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I think it is generally accepted that in the Chassidish and Yeshivish world, boys are more likely to go off the derech than girls. Is this phenomenon true in the Modern Orthodox world as well?
The reason is that when chumras are added, they can also diminished as the border line between chumras and halacha becomes blurred. Shomro nafshi ki chassid ani where a chassid needs extra shmura. A rebbe’s daughter also needs extta shmura as she is being sometimes over protected. MO sticks to the border line.
BT’s by far have the most OTD kids, dont know why
Are Roster: The MO world has a far far far higher OTD rate in general. Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, eminent MO rabbi from Teaneck, wrote that about 50% of MO university students (which is close to all MO post-high school kids) go OTD while in college. You hear that? 50%!! Another study indicated that overall MO have a 25% OTD rate.
Reb Eliezer: The Chareidim (Chasidish/Yeshivish) have a tiny OTD rate in the 1% range neighborhood. It is incomparably smaller than the MO rate. As such, the idea that chumras lead to going OTD is preposterous on its face. Had that been the case you’d see a larger OTD rate among Chareidim, who are known to keep chumras, than among MO, who keep kulas.
It depends on your definition of Modern Orthodox. One of the modern orthodox schools published a list of the colleges, seminaries and yeshivot their graduates will be going to next year. Some of the schools have no kosher dining, no nearby orthodox community so that observance by the students who attend will be severely compromised.
What about kol hagadol mechavero yitzro gadol mimenu, the greater has a greater yetzer hara? Maybe according to the Sefer Habris, he gets also a greater neshama, so he can handle it.
Yaakov: Does the list tell us where the ones who are headed for yeshiva/sem are going afterwards? If not, the number going to problematic places is likely even higher than the list would indicate. As Rav Hershel Schachter has pointed out, a few months in a dorm destroys everything the kid picked up in yeshiva.
What’s your definition of OTD? Is a woman who stops covering her hair but still keeps Shabbos, Kashrus, Taharas Hamishpacha OTD?
> , a few months in a dorm destroys everything the kid picked up in yeshiva.
While I do not want to underestimate the challenges, should we not ask – what is the value of 12+ years of Jewish education that is destroyed in a few months of a dorm?
Disclaimer: my kids are packing up right now for the (online) college.
Commonsaychel, you have the statistics or you’re just using your ‘saychel?’ I think it’s the other way around or lively the same exact rate. I don’t why you feel a constant need to spread malicious slander against other Jews (and Eretz Yisrael too). I think your saychel has brought you far enough. It’s your stop, you can get off here.
@shimon nodel, the only persons that I “malicious slander” are trolls, as to my backup of what I wrote there are several articles written about this issue and about 2/3s of the BTs that I know are dealing with it, I don’t get it, it’s not slander to talk about the OTD kids in the MO community but its slander to say that about BTs?
A few things:
1) It’s just easier to go OTD if you’re MO because they are better equipped to handle the change. Charedim have a significantly harder time, which is why you hear about it.
2) I’m willing to bet that if you look at the Orthoprax numbers in the Charedi world, it’s probably nearly the same as the OTD numbers in the MO world.
3) Keep in mind that MO schools more often than not have a significant percentage of students that are not religious in the slightest, but are there because their parents want them to have some sort of Jewish identity. I can think of at plenty of high schools that are like this. The students who are actually Orthodox usually goto schools with a significant Orthodox population (i.e. UMD, YU/Stern, NYU, UPenn, etc.).
4) @Always ask the questions – You can also ask what good post-high school Yeshiva is at all if this is the case.
5) MO kids who want to go OTD are usually halfway there by the time they finish high school. College is basically their time to actually go OTD. Again, I know several people like this.According to many CR posters, by definition, an MO bochur is already OTD, so unclear if your metric is OTD by MO standards which would be total apikorsus by chareidi standards.h
I am not sure which exactly schools are discussed here. but I think a number of such schools have kids from less observant families to begin with – who view a Jewish school as a good prep school with Jewish kids, with varying attitudes towards religion. Of course, we hope that these kids will be affected by the school to the better, but it may not be the case. So, we need to count outcome separately based on their family history. This is similar to some teacher/school evaluation metrics that look at the improvement by the school comparing with what kids were before, rather than looking at current grades.
Definition of OTD and “modern” is very challenging.
It a father where’s a long coat on Shabbos and opposes Zionism, and the son wears a modern suit and supports the medinah, is the kid OTD? If someone who follows any aspect of Shabbos (e.g. not going to work, but otherwise doing all 39 melachos) or kashrus (not eating treff animals, but otherwise ignoring kashrus), still considered OTD?
Is some considered “modern” only if they are a zionist who learns Torah some times, but wears American-style clothes and follows liberal/zionist rabbanim. Some people would say the someone who belongs to a nominally Orthodox (meaning frumer than Conservative) shul but almost never attends, and makes makes no attempt to keep kosher or Shabbos, is still “modern” and that to be OTD you need to completely give up on Shabbos and Kashrus.
Wearing a long coat? That’s how you gauge frumkeit?
OTD= No shabbos or Kashrus not a change of haskafah
common > OTD= No shabbos or Kashrus n
so, what about those kids who were eating kosher at school, but not at home. For the teachers who do not know them well, it will look like a kid went OTD, while he merely went home. I am not denying the original premise though, just calling for counting carefully. A story from a Rav at a college in support of the thesis: a mother calls him and starts asking details about kashrus on campus. After enough questions, Rav asked her back: did you take the kid for a multi-day hike? Yes. did he take his tefillin with him? Oh, no … Then maybe you should be worrying whether he is going to take it to college, not my kashrus …
There have been no published studies on OTD rates. A rabbi mentioned two unpublished studies on his blog but we know nothing about them, such as their methodology or anything else. We don’t know if the studies are accurate or well-designed. As far as we know it could be a study of 20 people in one city or something.
yytz: That rabbi is a leading rabbi of the MO community. He has no reason to exaggerate the failings of his own communities.
Are we going to simply ignore this monumental failures because there’s a lack of published studies with detailed “methodologies” that are well designed? Perhaps the real percentage is 65%, but we’ll relax with our heads buried in the sand until Pew Research, Quinnipac, Gallup or the Marist Institute for Public Opinion conduct a well-heeled study, strictly using rigorous standards, determining the full, real and accurate statistics.
Until such time we’ll tolerate further generations of countless youths to discard Yiddishkeit in favor of college frat parties, with wine, women and song, along with some hazing and a hedonistic lifestyle, r’l?
Always_Ask_Questions wrote:
> While I do not want to underestimate the challenges,
> should we not ask –
> what is the value of 12+ years of Jewish education
> that is destroyed in a few months of a dorm?Reply:
“Jewish education” does not typically precede enrolling and moving into a “college dorm”, other than in “Modern Orthodoxy”.Given the adulteration of “MO” education with “modernity”, Zionism and other heresies, it would not be a big surprise that a secular college dorm could do major damage to the soul of a Jew brought up “MO”.
But, even for someone who learned in a school that does not corrupt and taint their Judaism as does “MO”, still, of course a few months in a college dorm are lethal to a Jewish soul, regardless of how good is its education.
There are many examples in our mesorah about this. For example, Rashi tells us that the reason bnei Reuven joined with Korach in his rebellion against (Hashem and) Moshe Rabbeinu was their proximity to Korach. That’s it. Their proximity. Presumably, post-rebellion (start of), the bnei Reuven still learned Torah 24/7 as they always did. Yet even they were affected by this proximity to the point that they rebelled against Moshe Rabbeinu, about whom Hashem had already declared “viGam bicha yaameinu liOlam”.
A Jewish college student who is not only in proximity to all sorts of non-Jewish things, but also might join various non-Jewish activities and is also being actively taught all sorts of heresies, is obviously very vulnerable to losing all previous learning/hashkafa, etc. to the point of even losing his faith, R”L L”A.
does this topic serve any purpose?
HaKatan, I agree with most of it. There is this all-american minhag that a 18-y.o. needs to move away from family to an expensive dorm to develop on his own…Jews accepted this – and it works either with colleges and yeshivas and seminaries. Especially for those who go to areas without Jewish community – what is the motivation? If they choose such a college to begin with with parent approval – can we presume that there is a problem to begin with, not with kids in college?
As to hashkafa, I think parents should be more pro-active discussing those before kid goes to college. Most people eventually gets exposed to politics, science, culture. Even if they do not have a fbook, their friends do. My observation is that in many schools, whether modern or not, Jewish and general educations are on separate tracks. English/History/Science teachers might be normal, or they can push various agendas on their own. I guess schools with no English education do not have that problem..
In defining OTD I suggest that one line is in total non-observance of Shabbos (including yuntufs) and Kashrus. To be on the “other” (assimilated, non-frum) side of the line, one must be working at one’s job on Shabbos and in no way making “Shabbos” special (e.g. if you make a festive meal on Friday in honor of Shabbos, you aren’t totally off the derekh even if you go to work on Saturday morning). Not fasting on Yom Kippur and not going to hear Shofar on Rosh Ha-Shana, and not going to some sort of seder on Pesach probably indicate you are “gone”, but if you take off on Yom Kippur, have matsa on Pesach and shake a lulav now and then on Sukkos, you are still not totally OTD.
This suggest that to study the problem, one needs to have a scale reflecting both halacha and how various halachot are understood socially (e.g. many totally un-frum people still make a special meal on Shabbos, or take off on Yom Kippur, or attend a seder), and one needs to ask if someone is truely OTD if they have gone from frum to some level at which they while be strictly not “orthodox”, are still acting in ways that are clearly unassimilated.
Perhaps Chareidim can become more “modern” and still be clearly Orthodox while MO who want to move to the left become otd. Also, MO do not want Rebbeim to influence their children, just to teach them. They can be very vocal about this. The lack of respect for religion rubs off on the children.
Ujm, please post the source for your statistic. We can also ask how many OTD kids come back.
What I said before is based on the pasuk lo sosifu velo sigru, kol hamosif gorea, whoever adds diminishess. Adam Harishan was not clear that not touching is his addition (as pointed out by the sifsei chachamim there).
> Perhaps Chareidim can become more “modern” and still be clearly Orthodox while MO who want to move to the left become otd.
We use right/left colloquially as a political attribute and it does correlate with Haredi/MO division in US – Charedi are voting more rightwing , I am not sure we can apply it to our relationship to Hashem, and we already have right/left notion in Judaism. Are T’Ch who knew science more “left wing”? R Soloveichik? R Hertz? Rambam? Rabban Gamliel? is Shmuel more left-wing than Rav, because he seems to be stringer in dinim/business, while Rav in “religion”?
> do not want Rebbeim to influence their children, just to teach them.
not all, but some Rebbeim in a Litivishe school were influencing my kids to use “modern” as a generic swear word for everything they disagree with, as some do it here. To borrow your words, “This lack of respect for religion rubs off on the children.” When we went online, kids kept the middos they learned, but stopped swearing.
UJM: We know literally nothing about these “studies,” except that a rabbi mentioned that they exist in a single blog post. They could be completely worthless studies, or fraudulent, or they may not exist at all. All we have is an unsubstantiated rumor of the existence of studies.
Sure, we should try to prevent frum families, whether MO or not MO, from sending their kids to colleges where they will live a typical college lifestyle. Ideally, they should go to frum colleges or colleges with a large Orthodox population.
there is a recent Pew research about Jews in US. It has information about switches between denominations, interpmarriage, etc. I did not read the whole report yet.
I find it difficult to believe that in the Chasidish and Yeshivsh world boys go OTD more because look at the heads of the anti-frum OTD movements like Footsteps, look at all the anti-frum OTD writers. The ratio is about 8:1 female vs. male Even YAFFED which claims to be Yeshiva graduate has a half female board. I can think of other OTD anti-frum organizations that don’t have a single male board member.
Therefore I question how it can be that men go OTD more.
smerel, I don’t think you can judge who is leaving yiddishkeit by counting activists. Most people move on with their lives without joining organizations.
Always ask questions asks what is the value of the easily destroyed yeshiva education?
The education is completely academic. They know how to keep shabbos but they count the hours and minutes until it is over so that they can watch a movie or be on the internet. They show up to daven every day but they don’t think about what they are saying in order to get it over with. They can read tanach to do well on tests but they’d rather read secular books for pleasure. There was never a strong connection to yiddishkeit so when grades don’t matter and nobody is around to bother them about these things… there’s not much left to go on.ujm: R’ Pruzanky was asked about the survey. He admitted that he never read it or even saw an article – he was relying on an oral report, and never verified it.
His article said that 50% of MO High School graduates are no longer Shomer Shabbos within 2 years. Now, let’s assume that’s true (I don’t think it is). What you need to take into account is how many were shomer Shabbos to begin with? I know of a bunch of schools who have students that are not shomer Shabbos. The school still takes them in to try and teach them about Shabbos, and to get them to be more observant. But even with that, I highly doubt that even close to 50% of grads stop keeping Shabbos. If you could find the actual survey, I’d love to read through it. I question whether it actually exists at all.DaMoshe: Nowhere close to 50% of MO high school students come from irreligious homes. As such, any way you slice or dice it, r’l a high percentage of formerly frum MO high school students go off the derech.
I still want to know what percentage eventually comes back.
ujm: You have no idea how many MO high school students go OTD. Why would you make assumptions?
DaMoshe: I’m not. I’m relying on one of the most eminent MO rabbi with one of the largest congregations in one of the most prominent MO towns.
You may wish to nitpick what he said but regardless of the particulars of any survey or scientific poll, or lack thereof, the fact that he with his intimate knowledge of the community could publicly make the case that 50% of MO post-high school students go OTD, and lament that terrible situation, means the figure or general situation is minimally plausible, and more likely, given he being in a better position than most to comment about the subject, fairly close to reality.
ari-free makes a good point.
It’s so important for us to explain to our kids WHY we keep the mitzvos and talk about our relationship with Hashem. Emunah is key. It’s important for our kids to feel it in their hearts, not just go through the motions. Not just how, but WHY. Why does Hashem love us, etc.
I also can’t understate the importance of filters on cell phones, and better yet, don’t buy them a smart phone but rather a simple cell phone without data.
Be careful not to make it a circular reasoning. Hashem loves us even if we don’t keep his mitzvos like a father his son.
> because it is relatively easy to be a frum girl.
I came to a similar conclusion – it is easier to want to marry T’Ch than to actually become one. Even your list of a “frum” boy missed a “couple” of things – derech eretz and derech eretz (middos and earning an honest living).
Is it really easier to be a yeras shamaim young lady than bocher? Probably not, if her education would focus on middos, professional education on how to be a teacher (future family or school), earning an honest living, etc
At the end, the explanation is probably biological – males of all species and nations are prone to more risk and deviation from the norm.
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