Reply To: The OTD Crisis: Observations

BS”D

Unfortunately this thread has been twisted in such a way that I have no idea what is being spoken of anymore.

Anyway:

1) Shygetz Aross in that pronunciation has a historical reference I would rather not discuss here – it is not to be taken literally that someone who is mechutz lamachane is not Jewish chas vesholom. However, I believe strongly that the solution to the OTD problem should include out of town boarding schools where a kid has a chance to reshape himself with proper guidance – and where he does NOT have the chance to influence others.

2) Why would someone who has gone off the derech expect his friends to remain friends with him? They no longer want to do the same things together; they no longer have the same interests. In my world, the frum kids spend much of their spare time (during the school year) helping others get closer to Hashem; kids who are off but want to stay around (or have no choice) have a drop-in center where they find friends with similar interests as well as a possibility to attain life skills. When someone changes their life in any way, they often have to change friends. I have no secular friends left from the time I was away; I relocated which made it easier but I had stopped going to places where they go months before I relocated and little by little I lost contact with them. They don’t miss me and I don’t miss them. And when I was off I was in contact with perhaps one of my old frum friends a couple of times because we share an interest in technology. And of course when you know that being frum is right, you look down on someone who has fallen especially if you are a kid and don’t know how to bring him back.

3) If you want to hang around with a better crowd, then you have to fit in with that crowd, especially as a kid. If you sincerely want to improve then eventually you will be welcomed. If not, as I said, what do you have in common with that crowd that you can hang out with them? You want to bring them to your level and invite them to shoot pool, or hoops, or drugs chas vesholom? They’re not interested any more than I was when a former friend of mine who enjoys going out for fancy treyf food and wine on a Friday night tried to contact me.

4) If I ever have a kid in trouble, I hope I would have the strength to know that something in the atmosphere I created for him is at fault. If it is the school, then without hesitation I would send him to another school no matter where and take very strong interest in what happens in that school. If it is his siblings or the particulars of his place in the family – ditto. If he is reading divrei kefira and decides he wants out so he can go to college, I would give him minimal support and insist that he do so out of town while leaving the door open. Given that I am very strict about drinking only on Shabbos and do not even use painkillers when I had them prescribed for me, my views on drugs are in line with those of the governments of Thailand and Malaysia – and after one chance, if any kid I ever have touched drugs I would leave him to law enforcement. I would also demand to know where he got the stuff and I would very quickly do what I could to have the dealer busted.

5) For me Gehennom is up there with the arba misois beis din as a topic for Purim torah. The only time I mention it in any serious vein is when I speak of tzoirerim – anti-Semites who have peygered or deserve to peyger. I have done and still do some informal counseling, and it has never even once occurred to me to mention gehennom. That doesn’t work and that is a totally non-Jewish understanding of gehennom; it came from the notzrim who surrounded us in Europe.

6) I knew Teen was a guy from the moment he posted :))).