7 Responses

1. I wish there were more people like R. Schiller. He’s a sensitive, well balanced and intellectually honest person.

2. As always, Rabbi Schiller is articulate and brilliant, expounding on so many of todays issues. Hashem should grant him many years of good health and strength to keep educating us all.

3. He seems to be talking about the chasidish element. It is in that society were kids and teenagers growing up feel taht they are enclosed and sheltered and cannot be anything other then learning full time.

4. How come more people have not posted?

5. Actually, classact (comment #3), he’s not talking specifically about the chasidish element. He’s talking partly about Eretz Yisroel, where anyone who wants to work is already a rebel, unless they are Mizrachi.

   Here in the U.S. in the concentrated frum yeshivish communities, the drop-outs are rising. As he infers… once they think they want to do something that’s considered treif in their community, they consider themselves to be “outsiders”, and then they don’t have any boundaries about what is ok, and what isn’t ok. Being “into clothes” somehow morphs into being “into girls”, and the rest is a downhill spiral that is so fast, it’s scary. One day they are struggling to fit into a full-time learning schedule, and the next they are fooling around – on Shabbos – with issurei kareis, Rachmana Litzlan.

   That is the truth.

   The Oskim B’tzarchei Tzibbur have their hands full, trying to catch these kids before they are lost beyond return. These amazing unsung heroes are begging us to reduce the stresses of perfectionism, and the commmunity continues to celebrate elitism in shidduchim, in seminaries, in yeshivos, and in material possessions…

   We need to fight back… celebrate the average kid for being an important part of Klal Yisrael. Be interested in who he/she is. Encourage individuality within the community. Every neshama is special, but most kids today don’t know that that is a Torah concept. They search for it in secular Americanism. To be accepted for who they are, they associate with the lowest elements of society. Don’t take my word for it. Stand outside a local pool hall on a Motzei Shabbos… but be prepared to cry. Once you are there…. offer a warm word… and a free car ride home.

   Maybe you can be part of the road back.

6. to # 5.
   Thanks for that.

   However I know many boys in the litvish frum community today who are working even before marriage. Many of them have opted to go into the workforce upon returning from israel or even earlier . Thankfully there is more tollerance today then even ten years ago towards a non full time learning boy, as it relates to both his social standing and his shidduch abilitys. That is a good thing.
   There is respect in the community and jobs today for a boy who is not capable of learning full time and wants to take a job even prior to marriage. That goes for boys in Flatbush , Lakewood , Monsey , Queens Etc.

   The boys in the pool hall that your describing are sadly challenged in other ways beyond just not wanting to stay at learning. Either its familly issues or personal issues that bring their situation about.

   In the chassidish community however it is much worse. Pride image and honor are so important that any kid that wants to see the outside world is ostracized automaticaly.

   I just attended a wedding several weeks ago of a young boy and girl who were both from yeshiva type fammilies in Lakewood. The boy had come to work in my office a year ago. The wedding was beautifull and well attended by his former yeshiva friends and rosh yeshiva. I saw this as a positive sign of our times .

7. To No. 4

   “How come more people have not posted?”

   Because their is no scandal involved. Just a special Yid talking, nothing that excites the usual posters.

   Rest assured, had he been talking about banning Lipa or the ever expanding Agri mess, you’d have more comments than you could read.