I already know this post is going to disliked by some of you, but I hope that some of you will be open minded enough to read through it and understand that this is not against the entire Baal teshuva community, it is just against those of them that pollute the frum community with outside ideals. I’ve been thinking about this idea that BT’s are not all that great for the frum community because they expose us to secular ideals from their former lives. Even though many Baal Teshuvas go through a denial stage (when they deny their former lives and insist that they grew up frum) many of them bring things into their communities that wouldn’t have been introduced had it not been for this BT infestation. I was reading Pop Chossid today and he had a post about his obviously BT views on Gay Marriage and I almost blew a gasket.
If not for Baal Teshuvas you probably would never have the opportunity to meet a frum liberal, you would probably also never have met a frum toievah supporter, yet the BT infestation of our communities have forced these supposedly Torah observant people into our midst. Not only are their supposedly frum, gay marriage supporting Jews out there, you can now have the pleasure of meeting real live frum from birth liberals. I know that many of you genuine Baalei Teshuva’s are shaking your head, but I swear to you that the ills of the secular community have become our own ills as those who’ve become frum over the last 20 years settle in our communities. They bring their pop culture, goyishe music, goyishe levush, and liberal ideals with them from their pre-aish/chabad years and it slowly seeps into our culture.
Did the OU get up during the women’s revolution and take a stand? I think not, yet suddenly they have decided to take a stand on Gay Rights, merely taking a stand acknowledges that those who wish to get rights granted for their abominations was a hava minah in the minds of some folks who call themselves orthodox. This issue could have been a non-issue, yet the secular influence, made easier by the influx of BT’s is slowly degrading the moral value system of the frum community.
Have you noticed that the Off The Derech community just so happens to be exploding as the kiruv industry is undergoing a massive boom? Have you noticed that those going OTD are probably a direct result from secular influence of the BT community, because there’s no other way those frummies could have been exposed any other way.
Before you jump down my throat for being an insensitive FFB part of the master race of litvishe/ungarish yichus, just look at the yeshivish music industry and their need to copy internet sensations, the raised level of divorce, the increase in the sexual abuse of girls (it used to be only boys) and the increased need to have vegetables at kiddush. I’m pretty sure that the gedolim couldn’t pull off a BT Asifa without losing half their funding and so they blamed our ills on the internet.
When I was growing up there was no such thing as a frum anti-Torah liberal, yet Pop Chossid has proved to us that the Baal Teshuvas are for worse for us than the internet could ever hope to be.
Find more BT stuff on 4torah.com
I know. Sometimes I feel like we shouldn’t even accept BT’s. And certainly we should nullify their BT if they don’t become chareidi.
If kiruv rabbis weren’t so douchey it’d be way worse, we’d have double the amount of BT’s and we could kiss our authentic shetl Judaism goodbye.
Did you mean “shtetl” or “sheytel”?
you will never know
oh no you di-in’t
…and boom goes the dynamite. Get the popcorn out, it’s gonna be a fun show.
Jon – Love the reply and reference. You are correct.
Last November, my FFB little niece, living in a chareidi ghetto somewhere in Israel, announced to her kindergarten class that she loves King Obama. My sister in law was horrified, but my side of the family was delighted.
” their pre-aish/chabad years ” – too funny! I truly hope there is some sense of sarcasm in this post!
Thankfully this site is called Frum SATIRE.net!!
The world is in a troubled place, and I am sorry that anyone cannot or does not yet recognize the significant positive impact is made when a Jew commits to building a Jewish family, decides to take on Torah study, become Shomer Shabbos and keep kosher.
Heshy! It’s incredible of how much information people are unaware. I have learned about an extraordinary explanation of this OU gay rights concern of yours. We supported their rights, so that they wouldn’t join the club of supporters of eliminating our rights. In California, Brit Milah was almost made illegal! This deal ended those legal concerns.
I hope no one jumps down your throat about your perspective. Again, hopefully it’s satirical. I’m just saying that you seem to miss the reality that OTD FFB’s have less of a fighting chance than committed BTs with OTD concerns. Why? You tell me.
It was only in San Francisco and they should have made it illegal so that all the really frum people would move out and let the BT gay lovers rot in the fog.
OTD BT’s are not exactly OTD for they were never on the derech in the first place, let’s just call BT’s who go OTD a good thing. OTD FFB’s want nothing to do with the community, but BT’s will still come to shabbos meals and inculcate us with their secular ideals and pollute the youth.
Man, I’ve heard so so very many of these points raised as reasons for why some FFBs don’t date BTs or why some schools dump all the children of BTs in one class (if they even take them) or, worst of all in my book, why BTs should ditch their families when they become frum.
Will whomever kidnapped Heshy please return him to this site? Between this post and the previous one…hoo boy. Is it a belated April Fool’s Day joke? Oops, another secular ideal!
I love when it’s only close minded if it’s against liberals. Open minded = negative comments towards BTs. Close minded = not liking cock, negative views against negroes, etc.
My problem with BTs is the other way around. They polute us with chasidishe minhagim like upsherin. Suddenly people start looking at good old fashioned misnagdim like their a two headed apikorus when they cut their boys hair at a year.
As it should be.
(joke)
and so taken
Really… My problem with FFBs is their lack of basic grammar skills. Please note the following are homophones, meaning they sound the same but hold different meaning.
They’re
Their
There
But at least their lack of grammar won’t get them into gehenom, if that’s the BT contribution to frumkeit, you can go back to your treife and sex.
Hey, if our biggest problem is pushing upsherins on Litvaks I say we have already secured our spot in olam habo. Fellow dysfunctional cohorts in found-religiousity, I believe it is finally time to bring back the bacon!
This vegetable thing is what really gets to me. In my shul there is a firm rule about no haeitz or hadama besides potato kugel and chulent. And none of those gay kugels either
Would you be willing to describe a “gay kugel” so that we will be able to avoid them in the future?
Zucchini and spinach are gay, broccoli and sweet potato are bi
My one comment is that many of the young people that are having issues nowadays are in fact the children of Ba’alei Teshuva [ for the record, I myself am a child of Ba’alei Teshuva]. While Mr. Fried may or may not be serious in what he writes (and it is difficult to tell) it is very challenging for Ba’alei Teshuva to raise children. Some go to one extreme and become extremely Frum, and almost pretend that they were always Frum. Some romanticize about their previous life as non-religious Jews. Both of these are (understandable) mistakes. Denying the truth makes the parents seem dishonest while romanticizing their former lives makes their children think, “Well, then, how come I can’t [fill in the blank (talk to girls, wear a bikini, etc)].
!?
I’ve never seen BT parents romanticize their secular pasts in front of their kids. It would be weird and inappropriate.
However kids of BTs don’t have the big extended families that the other kids do. Instead they have these secular uncles who live with their girlfriends. Dunno how much that affects their frumkeit. I will tell you in 10 years.
“Romanticize” may have been the wrong word but I have seen many Ba’alei Teshuva talk a lot about their past with almost a homesickness, “Oh, remember going to that Beatles concert”, or “oh, remember going to that movie – oh what a great movie that was”. If their children are being raised without movies then the parents should not make it seem like going to movies is so much fun.
It fits in with the idea that most BTs will fall into one of two categories.
1. Orthoprax – They tend to have adopted OJ on the their own, adopting an observant lifestyle while keeping their liberal ideology and maintaining that their previous lifestyle was also legitimate.
2. Ortho-uberdox – They usually come in via an organized kiruv organization and have adopted the philosophy of their new system in its entirety, perhaps even naively, and completely block everything else.
Gack. I fit into category #1 living in a community of #2s. Explains my problems.
You are not getting it, the point is that without the BT infestation, many frum folks wouldn’t be exposed to secular ideals, like healthy eating, gay rights, punk rock, and the color red.
Accept those that go to secular universities.
Another FFB example of English as a Second Language! You mean “except” not “accept.”
I love how the children of BTs seem to think their parents’ issues all related to the fact they were raised nonobservant. I also love when people talk in the third person when they should be using the first.
The vegetables on the Shabbos Tish are the giveaway. Vegetables = feh!! A nice lockshen keegel or, even better, kartoffel keegel = from!!!! Azoi darf es zein!!!
What a sad little scared world you live in. You cannot love your fellow jew, because he does not choose to hide from his own shadow as you do.
Fuck the Jews, my shadow isn’t big enough to hide in.
I’m amused that this is actually you being complimentary towards BTs for once and people don’t get it…
nice job!
For cripes sake people. This blog is SATIRE!
Jokes on you. No it isn’t.
Have you never been here before?
Actually I’ve been fielding emails all day from people who “agree” with me.
I’m sure they make for a good ol’ laugh.
lol
Unsubscribe
Because you don’t/can’t understand irony, satire, sarcasm, jokes, humor, truth?
Maybe you’re right… maybe I don’t/can’t understand it. Maybe you’re a great writer whose level of writing is above my level of reading comprehension.
Am I being snarky there? Or am I being truthful?
I wrote Unsubscribe… but now I’m replying. Was my Unsubscribe remark satirical?
As someone who doesn’t know you personally and stumbled across your blog, it’s very difficult to tell if what you’re posting is satire or an honest point of view. Maybe you consider that the pinnacle of writing. For a nameless internet reader like myself, it’s confusing and not very compelling reading.
On satire sites it’s always best to assume that it’s satire, treat it like the onion. The fact that it got people up in arms means that it’s very good writing.
I am well aware that this website is satire. My comment was made not so much in response to your article but rather because it was on my mind and I felt that it was important enough to share.
When you loosen bandages, bugs get in and things get infected. If you then tighten the bandages (and silence those suffering) you get unnoticed rotting and gangrene. Et voila, the new chareidi community heading for amputation
Brilliant
B’H/BS’D
Then there are those BTs who realize that the much of the Koolaid we have been drinking is about adhering to social mores, rather than observing the Torah.
I’m a BT who has been looking longingly at the OTD. Orthodoxy is a joke, its just like every other religion just crazier because its the source of the madness. I know tons of BT and converts who are also waking up from the brainwashing and desire to fit and don’t like what we see around us.
This is ridiculous. Chillul Hashem
This is so heartbreaking I want to cry. We leave behind our entire lives, sometimes even our families, to keep mitzvot and serve Hashem but there are FFB’s like you who consider us an infestation?
Perhaps consider asking your LOR next time before thinking or posting something like this; you should be sure to discuss Joseph’s sons, and how they’re a model specifically because they didn’t cower from the outside world (much less from their brethren lost in it).
Also, please read R. A. Feuer’s “A letter for the Ages” at your very earliest convenience.