<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/24/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer</b> <<a href="mailto:ygbechhofer@gmail.com">ygbechhofer@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div dir="ltr" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0pt; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0cm">Not anymore... Although we do discuss these extinct derachim and their utility as supplements to the major derachim. Where have you recently met active Yeskkishe and Sephardic communities of Avodah that are distinct from the "Forks" divisions?
</p></div></blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>Sfardim in EY, at least from my experience, are very different in this regard. Just read their mussar (my source is Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's weekly parsha sheet, compiled by someone else from his weekly radio show). Their mussar seems to echo much more closely the mussar of the Rishonim, such as Rabbeinu Yonah and the Ran in Drashos. It does not have depth of experience of the chassidim nor the depth of introspection of the Mussarniks, but is much more to the point, and thus more harsh. Rabbi Prof Haym Soloveitchik (in Rupture and Reconstruction) claims that Sfardi mussar has much more of the fire and brimstone stuff. While RME doesn't have that, it is much more direct than what we're accustomed to.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Granted, I think that many of them could gain a lot from exposure to other derachim, but they do have a different derech in mussar, and it's important to realize this.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Also, what I have seen is in EY, where isolate sfardi communities still somewhat exist, unlike in the melting pot USA. It is likely that RYGB's talmidim, even if sfardi or yekish, will be practicing the American Judaism descended from chassidus/litvish as described in RYGB's essay, and only really maintaining "token" minhagim symbolizing their sfardi ancestry.
</div></div>