Better Than Worse

In reaction to comments I made about my upbringing, this writer expresses how he feels that if only I had been exposed to Modern Orthodox (MO) thinking, I would not have ended up as I did. Sorry, Dr. Woolf, but I think you're a bit mistaken. In the comments to that post, I explained how being exposed to MO would probably not have had much effect due to the thorough cleansing my brain had been through and how I would never had accepted anything from MO as legitimate. However, the reasons that that poster is mistaken really run much deeper than those cursory observations. Actually, too deep for me to go into now, what with more pressing responsibilities calling for my immediate attention.

What I can say now is this: Despite the fact that I'm not convinced that Modern Orthodoxy would have made me a more serious and commited Jew, it probably would have at least had the effect of not making me as ambivalent about frumkeit and torah as my yeshivish education did to me. Those years spent in the rigid and demanding yeshiva system probably had a worse effect on my feelings about Torah and yiddishkeit than any "apikorsus" I could have been exposed to in the writings of MO thinkers. Thank you, me dear family, rabbeim and roshei yeshiva, for protecting my holy neshama from those harmful and damaging influences. I can't imagine where I'd be today without you.