When I see something like “that would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad,” I assume the author is more interested in being condescending than in actual persuasion. I apologize if I’ve misjudged you.

Like you, I made a midlife decision to go Ortho. Unlike you (I glanced at your blog), I don’t think this automatically makes me a “baal teshuvah.”

You write, “The question is pretty simple: if your purpose for being here isn’t to serve Hashem, what the heck are you doing here? If your purpose for being here is to serve Hashem, why wouldn’t you want to use the power of a bracha to help you on your mission?”

There are people who “give thanks on a nearly minute by minute basis” and treat other people like garbage. There are people who are kind to others–if that sounds to goyish, we can say instead that they do chesed–who don’t do a lot of berachot. Who are you to say that the latter don’t serve God?

And who in the world are you to say to anyone “What the heck are you doing here?” just because they don’t serve God in the way you approve of? How does a person attain such chutzpah? Do you think you’re entitled to it because you’re frum? Yasher koach.

We MUST remember to give thanks on a nearly minute by minute basis and the brachas are an enormous aid for that. No one living in this world at this time has the ability to constantly feel grateful to Hashem without having praise on their lips at all times.

The question is pretty simple: if your purpose for being here isn’t to serve Hashem, what the heck are you doing here? If your purpose for being here is to serve Hashem, why wouldn’t you want to use the power of a bracha to help you on your mission?

Seems pretty simple to me.

By the way, I’ve launched a blog of my own: btofmosheisland.blogspot.com

It’s not as nice as this site and I’m not nearly as educated. Starting at 40, I’m trying to become the Rabbi Akiva of our times.

In order to appreciate the gestalt (i.e., the forest) of the world of halakha, which is actually intended to foster closeness to God, because halakha is how we approach God, one must first be mindful of the individual halakhot (i.e., the trees). It’s not an either/or, it’s conjunctive.

I asked my rabbi once about the halakhot of putting on, and tying one’ shoes. I have trouble with minutiae like that (not to mention, I’m usually half asleep when I put on shoes). His response was that being conscious about the order of one’s shoes helps focus one’s mind on the totality of the halakha. That every aspect of our life is service to God and that we don’t compartmentalize. As an individual act, reciting a brakha, or putting on your right shoe first, but tying the left shoe first (which I never get right) is not about the individual act of spirituality, but to focus you on devotion to God.

But you have to know the halakha in order to get there.

Harry