I seem to be stuck in this current mode but I feel I must take note of Agudah specifically. In the course of a conversation on the Avodah/Areivim list, a poster made a comment that a prominent speaker would not speak at both an OU convention and an Agudah convention. Another knowledgeable and quite socially aware poster wrote the following line:
I am curious as to the identity of the prominent speaker who would even be asked to speak at both conventions.
This is quite a telling statement. It assumes the chasm to be so wide... that the OU and the Agudah are so far apart in Torah Hashkafa that a prominent speaker at one venue would hardly be invited to... or be willing to speak at... the other venue. And the OU is closer in Hashkafa to the Agudah than YU is, so the chances of a YU Rosh Yeshiva speaking at Agudah are about as good as the chances of having JTS chancellor Ismar Schorsh speaking there.
I'm sorry but this is sick. And it is Agudah's fault. I do not believe for a minute that the OU wouldn't invite a prominent Agudah speaker to speak at one of its events. It is the Agudah that I believe to be incapable of listening to a viewpoint even slightly different than their own.
There is no chance for Achdus, unless the Agudah "camp" opens their gates to hear other viewpoints... other Hashkafos and respect them, EVEN IF... they don't agree with them. That they are entitled to invite, or not invite, anyone they choose is no excuse. It causes bitterness and resentment from Agudah constituents toward anyone outside that camp, no matter how Frum... or how Ehrlich... no matter how big a Talmid Chacham. It promotes exclusionism, divisiveness, and bitterness and shows a fear of losing control over the hearts and minds of their own constituents.
Oh... they play a nice song. They pay a lot of lip service to Achdus in their literature and sometimes in their speeches. But they are only interested in one kind of Achdus... the kind that excludes anyone who doesn't think in lockstep with them. Their idea of Achdus is to come join Agudah, the umbrella organization for all of Orthodox Jewry... and don t question our pronouncements. Listen to the Gedolim
(meaning their Moetzes) to the exclusion of anyone else. And it is only their Gedolim who are deemed such.
I have often heard their representatives say something to the effect of: “Oh... we concede that there are other Gedolim and other Hashkafos.” But this is disingenuous and deceptive. It is as if they are saying we don't really think you have any Gedolim but we'll humor you. And that expression is the near verbatim standard answer when anyone suggests to an official there that another Gadol doesn’t agree with the Moetzes. They grant no real credibility to anyone outside Agudah as a Gadol (as in: ...SURE... you have Gedolim... wink, wink). This shows near contempt for any other Hashkafa. One gets the impression from such statements the sentiment that they feel it is damaging to one's Judaism if one is ever exposed to it.
Is it any wonder that RYBS was so antagonistic to them? Who can blame him? I will never forget the line I heard from him in a recording of a Shiur he gave (I believe it was in the 70s) to a group of YU alumni in a near angry tone: Es Gait Mich Nit Ohn Vos Tutzach in Agudah.
I wish we could all afford to have this attitude but we cannot. Agudah is holding all the cards now, or at least most of them. That camp is the one providing the purality of educators for many of our children. We can't ignore them. We need to change their attitudes about other viewpoints and have more of an Elu v'Elu approach because if we don’t our children will become like them and adopt the same attitudes.
The current animosity to any Orthodoxy outside their own is so strong that many Agudah constituents equate it to Conservative and Reform or worse, as has been shown by some of comments on my recent posts.
This cannot be allowed to continue. There must be an attempt to reconcile the two camps at least enough so that they respect each other, even if the don’t agree with each other.
