Mentch Before Ruchnius?

I have read the idea "emotional health comes before spiritual growth" several times and have wondered about it.  Sometimes it's couched as "first he needs to become a mentch, then we can work on his ruchnius." It is in the context of those off the derech or those having personal problems.

I can see that if someone is an emotional mess, they are in no position to listen to a shiur.  But they could very well be encouraged to do a mitzvah!

In the book Incredible, the story is told of Yossi Gevili, an inmate in an Israeli prison who showed up at an Arachim seminar.  He was on furlough, only his second one in seven years because after he was allowed out the first time and got into a fight, they were hesitant about letting him out again.  This time, he figured the safest place for him was at an Arachim seminar.

Yossi Gevili had been one of the worst prisoners at the prison.  He did not get along with anyone, he argued constantly, was mean, and broke all the rules.  When he returned to the prison after the seminar, he was a different person, polite, and he started using a siddur.  Four days at the Arachim seminar made him into a baal teshuva and model citizen.

Arachim personnel found him a job when he was released and gave him the support he needed to stay on track. He married and settled down and gave his mother nachas.

So here was a man who was difficult inmate in a prison who did not first undergo therapy or any sort of program to address his emotional state of being, his obnoxious behavior, and his anger.  He was exposed to Torah lectures and this changed his life.

It's Just Too Hard

R' Daniel Gross spoke in Yiddish at the Keiravtuni Shabbaton.  He said he saw a bunch of guys hanging out, drop-outs.
 

One of them said, it's a pity I was born a Jew.

If I was born a goy I would have only 7 mitzvos.  Taryag mitzvos are a pressure for me, I always have a guilty conscience.

A goy gets olam haba for doing his seven.

***
So it's not the kid did not believe. He believed and wanted olam haba, but felt it was just too hard.  A friend of mine thinks this comes from "affluenza," which includes the idea that life should be easy.

R' Gross presented the issue to chassidishe bachurim, of why be a yid, what's good about it.  The best answer they could come up with was olam haba.  They viewed Torah and mitzvos as an ol (burden), and saw the point as just olam haba.

It's a great essay topic to assign 12th graders.  Describe the scene, repeat what the guy said about it being a shame he was born a Jew and why, and ask them to write their response.

 

When Talk is Dangerous

Tehillim 73:15 אם אמרתי אספרה כמו הנה דור בניך בגדתי
"If I said, "I shall tell it as it is," behold I have made the generation of Your children into traitors."

Rashi: Said Asaph, “If I said in my heart to tell everything as it is, all that His people say about this, I would make them into traitors and wicked men."

Metzudas Dovid: If I say it the way it is, i.e. whatever it is that I think, then the talking will incite even those who are your children, i.e. those who believe in You, for when they hear what is thought, I will make them into traitors which is why I won't talk much.

I heard someone say, based on this verse, that the trend to discuss all our frum society's ills out in the open is the modern day version of "es iz shver tzu zayn a Yid" - it's hard to be a Jew.  How many Jews are being turned off to frum life when they hear about all the crises and social ills we are suffering from?

Back in the early 1900's, when shomer Shabbos Jews sighed over the hardships of being religious, they lost their children who were not interested in living a hard, religious life.  These days, why would someone want to belong to a society which has a shidduch crisis, tuition crisis, parnassa crisis, housing crisis, drop-outs, those who keep "half Shabbos," Kiddush clubs and alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, shalom bayis problems and molestation problems? Sounds quite unappealing!

Some editors and askanim pat themselves on the back for "breaking taboos" and (supposedly) dispelling stigmas by airing issues that used to be kept quiet.  Are we gaining or losing thereby, that is the question.  What would they say if they knew that just one person was turned off to Yiddishkeit because of this openness?

a related post

The Truth Can be Hard to Take

There are two schools of thought about why children from frum homes go off the derech.  One approach ascribes a specific reason or reasons to the phenomenon such as learning disabilities, molestation, not having the fundamentals of our emuna, and unhappiness.  Pinpointing the cause enables us - parents, teachers, the community - to do something about it; to make sure it doesn't happen or to be alert and helpful when it is already a problem.

The other approach maintains we have bechira and therefore, parents and teachers can't take credit or blame when a child picks a particular way of life.  We can do our best to teach and provide a good environment, but ultimately, how children turn out is out of our hands.  And this explains why children from wonderful homes, where other siblings are fine and frum, can be the black sheep.

Many years ago, Rabbi Brafman (principal of the yeshiva of Far Rockaway) wrote, "the consensus of professional and lay activists working with at-risk teenagers and dropouts has been that the overwhelming majority of their clients come from broken homes, orphaned homes, dysfunctional homes, or unhappy homes."

He was criticized for 1) being wrong - after all, dropout children strikes the best of homes, and 2) causing pain to the parents of these children by implying they are at fault for their children's rebelliousness.

Back in 1999, an anonymous therapist described as having a large Orthodox practice in the NY area, wrote the following in a letter to the Jewish Observer:

In the course of working with countless troubled youngsters, I have had the opportunity to discuss these issues with many mechanchim, therapists, and lay activists.  It is indeed the consensus among all those with in-depth experience in this field that these youngsters come from unhappy homes.  In the vast majority of cases, there were serious problems in the parent-child relationship that predated the rebelliousness.  In other cases, the child had a difficulty (ex. learning disabilities) and the parents reacted with criticism rather than being supportive.

It does indeed seem like this problem happens in "the best of homes," but we need to remember that what we see as a "good home" is often not how the child experiences his/her home.  People in the field are often shocked by the discrepancy between the parents' public persona and their private behavior at home.

So, while no [normal] parents purposely make their child's life miserable .. if the child becomes seriously rebellious you can be fairly certain that they made serious and persistent errors in their parenting, most often by being persistently and unreasonably critical.

.. There is a great hesitancy among those in the field to publicly state what they privately know.  I believe that this hesitancy, however well intentioned, is leading to a fool's paradise... This desire not to hurt people's feelings is preventing us from helping them solve the problem which they want to be helped with.

Even if it was true that some frum children become rebellious without the home being a major contributing factor (although I have never actually seen such a situation, and have never heard of such a case), no one would deny that in the vast majority of cases, this is not the case.  Are we not contributing to the persistence of this tragic problem by denying this reality? Would we recommend that doctors not tell their smoking patients that they are putting themselves at a high risk of getting lung cancer, in order not to hurt their feelings? Should the fact that some people smoke without getting lung cancer and that some of those who contract lung cancer never smoked, blind us to the fact that smoking is a major contributing factor for lung cancer? Likewise, should our concern for their parents' feelings prevent us from publicizing the well establish risk factors for teen rebelliousness? This seems to be a clear example of misplaced and misguided rachmanus.

When I meet parents of rebellious children, I am, of course, empathetic to their pain and suffering.  But I also point out to them those aspects of their relationship with their child that have likely contributed to the problem.  I also suggest that that although this information may be painful for them to acknowledge, it can also be a source of hope.  By realizing that the problem does not strike at random, but rather has a cause, it is within their power to significantly alleviate the problem.  Parents who make a serious attempt at improving their relationship with their rebellious child often see dramatic improvement in their child's condition.

I have often been admonished by these parents and children for not making this information known to the community, to challenge the belief that there is an "epidemic" out there striking families at random and that parents are powerless to prevent or alleviate this problem.  It is for this reason that I have written this letter.

Getting the Loving Message Across

Rabbi Noach Orlowek writes, "R' Yechiel Yakobson, one of Israel's revered educators, once met with a group of 'off the track' teenagers.  He asked them how he could prevent what happened in their families happening in his own.  They answered, 'You don't have to worry.  Your children know you love them.'"

R' Orlowek then writes, "At a wedding in Milwaukee, I sat at the same table as Rav Michel Twersky, who grew up in Milwaukee 80 years ago and attended public school, since there were no yeshivos there at the time.  I asked him how he and his brothers turned out to be such wonderful marbitzei Torah and paragons of Torah principles and Torah living.  When I asked the question, his entire demeanor changed.  Slowly and clearly, he said something that has never left me.  'We knew two things about our father, that he loved us very much and that he believed in us.'"

R' Orlowek goes on to point out that this is not to say that families where children have rebelled did not love their children.  "But sometimes, the message that they love their children does not come through clearly."

One approach to getting the message across is by seeing which "love language" means the most to a child.  Gary Chapman explained how he came to categorize five love languages, "Some of my encounters with couples through the years that brought me to realize that what makes one person feel loved does not necessarily make another person feel loved. For a number of years, I have been helping couples in the counseling office discover what their spouse desired in order to feel loved. Eventually, I began to see a pattern in their responses. Therefore, I decided to read the notes I had made over twelve years of counseling couples and ask myself the question, “When someone sat in my office and said, ‘I feel like my spouse doesn’t love me,’ what did they want?” Their answers fell into five categories. I later called them the five love languages."

It's simple and straightforward and worth looking up.

Unconditional Love - Yes or No

In the article by R' Aisenstark that I referred to previously here, there was a paragraph that I read and agreed with and didn't think to comment on.  It was where he wrote about unconditional love and said, "I think that our Torah teaches us to take responsibility for our actions and that does not include loving unconditionally no matter what a child does.  Yes, the door to teshuva is always open, and love will most certainly be rekindled to its former state when a child returns.  But a child cannot live in two worlds ... a rebellious child does not belong in our home until he at least tries to conform and change his actions."

Two issues (of Mishpacha) later, R' Yaakov Bender responded to his dear friend's remarks with the latter's permission.  It is most interesting to see the difference of opinion between these two veteran mechanchim.  R' Bender acknowledges that R' Aisenstark's point is correct but suggests that when it comes to chinuch, adjustments need to be made for each generation and what works for one generation might be disastrous for another time.

In R' Bender's opinion, there is no logic as to why children go off the derech when others in the family are doing fine and the parents tried to meet the wayward child's needs.  He thinks that a rebellious child should be showered with love and be minimally criticized.  In most cases, he does not think that having a rebellious child at home will negatively impact other children in the home because the other children know he is going through a difficult phase.

He thinks that implying that any child is a rasha is unfair and to imply that the parents are to blame is even more unfair.  He concludes by pleading that parents love their children "to pieces" and keep them at home.  "Ultimately, you will see great nachas from them," he says.

Missing Information

There was (yet another) sad article in one of the frum magazines, written by a suffering parent.  To quote her, "There are many levels of suffering we have endured as we watched our beautiful, talented, and loving child transform into a raging creature ... I couldn't believe that such a thing could happen to us, to people who had established such a pristine, Torah-filled home.

"We had given our daughter so much love and encouragement ... [she was] nurtured and supported in every way possible... A bright and gifted student, she excelled in school and exuded her talents in many areas.  What would prompt a most cherished child to choose such an alien lifestyle? ... It was inconceivable and incomprehensible.  I raged against the outside forces that had stolen my child ... I watched her spiral downwards ... We watched her morph into a different persona ..."

It's horrible.  But we don't get answers to the question: what happened to change this much loved, blessed girl into a monster? Instead, the rest of the article is about unconditional love, obliterating one's egotistical need for nachas, and about asking for help. 

I find that frustrating and unhelpful.  Is she implying that this is a spiritual battle taking place on a different plane of reality which has nothing to do with the mundane here and now of this world? Is that what she means when refers to "outside" and "evil forces" who enticed her baby from her cozy nest? What really happened to turn a 13 year old girl into a hard, tough personality who verbally assaults those who love her?

Rabbi Rubin Says: It's Unhappiness that's the Root Cause

From "A Rabbi's Journal 2" by Rabbi Rubin:

About children rebelling, becoming lost in the jaws of the newest source of moral destruction, the Internet - we must ask ourselves if it is the symptom or the cause.

Sefarim written before World War II cried out about the corrupting forces of those times. Let us not wax nostalgic about those days; before the war there was also terrible rebellion in the heimishe world. Yidden tell of whole households turning away from Torah in a matter of a few years. There were very few families that didn't have their own tragedies - girls leaving home, boys joining the Communists. Anti-Torah blasphemy was heard and read at every street corner.

What caused all this chaos? It wasn't the Internet, and it wasn't even television. It was unhappiness.

The young felt estranged from their family. Their parents were working all hours of the day just to have a bit of bread, and their children had no shared reality with them. At the end of the workday the father escaped to the shtiebel and the mother was left behind to weep alone while stark hunger walked the streets.

Outside, empty promises were being made of a better tomorrow. To the children of the poor these calls rang true. Their parents didn't understand them, they had no real teachers, and so they let themselves be drawn into the anarchy of the day.

Why were so many youngsters running to join the socialists with their anti-Torah stances? From where did the early Zionists get all their adherents?

The Torah home must be a place where a person can be at ease. Shabbos should be a light in a world grown cold and dark. Sing its songs and cherish the gifts Hashem has bestowed on you!

...The outside world must be kept away from the sensitive hearts of our maturing children and at the same time, the love from within the home must be preserved.

^^^^^^^^^
The point R' Rubin makes echoes what R' Weiss said (see post from March 13, 2013).  What he and R' Weiss and ... and ... and ... are saying is that when children are unhappy, when they don't find happiness in a Jewish home, they often leave.

As R' Moshe Feinstein z'l said, we lost a generation because parents said, "It's hard to be a Jew." It's hard? We aren't raised with the feeling of "ashreinu mah tov chelkeinu" (fortunate are we, how good is out lot)? Then who needs it? We're outta here.

The Importance of the Home

* Dr. Meir Wikler, noted frum psychotherapist in Brooklyn, believes so strongly in the influence of the relationship between parent and child on religious observance that he says he had never seen, met, or heard of someone who grew up in an Orthodox home who became non-Orthodox and had warm, close intimate relationships with their parents.

* I heard Dov Brezak ("Chinuch For Turbulent Times") quote Rav Shteinman as saying that unlike other mitzvos, peru u'revu for example, where you are not responsible for outcome, when it comes to chinuch - outcome is what it's all about.  Quite an astonishing quote in a time when not taking responsibility is the norm.

* Rabbi Noach Orloweck noted that no single factor is as important to a child's development as the influence of his or her parents.

Painful but True

Rabbi Chaim Yisroel Blumenfeld, a student of R' Wolbe and the mashgiach of a yeshiva for boys in need of motivation and guidance, says it's usually not Yiddishkeit itself that students have problems with.

Signs of disobedience or rebellion are symptoms of underlying emotional issues and most often, the problems don't start in Israel, they start at home.

***
I read this in a book written by someone who counsels parents:

"Nearly every parent who brings me in to heal their children's problems uses the same approach: "My child doesn't listen; can you make her listen?" "My child yells; can you make him stop?" "My child wants nothing to do with me; can you change her?" Of course most of the time I quickly discovered that the real problem lies with the family dynamic, not with the child.

"In fact, let me be more blunt. Nearly always, the problem lies with the parents, rather than with the children. So why don't parents own up to it?

"Because it's indescribably painful to accept that you have harmed what you love most in the entire world. So cognitive dissonance sets in and you can't see the truth.

"It is my belief that one of the corruptions at the root of modern family life is a lack of accountablity. "I can't do anything with my kids," parents tell me. "They're out of control." But this I do not accept. It is the parents' job to assert and maintain control. When one of my children does poorly in school, mistreats siblings, or speaks disrespectfully to me or my spouse, I don't look elsewhere for reasons. I step up squarely and take responsibility. If my children yell, it's because I yell. I formed them in my image and I take responsibility for the image they assume."

It's about Emotions, not Ideals

Mishpacha magazine had an interview with Rabbi Asher Weiss, a famous Av beis din in Yerushalayim, originally from America, and a popular magid shiur.  One of the questions he was asked was:

Is it possible to identify one main reason for the phenomenon of kids drifting away from Yiddishkeit?

His answer:

"The real antidote to this phenomenon must be administered in the home. By this I mean that the parents must create an atmosphere of joy and warmth in the home.

"Today, our children aren't leaving the proper path because their ideals have changed. We are not an "ideals" generation. Our children aren't leaving because of doubts or emuna questions either. They are leaving because they are not happy - not at yeshiva, and not at home. They think they might be able to find happiness somewhere else.

"... Parents must load their children with joyous experiences in everything related to Torah and mitzvos."

***
This is why I am not convinced that the Ani Maamim foundation and and Project Chazon are The Answer to kids disenchantment with Yiddishkeit.  The Ani Maamin foundation believes that when people have answers to emuna questions, they will live a passionate Yiddishkeit.  Why would intellectual answers generate a passionate commitment? There are many things that we know that do not translate into excitement in our lives.

Parents' Responsibility

In the "Kids at Risk- Revisited" issue of the (now defunct) Jewish Observer, one of the articles said that two of the most devastating culprits chasing our kids away are feelings of intense pressure and a lack of validation. The pressure, says the article, comes from constant criticism of parents, rebbeim and teachers.

In another article in the same issue, the author writes of the constant stream of simchos and mitzvos that seem to have taken over people's lives (chasunos, sheva brachos, bar and bas mitzvas, l'chayims-vorts, melave malkas, PTA's, shidduch meetings, Tehillim groups ...) and he asks: Is it any wonder that we have children at risk? The children are raising themselves! I would add, babies and toddlers are shipped out of the house for hours at a time, so who is raising them?

If you ask those who work with problem youth, they will tell you that often, if not most of the time, the problem is at home. Of course, there are other factors, but for the most part, home is the key.  This is very unpleasant for parents to hear, of course.  We are living in a time where "blaming" and "judging" are considered out of bounds.  And yet, the Vilna Gaon in his famous letter to his family wrote:

"I have left behind several Yiddish books on Mussar (morality). See that [the children] read them constantly, especially on the Holy Shabbos, when Mussar is the only thing they should read. Always instruct them according to Mussar books.

"Don't hold back from hitting them when they curse, swear or lie. Don't be lenient with them, because parents will be punished severely for the corruption of their children, G-d forbid. And even if one constantly teaches them Mussar, but they do not follow it, one's sorrow and shame in the World-to-Come will be great. As it is written (Vayikra 21:9), "She defiles her father" - [in such a case] the son of a righteous man is called "the son of a wicked man" (Sanhedrin 52a). Similarly in other matters, lashon hara and gossip."

note: Many mechanchim are of the opinion that in our generation, hitting children is not an effective chinuch tool (some qualify that by saying that it's appropriate under certain rare circumstances). 

There is a certain understandable inconsistency in how we look at chinuch.  We kvell when we hear good things about our children.  We have such nachas and think we did something right when our children do well.  But if things don't go well, G-d forbid, we talk about the child's bechira and how other children in the family are all right and how it's obviously not the parents' fault.  Do we talk about a child's bechira and how the fact that they turned out wonderfully is also not to the parents' credit?

A Child Must Feel Beloved

The Tolna Rebbe, Rabbi Yitzchok Menachem Weinberg (lives in Eretz Yisrael) is considered an expert on chinuch. He says:

"I can say with certainty that a large percentage of the dropouts can recount emotional blows they suffered at a tender age, between 8-12. Usually, they remember that their personal needs as a student were ignored."

He also says:

"A beloved child does not rebel. That's what Sifri comments on the pasuk, 'And you shall love Hashem your G-d' - someone who loves, does not kick.'

"If the child will love, he will not rebel, and in order for the child to love he must feel beloved."

Chinuch Q and A part 2

continued from previous post in the rabbi's own words:

That is what I am saying. Proof: Ask the average frum teenager (or even adult) why they are frum and you will see the response. I once told a wonderfully concerned teacher in a BY school that she should ask her students, 12th graders, why Hashem cares if they are frum, and she will see that they have no idea. Her answer to me was, "Why does Hashem care if we are frum?"

The curriculum today is much different than it was 100 or 200 years ago, and our lifestyles are much, much different. Jews used to see sincerity, Mesiras Nefesh, Tzadikim, and strong Emunah even if you grew up in the most average of homes.

Today, our religion is a business for everyone from social and educational institutions to Seforim publishers. Torah is huckstered by Madison Avenue magicians in the same way, and with the same sincerity, as Nike sneakers.

Bochurim today know they are "consumers" where Yeshivos vying for their "business" and the Baalei Batim's dollars. Ask an 8th grader if he thinks the determination of whether he will be accepted to a Mesivta depends more on (a) whether the Mesivta will be an asset to him, or (b) whether he will be an asset for the Mesivta. I tried this. "B" won, like every single time, hands down, and that's sad.

Torah life isn't what it used to be. When I graduated high school in 1976, if a kid said he wanted to go to Yeshiva and not college, but he wanted to go to another Yeshiva for Beis Medrash, the Hanhalah would kiss him and consider him a success. Today, the bachurim feel that the Yeshivos will not be happy or consider his stay there a success unless he stays in his own Yeshiva.

Balabatim, who have no idea whether they are allowed to take their temperature on Shabbos, spend years of their only learning time on Daf Yomi, because it has become a fad. They wanna finish shas.

Our entire Torah life has become plastic, consumerist, faddish. In other words, we have assimilated into the American consumerist, plastic mind set, and it has affected our religion.

Chinuch Q and A

In 2002 I asked a rabbi who was involved with "fringe kids" long before it became popular:

Could you please give me a quickie answer, as to what you think the main reason is that frum kids go off the derech?

And if you wouldn't mind, could you tell me:
80 or 90% (or whatever it is) go off because of -------
and the remainder go off because of ----------

His response:

80 or 90% (or whatever it is) go off because of lack of reasons to keep them on the derech, in the face of what should be resistable living pressures, usually doemstic conflict, usually between the kid and the parents, if not, then between the parents themselves. And the remainder go off because of the same thing.

to which I said:

Are you saying then, that the REAL reason is the lack of a reason to stay frum, but IF you have a supportive, wonderful family life, you stay frum ANYWAY?

Did I understand you correctly?

If I did, why is the lack of a reason to remain frum present today more than 100 or 200 years ago? Aren't we basically teaching the same stuff, not just the Chumash and Gemara, but the same chinuch pretty much, as always?

to be continued
 

"At Risk" - Definition

I read the following definition in the book "Off the Derech": "kids at risk" usually refers to a population marked not only by abandonment of observance but also by engagement in socially delinquent activities such as vandalism, theft, substance abuse, promiscuity, and running away from home

This definition is absurd because if a kid is doing that, then the kid is NOT AT RISK any longer, but has crossed the line!

If a person is at risk of, let's say, an allergic reaction to certain foods, he will avoid peanuts, dairy products and fish (or whatever triggers the reaction). You wouldn't describe someone allergic to nuts who ate nuts, turned red, blew up, was gasping for air, as AT RISK of an allergic reaction!

Then there's the line, "ALL teenagers are at risk," which some people favor.  Somehow it makes them feel better because it's democratic, it puts us all in the same boat.  However, the phrase is meaningless and useless.

Those who work with kids in trouble can enumerate for you specific risk factors.

Think of risk factors in connection with health - those who are overweight, smoke, never exercise, and have a family history of heart disease, are at great risk of heart disease.  If a person is slim, eats well, exercises, has no family history of heart disease, they are not at risk of heart disease.

Or a person might have SOME factors that put them at a lower or high risk level.

But does it make sense to say that all human beings are at risk of heart disease? It's true that anybody, even someone with no risk factors, can drop dead of a heart attack, but there is no point in talking about "risk" or "risk factors" if we are going to say that everybody is at risk!