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On Friday, Pearl Reich, former Hasidic woman battling for custody, will appear on Dr. Phil…
I will reserve judgment as why she decided to leave because it is not my place to judge ones personal life…
However, I find it quite startling on how much the secular media is paying attention…
This does however lead me to several questions…
Is there more of this going on then we realize?
Is there something that can be done to help people on the brink of leaving due to unhappy marriages and life experiences?
Is it time that more professional (orthodox therapist) are made available to help and that seeking their help is not seen as a stigma?
Should parents guide their children into Social work, Psychology schools etc. in their studies so there are more therapist in the frum world?
Should time be spent in Chosen and Kallah classes about what it means to be married, form a partnership and how to cope with stress, finances etc.?
thoughts?
It just looks like their trying to outdo one another.
There is an over week old thread about this already (called something like Lakewood OTD). Its an old story. Anyways, theres a lot more OTD in mo circles than in chasidic circles, so I’m not sure why (or if?) you are specifically referencing hadisim.
“Is there more of this going on then we realize?”
yes
“Is there something that can be done to help people on the brink of leaving due to unhappy marriages and life experiences?”
not really, but youre welcome to try
“Is it time that more professional (orthodox therapist) are made available to help and that seeking their help is not seen as a stigma?”
YES OH MY GOD YES
“Should parents guide their children into Social work, Psychology schools etc. in their studies so there are more therapist in the frum world?”
guiding anyone into a specific profession is always problematic, but it should be accepted as a reasonable profession for frum people, aside from the usual special ed, PT and OT.
“Should time be spent in Chosen and Kallah classes about what it means to be married, form a partnership and how to cope with stress, finances etc.?”
cant answer that…never been to one
There is nothing to learn from an apearance on TV. It does not reflect any reality, at all. There might be something major going on, but unreported, so you don’t know and care about it. There might be nothing going on but it is being broadcast so you do care about it. Don’t let yourself be a puppet of some company’s programming management’s decisions. If you want you can take it as a reminder, but definitely not as a revealation.
Thank you soliek, saved me from writing all that!
And for the last point – what else ? Do you teach someone the halachos of basar b’chalav and now expect them to work as a chef ? Teach them the halachos pertaining to the medical field and expect them to know how to operate ?
What goes on is ridiculous. They’re taught some mush about the difference in gender personality, (way too generalized of course), told to be understanding, and tada! ready to get married and deal with life!
People enjoy knocking others down, as it makes them feel better. It makes people feel especially good to knock down those who belong to groups that adhere to a higher moral standard. The world at large is happy to knock down any orthodox Jew or religious person. Within orthodoxy there is the same tendency to want to knock down those who give us a “guilty conscience” about our own observance. Self confident people don’t have a need to bash others.
Should time be spent in Chosen and Kallah classes about what it means to be married, form a partnership and how to cope with stress, finances etc.?
No. All it will do is prevent shidduchim and make bochrim leave Kollel, or even worse, prepare for the possibility.
the reason former Hasids appear on TV is because its a better story than MO leaving.
The reality is MO people are not particulary interesting to TV. They dont look or act different that other people, they talk, work and dress like everyone else. They are not mysterious.
Hasids are more mysterious between their dress, look , speech actions etc are much more different and make great TV.
Its likely most people have met a MO person, but very few have ever met or spoken to a Chasid and riding the subway or shopping at B & H doesnt really count.
Anybody who is different is who they want. They want people like Amish as well because they are so different.
I think we are going thru out own FB revolution rachmana litzlan
We need choshuve rabonin on FB to counter.
Logician: When people get married they already know how to treat their spouse from their upbringing, whether in a good way or a bad way.
Sure, chosson & kallah teachers can do more teaching in how to treat a spouse, but a few lessons is usually not going to do the trick for those with issues.
These boys & girls who are going off the derech after they get married, are not ones that were emotionally healthy and erlich and after they got married all of the sudden they wanted out of yiddishkeit due to the hardships in their marriage.
heres the thing. firstly, thank you logician.
when something like this happens, the first question to ask is why is the person like that? of course youll get all the kanaim telling you that the question is irrelevant, but it really isnt. many, if not most of the time something like this, and feldman too, happens its because someone is hurt, and very angry. left unchecked, that anger and hurt gets turned against what the person thinks is the source. lets say the source is a parent, right? so the kids anger gets turned against everything that makes the parent who he or she is…including religion. of course objectively speaking the religion would be irrelevant, but to someone who is hurt and angry, that DISTINCTION is irrelevant, and it must be religion’s fault.
what happens when a person gets angry? i know that when i get angry i want to break things…i want to yell…i want to cause damage…and i want everyone else around me to feel what im feeling. and thats pretty standard. the magnitude depends on the person, why they are angry, and how they usually respond to feelings of anger. but in anyone, you let anger fester long enough and it grows into something monstrous and uncontrollable, and you get a woman like this.
again, since no one seemed to understand me in the previous thread, having a reason for being angry does NOT justify what you do while angry. it simply explains why it happened.
heres a nice parallel: if you walk around harlem at 2 in the morning with a very expensive watch, carrying a very expensive laptop, and talking on a very expensive phone, and youre not particularly imposing…you may very well be mugged. and you should know better. does that justify the mugging? no! but if you wanted to not get mugged, you should have understood the problem and avoided it.
so yeah…summary? i dont like this new trend, but it begs the question: why are they so angry, and what can be changed to make sure that anger like that doesnt build in others?
computer777 – of course one’s upbringing is a big factor, but there’s plenty to learn.
The main point isn’t how to treat a spouse, but understanding marriage, and the issue’s life brings. Most young people are very naive about it.
I do agree that there are much bigger issue’s going on i the particular cases like the OP’s.
Where is all the anger coming from?
I don’t claim to know the answer to that but I do have my opinion.
We live in an entitlement society and from when our children are very little they know that they deserve “a” and that “b” is coming to them. If someone were to dare tell them something they don’t like then they have the “right” to be insulted, talk back, etc. We reward our children for every stupid thing. The latest is if you’ll be good when in the shoe store (when the kid themselves is getting new shoes) you’ll get a prize. The thing that gets to me most is the “fairness” and the exact-to-the-hairline- division of rights, goodies, drinks, or anything the kids want or even don’t want but need to have exactly what everyone else has.
I mean come on. Is this the way to prepare a kid for life? Bring them up in a bubble. Convince them that they are the best, smartest, prettiest, never-can-do wrong child in the whole wide world no matter what they do and expect them to grow up in the real world and deal with people?
Why would they have to compromise with a spouse? They are so much better than anyone – they don’t “deserve” to have to give up to make the other person happy. And anyway why deal with problems when its so easy to just drop out and find someone else – someone they really “deserve”. They don’t “deserve” to have to deal with financial problems – let the in-laws deal with it. If they can’t, find someone who does “deserve” to deal with money issues. They don’t “deserve” to have a second class job and they did they agree before they got married to dress their children in cheap clothing from department stores? No. If they would have known before….
That’s where anger comes into play. Nobody is ever taught at the proper age to deal with issues that aren’t exactly as they expect them to be.
big deal: sounds like youre angry about something…
No. Just something I feel strongly about.
Cute play on words, though.
I know someone who worked with her during her divorce. She felt that her husband’s connections put her at a big disadvantage. She felt she was getting a bad deal. I don’t know how true that is, but I know I have heard of many women who becomes less religious during a difficult divorce. Many feel that rabbis favor the man. Possibly what happened here.
Rabbi Shmuely Boteach was on the show to “defend” the orthodox commuity. The former hassid is now a model, and he said that there is nothing wrong doing that within the jewish community. WHAT?!?!
rosewood -“The former hassid is now a model, and he said that there is nothing wrong doing that within the jewish community. WHAT?!?! “
He probably means like the Frum models whom you see in the Jewish papers modeling wigs & dresses. He can’t possibly mean a Hollywood model.
just me -“I know someone who worked with her during her divorce. She felt that her husband’s connections put her at a big disadvantage. She felt she was getting a bad deal. I don’t know how true that is, but I know I have heard of many women who becomes less religious during a difficult divorce. Many feel that rabbis favor the man. Possibly what happened here.”
Name one. They go off and then they get divorced. Hey, but why NOT blame the Rabbonim & the community for her going OTD?!
There is no such thing as personal responsibility anymore!
In my case -she (my -ex) was pushed off by her “Frum” friends.
I don’t understand why they are still pretending -why didn’t they go with her?
Rosewood– do some research into Boteach and you’ll find out a lot more interesting opinions of his. Just so you know in no way does he represent the frum community.
Anyhow- regarding this story, if u watch what these “Going Offers” say when given the mike you quite quickly realize that either they had a horrible childhood, one which any child not just a “hassid” would rebel against, which causes them ro “run away” and blame it on the “system” them grew up in. In reality, hundreds of thousands of children grow up in the same manner as them (besides the abuse, neglect etc) and live productive happy and healthly lifestyles or, they have extreme desires which they cannot acheive while living as a frum jew because its wrong and not accepted, so they “leave” this way they can do whatever they want especially when they start to deny and say, eh its all nonsense, typical way of not feeling bad for the wrong that you’ve done. And then the audacity to go on TV and tell the world “the horrible way they were brought up” listen ur an exception to the masses who are happy with it all, so become a goy and keep it to urself! Don’t spread lies and yes they’ve lied about facts to make urself some money or fame. Really a disgrace, I mean there’s a lot of guilt in the issur of eishes ish one who commits that has to go all out to justify their actions.
Not a fan of Shmuley B., but I thought he handled the situation well and came off as a kiddush Hashem. This woman was a non-issue and even Dr. Phil had no practical advice. She came off as complaining and unlikeable.
i listened to the clips and was pretty horrified. i am sure that the only compatibility in her new relationship, is his agreeing with her anger at the community- to say that everybody- in monroe,lakewood,williamsburg,boro park etc, was forced to marry at 17 so that they would be tied down with kids before they had the maturity to realize that they didn’t want that type of life/spouse, is such a blatant lie that it is shocking that they have the stupidity to say it. and that 1000’s of his friends would divorce their wives, except that then they would lose their kids – what are they thinking? it’s really sad – here she is such a beautiful girl, has four children, should be happy and fulfilled and throwing it all away for a minute in the spotlight- if she really loved her children, she would not be going public – rather trying her best to shield them and their futures. oy we need mashiach.
Health– I like that you gave him benefit of the doubt, but I saw the clip and shes is aspiring to be a regular non- tznius model and he said that there is nothing wrong with that.
Soliek; (On exploring the reasons for the occurrence of (Angry) OTD people.)
There is a major distinction to be made between Perry Reich (who appeared on the Dr. Phil show) and Deborah Feldman. Where the former (religious person) is spouting hate and anger about “Chassidim” in general, she is primarily out for her own self-interest. She wants to have the proverbial cake and eat it, too. She wants to lead her promiscuous, Hollywood-oriented life and have custody of the children, too. The latter (Deb. Feldman), however, is an opportunist who takes jabs and soils the reputation of the individuals and groups that did the most for her. She tells the audience “What they like to hear”. Not even speaking about her own personality challenges.
Actually, every person that goes off the derech is because of me.
It’s my fault. Totally. 100%.
Not only that, but every person that gets sick, every murder that happens in the world, every theft and robbery and other crime, every extramarital affair, every tort and civil action, every violation of Shabbos, kashrus, Taharas HaMishpacha and on and on.
It’s all my fault. Not that I personally pulled the trigger, had the affair, violated Shabbos and so on, but in the end, the motivations, the reasons, the fault and the blame, all comes back to me.
So, enough at looking at excuses for these people. Just blame me. I deserve it.
The Wolf
WolfishMusings: I commend your bravery and honesty.
metrodriver: absolutely. I actually WAS referring to DF types.
WolfishMusings: I commend your bravery and honesty.
Thank you for the kind words, but nothing I do is ever commendable.
The Wolf
I’m waiting for haifagirl to post on this thread. 🙂
😀
I think that most Orthodox girls from the age of 12 and up (certainly the girls from less sheltered communities) are discussing these OTD women, and are grappling whith the issues raised by these tragedies.
I think that parents and educators need to find ways to help the girls who are ON the Derech find fulfillment in Yiddishkeit. I think that we must leave no stone unturned in looking for the necessary corrections we must each make in his or her realm in order that our children should find Torah and mitzvos inspiring.
MM: I totally agree with you. Funny thing is is that I said the same thing many times when I was watching my friends trying to find themselves.
WolfishMusings: Oh, please. Don’t be so humble. There is a story told about the most humble guy in town… Never mind. It’s too long and drawn out for a post on YWN.
I wish people would exercise bechira without having to be so public about it. If the lifestyle is not for you, drop it, leave it, abandon it. But why publicly bury a system and life which provides so greatly for so many? Thew divorce rate among chassidim is of the lowest in any civilized nation. It works tremendously for those who are part of the system. Don’t like it? Leave! But don’t try to take the system with you!
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