Why Teens Go Off the Derech
1. The Trained Monkey Syndrome:
On a construction site, there is an engineer, and a team of construction workers. The construction workers do all the hard labor, actually constructing the building. The engineer, however, does not participate in the manual labor. He is the one who directs it. And it is he who gets paid the higher wage. This is because he knows a lot more than the construction workers; he went to college for years and learned all about not only how to build, but also all the science and technology of building. The construction workers, however, are merely trained to work with their hands. Sure, they've learned the skills needed in order to follow the directions of the engineer. But they do not know all the science and technology behind it. Therefore, the engineer is infinitely more important, and thus gets paid a much higher wage than the construction workers.
Chances are, a person who went through college and got a degree in engineering will stay an engineer all his life. There is no reason for him to switch jobs. On the other hand, many people who work in construction eventually move on; in fact, many people who work in construction are college students, who are just working in construction in the meantime, until they get their degree.
In the faulty educational system of today, children are taught to manually follow the mitzvos. A boy is taught to wear a yarmulkeh when he's a toddler, and to wear tzitzis when he's three. Little girls are taught to light Shabbos candles and make the brachah. All this is very nice, but do we teach our children also all the wisdom and deep inner meanings that come behind these mitzvos? Many parents may answer that they count on the schools to do this... but unfortunately, most Jewish schools do not teach children the inner meanings of the mitzvos, why they are so important to our everyday lives as Jews. They tend to focus heavily on Gemarah, Chumash, Shulchan Aruch, etc., but tend to bypass important sefarim that teach the essence of the mitvos, such as Sefer Hachinuch.
But some might just shrug this off and say, okay, so nu? Even if a child is brought up keeping the mitzvos only out of habit, chances are he will stick with it anyway, right? Wrong. As we see, many Jewish teenagers give up their frumkeit, casting aside all these mitzvos they were taught to do mechanically, never understanding their deep significance.
Think for a moment from the point of view of one who was never taught about the importance of the mitzvos; on the bottom line, what's the big deal to wear a yarmulkeh? Good grief, does Hashem really care so much that you wear this beanie on your head all the time? And what's so bad about using electricity on Shabbos? If it's Shabbos and it's very hot, does Hashem really care if you just flick a little switch to turn on the air conditioner? If you're a pretty young girl, nu, so why not dress scantily so everyone can see how pretty you are? Is that really such a crime?
The Yetzer Harah knows very well how to sway young minds that are empty of knowledge. It is crucially important that we fill these minds with this crucial knowledge they need to have yiras shomayim, and to understand the deep inner importance of keeping the mitzvos.
2. The Isolation Syndrome:
Imagine if you walked into a party, and no one wanted to speak to you, or even look at you, and you were left standing all alone by yourself. Wouldn't you leave right away?
The faulty educational system of our times caters to only one particular type of child. The adults currently running the system were these children; this is why they do not really understand other types of children.
When a child enters kindergarten of a mainstream chareidi school, the educational environment he is being placed in is already based on the type of life they expect the child to lead. It is already planned out; the child will go willingly through the system. He will finish cheider, go on to mesivtah and then zal, then learn s'michah. Sounds great, no?
Indeed it does; that is, for the type of child whom this particular lifestyle is cut out for. But... what about the type of child whom this particular lifestyle is not cut out for?
Not everyone can be a doctor. Not everyone can be a lawyer. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist. And not everyone can be a rabbi. So we see, from the time a child starts school, this certain way of life is being forced on him. And what if he doesn't fit into this system? What if he is slower to understanding Gemarah than his classmates? And what if he enters yeshivah, but is not cut out to sit down fourteen hours a day learning in the Beis Medrash? And what if he has talents of other kinds which he is not able to utilize in this system?
Here's what happens: The child, nebech, eventually comes to be rejected by everyone. His teachers frown upon seeing him, and have nothing ever to offer him but criticism. The child does not succeed in his learning; his parents pay extra money for him to be tutored, and he is forced to suffer a tutor whose style of teaching is just as ineffective on him as the classroom teacher's. He eventually comes to feel inferior all the time. He is unable to make friends with any of the students around him who are thriving. He feels lonely... so terribly lonely. But... there is one tiny ray of hope for him. There are boys he can make friends with – boys like him. Unfortunately, many of these boys have already been kicked out of yeshivah. The next thing this child knows, he's been kicked out of yeshivah as well. But he now has the chance to join a social group that resides in a world other than the one he failed in....
3. Nonsensical Chumrahs:
It says in Pirkei Avos, "Make a fence around the Torah." This means that not only should a person avoid doing an aveirah, but a person should not even put himself in a position where he might even be tempted to do the aveirah. The Medrash cites a famous example, where Hashem told Adom not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and when Adom passed that instruction on to Chavah, he went a step further and warned her that they weren't even allowed to touch the fruit. (Unfortunately, as we see later on in the story, this backfired, which goes to show how careful one must be when deciding to make a fence, to make sure it's absolutely neccesary.)
Unfortunately, many Rabbanim of our generation have taken the concept of making a fence to a whole new level. Many chumrahs that exist today cannot even be traced back to the aveirah that the fence is designed to protect people from. To make matters worse, many of these chumrahs exist in most of our school curriculums. Here are some examples of pop chumrahs in today's Beis Yaakovs: Girls are not allowed to ride bicycles or rollerblade; girls are not allowed to walk into certain stores because a lot of boys go there; girls are not allowed to wear colored socks (?!?). And here are some examples of pop chumrahs that exist in both girl's schools and yeshivahs: Use of cellphones, CD players, iPods, laptops or pretty much any kind of device that was invented any time in the past two decades are all banned. Why? Because the student might use one of these for a non-kosher purpose.
Wow, that's being so dan l'kaf z'chus, isn't it? Basically, the message that these yeshivahs and high schools are giving over to their students is: "We do not trust you. Now just do as we say, and be grateful for us zealots who are making up whatever rules we feel like in order to shelter you from the outside world." What would you think if you're a teenager and you're being given this message?
4. Abusive Punishments:
The administrations of many chareidi yeshivahs and Beis Yaakovs tend to employ psychologically abusive and totally ineffective disciplining methods.
Imagine that you are a yeshivah student, and you walk into the beis medrash to learn ten minutes late. For some reason, these mashgichim can't seem to restrain themselves and speak to the student after the seder about his coming late. Instead, they admonish the student as soon as he walks through the door: "You're late! What is this?" And usually fine the boy for being late. Really now – do these mechanchim really believe that the boy is now going to have any desire to sit down and learn after having been treated like trash? Especially since he's not going to be able to do his laundry now, since the mashgiach took his money (as if the boy has a parnassah and makes his own money).
Then of course, we have the issue of theft. It's funny how these mechanchim know how to shteig Gemarah really well, but never learned the Ten Commandments.
We just discussed nonsensical chumrahs; now let's discuss how these chumrahs are enforced: When a mashgiach finds a boy in possession of a "forbidden object" it usually gets confiscated, never to be returned to the boy again. Apparently, these mechanchim believe that they should violate the eighth commandment and steal a student's possessions, so that the student won't chas v'shalom commit such an awful crime like listening to secular music. What mesirus nefesh, except that this is sounding more appropriate for other religions, not Judaism.
Of course, the irony of ironies here is that these abusive rules only end up punishing the good students and not the bad ones. The good students, who make use of iPods or cellphones for good purposes, are now not able to use them, and the bad students use them anyway, keeping them out of sight from the yeshivah or high school staff.
5. Sinas Chinam:
Sometimes a boy or girl will not even be accepted into one of these schools, for fear that the boy or girl will have a "bad influence" on other students. They will reject a student even if they know the child's Yiddishkeit may be at stake.
I knew this girl from a ba'al t'shuvah family whose mother brought her for an interview at a Chabad school in Yerushalayim. The mother was wearing a hat as a hair covering, and the girl was wearing a skirt which was a little too short, without tights. The principal of the school coldly told the mother that they cannot accept her kind. In the end, the mother put her daughter in a conservadox type of school instead. Today, that girl is totally secular, and is married to a non-Jew.
Sadly, this is also why there are so many off-the-derech teenagers in the chareidi community. When they start to do "inappropriate" things, they are right away kicked out of yeshivah or high school, and not accepted into any other. With nowhere to go, the only way to go is off the derech.
And isn't it ironic how, once a teenager has already gone completely off the derech, and comes back to yeshivah to visit his old friends, suddenly everybody is so nice to him; the Rosh Yeshivah and the mashgiach drop what they're doing and come over to him and say, "Shalom aleichem! How are you doing?" Too late. How about being nice to a teenager before he goes off the derech, and try to be mekarev him b'darchei noam u'b'darchei shalom?
On a construction site, there is an engineer, and a team of construction workers. The construction workers do all the hard labor, actually constructing the building. The engineer, however, does not participate in the manual labor. He is the one who directs it. And it is he who gets paid the higher wage. This is because he knows a lot more than the construction workers; he went to college for years and learned all about not only how to build, but also all the science and technology of building. The construction workers, however, are merely trained to work with their hands. Sure, they've learned the skills needed in order to follow the directions of the engineer. But they do not know all the science and technology behind it. Therefore, the engineer is infinitely more important, and thus gets paid a much higher wage than the construction workers.
Chances are, a person who went through college and got a degree in engineering will stay an engineer all his life. There is no reason for him to switch jobs. On the other hand, many people who work in construction eventually move on; in fact, many people who work in construction are college students, who are just working in construction in the meantime, until they get their degree.
In the faulty educational system of today, children are taught to manually follow the mitzvos. A boy is taught to wear a yarmulkeh when he's a toddler, and to wear tzitzis when he's three. Little girls are taught to light Shabbos candles and make the brachah. All this is very nice, but do we teach our children also all the wisdom and deep inner meanings that come behind these mitzvos? Many parents may answer that they count on the schools to do this... but unfortunately, most Jewish schools do not teach children the inner meanings of the mitzvos, why they are so important to our everyday lives as Jews. They tend to focus heavily on Gemarah, Chumash, Shulchan Aruch, etc., but tend to bypass important sefarim that teach the essence of the mitvos, such as Sefer Hachinuch.
But some might just shrug this off and say, okay, so nu? Even if a child is brought up keeping the mitzvos only out of habit, chances are he will stick with it anyway, right? Wrong. As we see, many Jewish teenagers give up their frumkeit, casting aside all these mitzvos they were taught to do mechanically, never understanding their deep significance.
Think for a moment from the point of view of one who was never taught about the importance of the mitzvos; on the bottom line, what's the big deal to wear a yarmulkeh? Good grief, does Hashem really care so much that you wear this beanie on your head all the time? And what's so bad about using electricity on Shabbos? If it's Shabbos and it's very hot, does Hashem really care if you just flick a little switch to turn on the air conditioner? If you're a pretty young girl, nu, so why not dress scantily so everyone can see how pretty you are? Is that really such a crime?
The Yetzer Harah knows very well how to sway young minds that are empty of knowledge. It is crucially important that we fill these minds with this crucial knowledge they need to have yiras shomayim, and to understand the deep inner importance of keeping the mitzvos.
2. The Isolation Syndrome:
Imagine if you walked into a party, and no one wanted to speak to you, or even look at you, and you were left standing all alone by yourself. Wouldn't you leave right away?
The faulty educational system of our times caters to only one particular type of child. The adults currently running the system were these children; this is why they do not really understand other types of children.
When a child enters kindergarten of a mainstream chareidi school, the educational environment he is being placed in is already based on the type of life they expect the child to lead. It is already planned out; the child will go willingly through the system. He will finish cheider, go on to mesivtah and then zal, then learn s'michah. Sounds great, no?
Indeed it does; that is, for the type of child whom this particular lifestyle is cut out for. But... what about the type of child whom this particular lifestyle is not cut out for?
Not everyone can be a doctor. Not everyone can be a lawyer. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist. And not everyone can be a rabbi. So we see, from the time a child starts school, this certain way of life is being forced on him. And what if he doesn't fit into this system? What if he is slower to understanding Gemarah than his classmates? And what if he enters yeshivah, but is not cut out to sit down fourteen hours a day learning in the Beis Medrash? And what if he has talents of other kinds which he is not able to utilize in this system?
Here's what happens: The child, nebech, eventually comes to be rejected by everyone. His teachers frown upon seeing him, and have nothing ever to offer him but criticism. The child does not succeed in his learning; his parents pay extra money for him to be tutored, and he is forced to suffer a tutor whose style of teaching is just as ineffective on him as the classroom teacher's. He eventually comes to feel inferior all the time. He is unable to make friends with any of the students around him who are thriving. He feels lonely... so terribly lonely. But... there is one tiny ray of hope for him. There are boys he can make friends with – boys like him. Unfortunately, many of these boys have already been kicked out of yeshivah. The next thing this child knows, he's been kicked out of yeshivah as well. But he now has the chance to join a social group that resides in a world other than the one he failed in....
3. Nonsensical Chumrahs:
It says in Pirkei Avos, "Make a fence around the Torah." This means that not only should a person avoid doing an aveirah, but a person should not even put himself in a position where he might even be tempted to do the aveirah. The Medrash cites a famous example, where Hashem told Adom not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and when Adom passed that instruction on to Chavah, he went a step further and warned her that they weren't even allowed to touch the fruit. (Unfortunately, as we see later on in the story, this backfired, which goes to show how careful one must be when deciding to make a fence, to make sure it's absolutely neccesary.)
Unfortunately, many Rabbanim of our generation have taken the concept of making a fence to a whole new level. Many chumrahs that exist today cannot even be traced back to the aveirah that the fence is designed to protect people from. To make matters worse, many of these chumrahs exist in most of our school curriculums. Here are some examples of pop chumrahs in today's Beis Yaakovs: Girls are not allowed to ride bicycles or rollerblade; girls are not allowed to walk into certain stores because a lot of boys go there; girls are not allowed to wear colored socks (?!?). And here are some examples of pop chumrahs that exist in both girl's schools and yeshivahs: Use of cellphones, CD players, iPods, laptops or pretty much any kind of device that was invented any time in the past two decades are all banned. Why? Because the student might use one of these for a non-kosher purpose.
Wow, that's being so dan l'kaf z'chus, isn't it? Basically, the message that these yeshivahs and high schools are giving over to their students is: "We do not trust you. Now just do as we say, and be grateful for us zealots who are making up whatever rules we feel like in order to shelter you from the outside world." What would you think if you're a teenager and you're being given this message?
4. Abusive Punishments:
The administrations of many chareidi yeshivahs and Beis Yaakovs tend to employ psychologically abusive and totally ineffective disciplining methods.
Imagine that you are a yeshivah student, and you walk into the beis medrash to learn ten minutes late. For some reason, these mashgichim can't seem to restrain themselves and speak to the student after the seder about his coming late. Instead, they admonish the student as soon as he walks through the door: "You're late! What is this?" And usually fine the boy for being late. Really now – do these mechanchim really believe that the boy is now going to have any desire to sit down and learn after having been treated like trash? Especially since he's not going to be able to do his laundry now, since the mashgiach took his money (as if the boy has a parnassah and makes his own money).
Then of course, we have the issue of theft. It's funny how these mechanchim know how to shteig Gemarah really well, but never learned the Ten Commandments.
We just discussed nonsensical chumrahs; now let's discuss how these chumrahs are enforced: When a mashgiach finds a boy in possession of a "forbidden object" it usually gets confiscated, never to be returned to the boy again. Apparently, these mechanchim believe that they should violate the eighth commandment and steal a student's possessions, so that the student won't chas v'shalom commit such an awful crime like listening to secular music. What mesirus nefesh, except that this is sounding more appropriate for other religions, not Judaism.
Of course, the irony of ironies here is that these abusive rules only end up punishing the good students and not the bad ones. The good students, who make use of iPods or cellphones for good purposes, are now not able to use them, and the bad students use them anyway, keeping them out of sight from the yeshivah or high school staff.
5. Sinas Chinam:
Sometimes a boy or girl will not even be accepted into one of these schools, for fear that the boy or girl will have a "bad influence" on other students. They will reject a student even if they know the child's Yiddishkeit may be at stake.
I knew this girl from a ba'al t'shuvah family whose mother brought her for an interview at a Chabad school in Yerushalayim. The mother was wearing a hat as a hair covering, and the girl was wearing a skirt which was a little too short, without tights. The principal of the school coldly told the mother that they cannot accept her kind. In the end, the mother put her daughter in a conservadox type of school instead. Today, that girl is totally secular, and is married to a non-Jew.
Sadly, this is also why there are so many off-the-derech teenagers in the chareidi community. When they start to do "inappropriate" things, they are right away kicked out of yeshivah or high school, and not accepted into any other. With nowhere to go, the only way to go is off the derech.
And isn't it ironic how, once a teenager has already gone completely off the derech, and comes back to yeshivah to visit his old friends, suddenly everybody is so nice to him; the Rosh Yeshivah and the mashgiach drop what they're doing and come over to him and say, "Shalom aleichem! How are you doing?" Too late. How about being nice to a teenager before he goes off the derech, and try to be mekarev him b'darchei noam u'b'darchei shalom?