Spiritual struggle

I don't believe that I've ever been impressed enough by a lecture by a Rabbi
to actually write about it. Last night we heard a lecture by Rabbi Natan Lopez
Cardozo from Jerusalem on "Jews by choice, and the future of Judaism."
He is an excellent speaker.
We thought this was going to be about converts (there is a rumor that Rabbi
Cardozo himself is a convert, but in fact he comes from an old Sephardic
family in Holland, his ancestor in the 17th century was a famous Rabbi there),
but that was not the case. His topic was more fundamental than that.
He drew a comparison between Abraham aveinu, who adopted the rigors of a
"Jewish life", choosing an ethical path of spiritual struggle, and the
situation after Moses rabeinu, when the Halacha had been handed down at
Sinai, supposedly sent by God to guide Jews/mankind into the righteous path.
So there were hundreds of years between Abraham and the forefathers
who were "Jews by choice," and the post-Halachic period when all Jews had a
guide on how to be "good." To simplify and summarize, he argued that Halacha
has become "frozen" and that most Jews are going through the motions without
the struggle for spiritual commitment. He suggested that this is why we are
losing many young people to Eastern religions where they look for spiritual
fulfillment, which they don't think they can find or have not found in
Judaism.
I agree with Rabbi Cardozo that Halacha has become "ossified" and that was
one of the reasons why I rejected Judaism and became secular in the first
place.
But, I remember that our daughter told us when she reached maturity that she
had missed a spiritual element in her secular upbringing and that is why she
became Orthodox (ba'alat tshuva). But, at least she found it in Judaism.
I myself choose not to seek a spiritual path, but some look to the Dalai Lhama
and Buddhism for this element. Some Rabbis have visited the Dalai Lhama and
have pronounced him a tzaddik (a righteous man) and he himself is on record as
saying that if a Jew comes to him seeking spiritual guidance he sends them
back to their Rabbis, because they can help him more. Also, the Dalai Lhama
has said that Buddhists must study Judaism to see how Jews have managed to
maintain their religion in exile for thousands of years. Still Rabbi Cardozo
thinks that a new kind of Yeshiva is needed to teach the spiritual struggle in
live Judaism rather than just the frozen rules.