Reply To: Going off the Derech

mom12-I’ve said all the things you mentioned. He knows that I can’t ‘not care’ about where he is, or what he’s doing, or just ‘leave him alone’. When I ask him what’s bothering him, he tells me point blank, that he hates the haredim. He feels betrayed by the kids who tortured him in yeshiva, and the RY who ‘never believed’ in him. The RY is very srict and punitive, and unfortunately, he lost a lot of yeshiva bachurim bc of it. There are only a half dozen boys left in my son’s class from a class of 28 kids. My son also blames me and my husband for being haredi and putting him in a haredi school. Reasoning doesn’t work with him, as he sees all these things that happened to him as a ‘haredi’ issue.

yitzyshalom-I appreciate your comments, and agree with you to a certain extent, and about looking for a modern yeshiva. However, I don’t think that haredi judaism is a cult or medieval. Can a person really be completely immersed in secular music/videos and go to BARS, yet be a religious Jew 100% ?? Maybe (MAYBE) on the outside (ie mitzvos), but not on the inside. I don’t believe it for a second! I remember when I lived in the States, and I lived as a haredi Jew. I lived in a haredi neighborhood, and was completely immersed in my haredi life. Then I moved to Israel, to another haredi neighborhood. I didn’t feel any difference…until I came back to NY. Then I felt a HUGE difference. How could it be, I wondered? I wasn’t any different. That’s what I thought. But I WAS different, bc even subtle changes like living in Eretz Hakodesh can have an influence that we don’t see. I’m positive that immoral movies and music with goyishe ideology also has its influence. You may not see it. Or some people may think they’re ‘above it’. But it’s there nonetheless. If my son gives in to all these goyishe things, I can only hope he’ll be a shomer shabbos Jew. I wouldn’t expect him to be haredi. And that would be okay! But the problem is, it’s even hard to stay a shomer shabbos Jew when all the images, themes and philosophy he’s been feeding himself are antithetical to everything Torahdik, and especially being a shomer shabbos Jew.