Having read her excerpts last month, watched her video and read up on Gitty in KJ I may be mushing up my facts so forgive me. I also think I am going to be tangenting a bit but I tend to do that.
I thought about some of the ‘legitamate’ complaints that those women have and their camments about them. And I understand fief saying that OTD people say those things all the time, but what struck me was that if I ever decided to leave, ch’v, because I got sick of the rules or of having such personal things regimented, I don’t think I would have the same thing to say about those rules. I notice that their attitude toward many of these halachos or chumros or even minhagim were without feeling for them or understanding of the spiritual significance and benefit. Yes I have to hold in my zmiros when we have guests, but it isn’t becuase I “cant even sing in front of them lest they enjoy it”, the fact is I have a lousy voice, but the Torah considers it beautiful and worth guarding because it is a female voice. I can sing before my husband because we are one being.
And when we walk around in the summer heat I don’t “have to keep my arms covered no matter how hot it is” I retain my level of tznius because women’s bodies are sacred, even in the summer.
You may not agree with those opinions, but my point is that I have laerned to see the beauty and benefit of this way of life, and I have, like Yehuda Tzvi, chosen a Torah life, not a community, so my friends vary in hashkafa. I was raised MO (maybe, not really sure what that means) and now I’m not. But that was my choice and I feel very strong about it. And I sense none of that from those two writers. I don’t get a sense of any attachment of worth to Hashems Torah either, not just the community. I too wish they would have just chosen a less restrictive life within Torah, but perhaps that missing piece is key to what we need to keep our kids ON.