Home › Forums › Decaffeinated Coffee › Rav Lichtenstein's Centrist Orthodoxy, by GAW › Reply To: Rav Lichtenstein's Centrist Orthodoxy, by GAW
PBA: First and foremost, thank you. I will address the points.
Point 1: Yiddishkeit is the center of our lives and everything is viewed in the eyes of being a Yid and serving the Ribbono shel Olam: I would hope everyone agrees to that.
Point 2: Chochma BaGoyim Taamin: I don’t know anyone who does not use the successes to the non-Jews (such as medicine, science, etc.) to their benefit.
Point 2a: Being attuned to culture: I don’t know what is meant by “attuned”, but this would be an obvious difference between Charaidim and “Centrist”.
Point 3: Being part of the “broader human range”: I’m not sure what this means, but “feeling a kinship and existential bond with even those segments of jewish society who do not share our traditional faith and values” sounds to me like the Kiruv movement.
Point 4: More influence from women: See Reb. Tarshish, David and even Rebbetzin Kanievsky ZTL.
Point 5: The study of tanakh, parshanut, and mahshavah in yeshiva. The MO schools that I am aware of don’t do any of these. Perhaps they do in EY. I would give this a neither.
Point 6: A keener understanding of history: This is really more of a “Zionist” item. Rabbi Rosenbloom recently lamented (on CC) that the Charaidim have no “plan” on how they would like the country to be run, while the Tzionim have put out seforim on top of seforim.
So I see one point of difference between Charaidim and “centrists”, with a possible additional point for Tzionim.