Have you ever seen one of those awful movies about a sweet sensitive guy who is a sharp dresser, has a beautiful girl for a best friend, is a fantastic interior decorator/gourmet chef/hair stylist, has a massive poster of Patrick Swayze in his bedroom, and everyone knows he’s gay except him?
Well, that’s me and Modern Orthodoxy.
Since I’ve been blogging (or commenting really) people have been asking me where I stand on the Orthodox spectrum and it’s really been making me think about where I see myself. I’ve never liked labels, and to me the word “modern” (having first heard it used in an exclusively in negative sense in a UO environment) always had a bad ring to it.
To me it sounded like an apology or an excuse. I’ll do what I like and still call myself frum because I’m “Modern Orthodox.” So for these many years, although I’ve gone to college, I’ve married a totally MO guy, I have a TV which I’ll admit to watching, I read everything and anything, and have my own little blog, I’ve never really been able to embrace my Modern Orthodoxy. I’ve always considered myself a Rebellious UO.
“I’m still yeshivish,” I say as I look in the mirror “look at my sleeves, see how they cover my elbows..basically… and my hair it’s covered, um….mostly… I’m just cooler, you know different, smarter…” Ugh.
OK, so I’m not yeshivish, at all. Now that I’ve come to terms with being MO I'm feeling less and less like a hypocrite and I'm almost at peace with it. The friends who I share this new revelation with just crack up. “What did you THINK you were?!” they ask me. Frankly I’m too embarrassed to answer.