This post is a long time in the coming and I think it is necessary for clarification purposes, given that there are, I am told, a lot of people who I both know and do not know that currently read my blog. Over the last few months, as a direct result of things I have posted here I have come under fire from many places. I have been called things such as a self hating Jew, an anti-Semite, a hypocrite and various other things due to some of my posts so let me be clear about why I continue to blog in the style and on the issues that I do. The most important thing in all of our lives is our great religion, it is all encompassing and our lives revolve around our avodas hashem. When how we perform our avodas hashem and how we live our lives is being threatened we must stand up and defend it my any and all means necessary.

As I have stated on many occasions in the past, Modern Orthodoxy is being threatened from both within and without and we must not remain silent. People are infiltrating our communities and are trying to change how we live our lives and our hadrachos hachaim, there are teachers in our kids schools and camps who feel that instead of trying to be role models and teach our kids it is their job to be “mekarev” the Modern Orthodox. There are speakers that come into our communities and our homes that have nothing but distain for us and tell us as much yet they have no problem taking our money and worse we have no problem giving it to them and honoring them in the process. There are yeshivos in our communities that, instead of trying to be role models in the community and contribute to the community feel that it is their job to point our short comings and “change us”. They tell us that our eruv is no good, but “they” can fix it, they tell the guys learning in their yeshiva that in general the kashrus in the community is not good but “I” can check it out and let you know where you can and cannot eat. They tell the guys in their Yeshiva that the community does not know what “true b’nei torah” are so it is your job to show them. Instead of working together with us and trying to improve us and our avodas hashem these people are trying to change us and make us into something that we are not because they feel that only their way is the right way.

Let me be clear, I hold not personal grudge against any single person and even when I write about an individual it is not personal, you are my brother and I love you, but your hashkafos are wrong for us and your positions are detrimental to the future of our religion. From a man like Rabbi Sherman deciding arbitrarily who is and who is not Jewish; mark my word, it begins with deciding which geirus is valid and which is not but it is a slippery slope that will end up on our door steps with a group of people deciding who is and is not Jewish by how they dress and how they interpret halachah. If you are with us good but if not we will no longer count you or your children as being Jewish. On the other side it is people like Rabbi Avi Weiss and Yitz Greenberg who are so out of the mainstream that soon their brand of Orthodoxy will not be recognizable.

We are at war, and it is a civil war. Like the American Revolutionary War, it is being fought among us in our homes and our children are learning about it with their own eyes. Why is it necessary? Let me live my life, halachicaly, and you live yours the same way. Just like I won’t come into your house and tell you what, in my opinion (which at the end of they day is all that it is) you are doing wrong, you stay out of my house. I interpret things my way and you do your way and that is what makes Orthodoxy flourish as it does because it is open to many different interpretations WITHIN THE 4 AMOS OF HALACHA. The minute you tell me that my hashkafos are wrong and therefore everything I believe in must be discounted because they do not fit into your box, you throw everything that is great about our religion out of the window. The Sanhedrin was made up of 70 men and each one brought something unique to the table, they did not operate like robots, but some of today’s leaders would have you believe that our children must be placed in a mold and everyone must conform do the same thing. Who told you this? Where does this come from?

Last week we began period of the 3 weeks where we mourn our loss of a national identity; the beis hamikdash was a place where all Jews from all walks of life were brought together and it was destroyed because of senseless bickering and fighting. You would think that over 2000 years we would have learned our lesson yet here we still are fighting and arguing over nonsense, the color and texture of the yarmulkah or hat, our clothes our education, at the end of the day is that what really defines us as a religion? If it does we are in worse shape than I thought. Have we really fallen so far that one group can have the audacity to decide that they are the only ones who represent “true Torah Judaism?” What makes your learning any better than mine? What makes the beis Medrash in Lakewood any different than the beis Medrash in YU? Torah is something that is supposed to unite us yet today it is being used as a tool to divide us by some on the extreme ends of our religion.

Stand up and fight for what you believe in, scream it from the rooftops (or keyboards) that what we have, all of us, as long as it fits the framework and is within the confines of Halachah is genuine. We all worship the same G-d and follow the same laws yet these semantics are being used to drive us apart. I blog because I fear for our future and will not stand by silently while Rome burns. How dare you use violence against a fellow Jew? How dare you lift a hand or a rock against your brother? If you feel he is doing the wrong thing show him why he should be doing the right thing. Show those who are not yet frum why they should be frum, show them what Orthodoxy has to offer. Instead of throwing rocks at them and protesting them why not have a huge tish in the middle of kikar shabbos with zemiros and divrei torah (and chullent) and show our fellow brethren what is beautiful about Orthodoxy. Don’t come into my house, tell me my children are not B’nei Torah then hold yourself up as a communal leader, come to our yeshivos and our shuls let us share our hashkafos and hadrachos with you and you share yours with us, but if it is only going to go one way we are doomed.

So as we go through the three weeks, 9 days Tisha B’Av and then begin Elul, let us come together and focus on that which unites our religion. Enough of trying to claim the flag for yourself because at the end of the day you are going to be left standing alone holding the flag. Don’t try to be “mekarev” me and my children because we are already frum and don’t need to be told how to live, but come to us and tell us how you can enhance our avodas hashem and how we can enhance yours. It should not be us v. them it should be us united living a common dream.