Reply To: Frustrated at being in the middle of nowhere USA.

I was raised with Classical Reform; i.e. we used a prayer book (Union Prayer Book) which refers to the rabbi as “Minister,” we had organ music, choirs, English hymns (some of them very beautiful, taken from the Protestant tradition, which are not theologically problematic for Jews), kashrut was anathema, the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, the Brunswick Synod, and the catechism of Isaac Mayer Wise, the systematic theology of Kaufmann Kohler, and the catechisis and theological works of scholars like Joseph Krauskopf, Joseph Mendes deSola, Solomon Sonnenschein, Felix Adler, and others comprised our theology. Interfaith theology and spirituality, as well as religious humanism, were also part of this approach. As a child, I pitied and looked askance at Orthodox Jews. I thought they were backwards, ignorant, tribal, corrupt, and cruel, heartless people who reject children and turn away converts. I felt that they could have used our enlightened approach and our dignified worship. I eventually began to see this as at odds with what I read in the Torah, and had to leave. Orthodoxy is imperfect and is a reaction against Reform, but Orthodoxy is the only movement that is home to a committed cadre of observant Jews. I’d say to think independently and critically while living halakhically.