Answer

Hello David.
Thank you for your comments. I agree only partially. The question is whether the sting lies in the Enlightenment or in the outlook that accompanied it. But I also agree with your conclusion. I do not let fears and consequentialist considerations dictate the truth and my way of life. There is no point in preserving the worship of God at the price of worshipping the wrong god (Maimonides’ elephant parable).
By the way, are you sure that Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s children converted to Christianity? I hadn’t heard that.
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Questioner:

“The question is whether the sting lies in the Enlightenment or in the outlook that accompanied it.”

 
The question is whether we have seen communities that succeeded in shaping a harmonious rather than schizophrenic worldview that integrated general education with Judaism..

I assume you would agree that the condition of the Religious Zionist public in this respect does not inspire great hope..
 

“By the way, are you sure that Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s children converted to Christianity? I hadn’t heard that.”

Not sure — but I seem to remember reading that in Judaica. If you have it at home, I’d be glad if you’d check — I’ll write in the comments there confirmation of what I remember..

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Rabbi:

In my opinion דווקא, a harmonious outlook has developed here, which was not the case with Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. There is of course some attrition, but the question is what the broader picture will look like. Moreover, don’t forget that all the secularism around us is a result of Haredi outlooks (with respect to fields of knowledge and education). So in the long-term view, I’m not sure Haredi society can be considered all that survivable.

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Questioner:

From what I have come to observe [during my stay among Religious Zionists for most of my life], those among them for whom Torah is the main thing in life are less exposed to general education,
and among the others the dropout rate is enormous.

There are of course those who at an earlier stage of life were immersed in the tent of Torah study, and at a later stage went out into the world —
at that stage there is less dropping out — usually they got married and had children before going out, and since then they are mainly concerned with making a living and have no free time for self-searching —
but even among them [I know many כאלה who studied with me in yeshivot] one can see a marked cooling-off toward Judaism, and their children will either follow a life path similar to theirs, that is — rejecting their parents’ path in their teenage years and returning to it later — or they will leave it [in one direction or another] without returning.
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Rabbi:

In places where they build a harmonious ideological outlook from the outset, there is not such a high dropout rate. In Gush, Ma’ale Adumim, and Siach, for example, I think the situation is quite reasonable. As for bringing the harmonious outlook to completion, that’s roughly what I am trying to do (along with others, of course)