How to be a Flaming BT:
The most important thing to remember when trying to accomplish this nearly insurmountable task unless you happen to be a Flaming BT is, to never listen to any other opinion but your Rabbis. Even if you are doing something wrong and you know it, do not concede, instead tell everyone that you are being machmir, since the whole point of Flaming BT’s is to be as machmir as possible because you are either new to the game and want to do all you can to make up for all those years spent screwing shiksas and eating cheeseburgers, or you are trying to get into one of those programs that pay you to come to Israel and learn.
You will also need to learn how to daven in a certain way, you can always spot a Flaming BT from a mile away by watching how they bow during shmona esray or borochu. During the semi bows of shmona esray, they either do deeply extended slow motion bows, or they will do a really fast one to keep up with their violent shuckel pace. At boruchu they always seem like they are trying to touch their toes or something- due to their extra extended bow. Your shuckel during shmona esray should also be one of two shucks. Either you should do a sway side to side with your arms reaching out to the heavens in a way that is saying “why me God” or you can do the violent shuckel. The violent shuckel is one that you can spot from a mile away because that is the distance you want to keep. Arms and torsos are flying in every direction and the speed at which the person is swaying usually back and forth can be measured in RPM’s. You mst understand that I did not mention those who stand still and daven for hours- because they simply cannot be Flaming BT’s yet, they are just getting brainwashed by whichever group they live near or recruited them.
You must deny that you ever did anything wrong in your past secular life. You must at all costs try and convince people that you have always been frum, or at least on the derech, and whenever one of your old buddies tries to bring up “that time we got on the girls gone wild video in Cancun” you must say these words: “I have no idea what you are talking about”, in fact you will say those words thousands of times during your Flaming BT tenure, until you make the transfer to regular old frum guy.
Whatever sex you belong to, you must drop all your old friends of the opposite sex and remember to purge your social networking profiles of these friends, if you are real Flaming and are into the whole “I am better then you, because I am religious” stage, then you can embarrass them as well. They do offer courses in various Kiruv programs on how to deal with family and friends when you make the switch- but real Flamers just do it the old fashioned way- through hurtful comments.
That brings me to the real test of your Flaming status, all flamers at one point or another become BT-Condescenders, which means that besides being always right, they are always better then you especially since they gave up their lifestyle to become frum, while you grew up with it and don’t care as much as they do. This in turn gives a Flamer the right to bash you for your lack of devotion to something that should be so easy. This is kind of like having a backseat driver in the form of a Flaming BT who just yells at you whenever something isn’t up to par with their ideals. I tend to stay away from these BT’s though I do know quite a few of them.
Whichever group was Mekarev you is the best and all other Kiruv organizations have something wrong with them. It’s funny, because you would think that someone who hadn’t grown up in the frum community would be immune to all the nasty politics that goes on, but no, they are even worse. Flaming BT’s will hate with a passion whomever their Rabbi or Rebetzin tells them to.
Backround Information:
The Flaming BT stage is just another stage in the long process of becoming a Baal Teshuva. In fact it is usually in the early stages that this happens. Sometimes almost immediately, usually there is the mekarev time, when the person is finally fulfilling their dream to actually become religious usually after thinking about it for a long time. Then they go to the ignorant stage, where they think they know everything, but know nothing at all and begin their doubts, then its time to be a Flaming BT or Wacky BT depending on who you talk to. After that they can slowly make their transition into regular old frum.
You can usually tell a BT has become frum by not being able to tel they are a BT. Which usually means they start to talk in shull, can hold their own in multiple rounds of Jewish Geography and can pronounce the regular words without that whole secular dialect. Words like Temple, references to bagels and Jewish guilt disappear, and they no longer knock old men over so they can kiss the torah before its put away.