I think Chaim Grossferstant made a very true and important point. In OS, the Judiasm i was presented was very dogmatic, black-and-white, and holeproof. It wasn’t neccesarily holeproof, but some information was withheld by give OS’s BTs are solid hashkafic foundation. I am not critizing this approach. One doesn’t need learn every aspect of judiasm (which takes several lifetimes) before he can change his lifestyle. However, there is no denying that this approach will create a BT who will stumble when confronted with advanced academic counterproofs to judiasm.

YU on the other hand espouses a very intricate intellectually sound view of Judiasm which definetly lacks the appeal of the haredi one. Its a much more difficult and intellectually advanced view that while being inaccessible/unappealling to many BTs (and non BTs), if properly understood is gold.

I think ideal kiruv should start the BT off with the OS vision and graduate him to MO/YU.

Thank God this in many ways is done. YU for example has a Mechinah program for NCSY graduates that in many ways models itself after a 1 year post-HS israel yeshiva program. Efforts are made to provide strong cohessiveness and ruach to the program, and it is in a healthy degree quarentined off from the rest of YU (it has its own dorm floor, own breakfast, own shabbas schedule, own morning classes, and own trips)

BTs are expected to stay in this program til their skills/level increases and then they graduate to the more advanced YU morning programs

The modern have a point the chassidim have a good point the litvaks have a good point and to tell you the truth so do the secular jews. What is my point. I offer you a whole new perspective to judiasm a wholistic approach no i’m not jews for jesus or a muslim my approach is very simple. If we all just did our jobs the way we are suppose to it will all click into place. The charedi are too busy trying to keep themselves pure they forgot about embracing teaching and helping every other jew. The secular jews are so worried about not fitting into goyish culture they forgot about being a jew and the modren orthodox they think they have it figured out perfectly. The perfect solution to the problem.A little bit of this and a little bit of that and we’ve figured it out. It sounds great but its flawed you can’t fit judiasm into your life into your schedual. You can’t pick “the best of” and think it will work just right.

You CAN incorperate judiasm into who YOU are as a person whether it be a musician, businessman, lawyer, chossid, teacher, or kollel learner. You can uplift everything you are and everything that is part of your life and make it holier just by connecting it to hashem and his torah. You can’t modernize the torah but as a modern jew you can utilize your talents and thoughts through torah and create an ultimate you.The point of judiasm is not that it should not put any strain on us and create a feeling of it being “such a drag”

The point is to create us into the ultimate being. How does one acheive this, through hard work. How does one become the best doctor or lawyer or anything great, by working hard. How does one accomplish being a true and graet jew, by working hard. And by doing this you create a feeling of great accomplishment. Judiasm is so amazing it can bring out our positives to the utmost degree.We are too busy trying to prove our “points” that we haven’t had the chance to truly see what are points are fighting for That we are jews, we are one nation that has something no other nation has- the blueprints of G-d. If we would stop proving who we are and just living it instead- together- surly then moshiach would come. The true Modern event of our time.

The sad and frustrating reality is that as MO, (under whatever name or title you prefer to define it), keeps its welcome mat open to the “norms” of today’s society and values, and integrates them (an unavoidable consequence)the need for non-MO Orthodox groups to clearly distance themselves from such activity becomes all that more important. I, too, agree with you that it is a sad state of affairs.

Way back in Aaron’s blog (#13), he doesn’t stop to consider that the gentleman he met at the kiddush, may be there for doing kiruv to the members of the shul. Kiruv to teens in MO communities, even in large centers of MO has become a subject of discussion of late in some kiruv circles , who see the LWMO particularly as a dangerous and misleading realm; the last stop for many off-the-derech teens before they leave the fold for good.

But eveyrone has different paths. For some people the orthodox way is the way to go. I don’t feel like that category was the right way for me to define myself so I picked modern orthodoxy although I feel that it’s just a label and it doesn’t really define me either.

I want truth and I want to do what’s right. And labels are just labels, to serve the purpose of forming a community but I don’t think people should chain themselves to a label.

I really don’t feel that people should classify themselves as anything except Jewish because such a label gets in the pursuit of truth but for things like finding a shul to attend, labels do serve a purpose. And I would be more comfortable at a Mod Orthodox shul like Yakar in Tsfat than a Herraidi shul.

I respect all different Jews as individuals. I think you can come to G-d with an orhtodox approach and a Mod-orthodox approach. I think the desire to find truth has to be there.

People shouldn’t just assume that because a woman wears pants and doesn’t get married until she is 28, that she is not observant. She just thinks differently than you do and from the knowledge that she has been given, she believes more of what the people who call themselves ‘Modern Orthodox’ believe and she is not trying to fit Judaism into the modern world or adapt Judaism to her life. She follows a lot of Mod-Orthodox sholars and orthodox Rabbi’s like the founder of Yakar, because she believes that it is true.

Modern Orthodoxy shouldn’t be looked down upon. But neither should Orthodoxy be looked down upon by modern orthodoxy. People should respect that there may not be one right way or interpretation of halacha when it comes to modern issues such as wearing pants, going to a secular university, the sheitel, etc.

Also, the first kiruv person operating in an area gets no territorial rights and has no claim against “competitors”.

To all: Shanna Tovah Tikasavu

Outreach people, especially the charismatic ones, can be too caught up with their own approach and too possessive. Remember that interactions with them are in the nature of an experiment more than a commitment to their approach until you’re sure which way to go.

This toughness that you had to develop is not something negative. It’s possible to be tough about these matters in a healthy way without becoming cynical.

You’ll get to know who your true friends are.

I have found that in order to get what I need for my own growth and Yiddishkeit, I have had to be tougher that I would have liked to be and have had to develop a sharper awareness of when somone is trying to manipulate me.

This is in the realm of the hypothetical/maybe-logical/not-quite-factual. DK’s personal recollections and web surfing impressions are not nearly enough factual support for his broad assertion.

You asked,

“Doesn’t YU also have some staff with views that come quite close if not duplicate a chareidi worldview?”

Like O.S.? No, Gershon. Not that I know of, not that I ever saw. They wouldn’t usually work in a place like YU, and YU usually would not hire them.

And YU’s marketing materials, while stressing the positive and not the negative, are never the less hardly misleading about their worldview.

Most secular Jews do not see Israeli charedi insitutions before their kid gets there.

And Gershon, if this were only about my own experience, this would not be a big problem. While I do not claim to be devoid of personal gripes against these places, I am hardly alone, as a cursory, if educated, glance around the web will demonstrate. FWIW, some of these places have policies I see as detrimental, sometimes crippling, on a socio-economic level, and they should be examined, as they affect more people than many realize. One of the remarkable thing about the web was that so many of us (of varying current religious levels) were dissatisfied with charedi kiruv found we have many of the same issues.

I think you are incorrect in your attempt to claim this doesn’t occur in some charedi insitutions in a way that doesn’t occur at MO insitutions, and I would ask you to at least investigate a little more before insisting that my complaints are restricted to my own personal experience.

Granted, there are plenty who have a different take, but there may be reasons for that. I would not say all charedi kiruv is bad for everyone. I would say there tends to be greater and more frequent problems with younger recruits who have not finished or begun college from less than affluent backgrounds, particularly in instiutions in Israel.

There is something all-embracing and sweet about a secular Jews or novice BTs assessment upon looking at a group comprising a Chardal, Chabadnik and Ponovezer that “I can’t tell the difference”. Lamdonim OTOH have been trained to micro-analyze everything. The greater the capacity to discern the slimmest chilukim (differences) and being able to extrapolate how these superficially insignificant characteristics are, in fact, mechalek (differentiate) the greater the Lamdan and the more respect he accrues. Under a microscope tiny differences look gigantic.

I think we need to cultivate the capacity for being Brisker Lamdonim when studying the sugya of “Oiraysa” but Baa’lei Batim with Groba Kep (uncultivated, indiscriminate minds) when studying the sugyos of “Yisrael” (and maybe even Kudsha Breech Hu!)