There's strange and there's crazy.

There's strange and there's crazy.

Strange is something you do that's uncomfortable for me or maybe even uncomfortable for you - uncomfortable but not life destroying. Wearing a streimel and thick coat in the Mideastern summer is strange, but it's not crazy. And it's strange with a rationale, which is that if you change dress you change attitudes and that's a dangerous thing to do in an era of bad attitudes. Also strange is how Charedi men walk around looking like penguins while the women wear all sorts of beautiful and colorful clothing. Dipping one's bread in the communal chumas is strange. Dipping, biting, and dipping again is unhealthy - kind of an in-between to crazy and strange.

So what's crazy? Crazy is this:

Telling young people to have 10 kids - all to be sent to private school - without a way of earning a living.

Telling people to base their lives on Torah study but to neglect to teach them the Hebrew language that this Torah is written in.

Telling everyone to live in Israel even if they have no way of earning a living, even if they don't speak Hebrew (because you failed to teach it to them in their 12 years in school), even if their beloved grandmother lives in Cleveland, even if they can't deal with Israeli culture.

Telling people that they are required to have a single rav that they obey in all matters of life when few rabbis have the time for more than a quick question every 4 months and even fewer have common sense, compassion, or a breath of understanding about life.

Having baalei teshuvah marry strangers after four dates.

Pressuring baalei teshuvah to be in full-time learning or to be Charedi.

Having 8 year old boys learning Gemara five hours a day.

Nearly everything about dating, such as it being a game of fear and paranoia. Having dating be completely about the man proving his religious worthiness as defined by dubious measuring rods such as does he learn with a chavrusa every night; the women contributing nothing on dates and expecting that somehow magically they'll develop feelings for a person from whom they are only taking. FFB dating being about what yeshivas one's brother learns in. 

Insulting the mitzvos and basing all of Jewish life around Torah study by which they mean Gemara lomdus and at the same time telling young men that they should spend every minute studying it when in reality most will have to go out and work to pay for their children's yeshivas.

Mixed sex classes in Modern Orthodox day schools.

Telling men to never look at women, not even their finger, then sitting the yeshiva bochur across from the wife or daughter at the dinner table. 

The way candidates for gerim are mistreated by many Charedi baatei dinim.

Teaching that sholom bayis is all on the man or that women are superior to men and then expecting marriages to magically be good ones. 

As said, unhealthy is a kind of in-between to strange and crazy. Examples: the way Sephardim are treated in Litivsh yeshivas, pre-nuptial agreements for the masses (and not just the super-rich), unhealthy food, lack of exercise.

Strange you often have to live with. Same with unhealthy. But crazy? Run from that. Unfortunately, it's everywhere in the Orthodox world. So how do you run from it and stay frum?