a movement which says every single second of the day since its inception “the torah is too hard for me therefore i dont follow it” and im sorry but there is no “only” for a mumar l’teavon.
“but theyre good people” so are muslims…why dont you become one.
as far as im concerned there is no dan lekaf zechus where conservative is concerned. the only possible thing to be said about this generation of conservative jews is “tinok shenishba” but once someone is made aware that their form of judaism is flawed and why…i have problems accepting any excuses.