[By Rabbi Yair Hoffman]

Notwithstanding the headline, this is a rather serious article that painfully cries out for a solution.

Let’s begin with both a plug for and a criticism of the Secret Service. The Secret Service does an excellent job in protecting the President and his family. Yet there are problems – serious ones that demand a new modus operandi. Below are some of the serious problems that transpired due to improper procedures and protocols.

In September of 2014, an intruder jumped over the White House fence and entered the White House through an unlocked door. He effortlessly made it deep into the East Room. Who caught him? It was an off-duty agent – someone that shouldn’t have been there.

A week later, an armed individual with an arrest record was in the same elevator as President Obama. In 2011, shots were fired at the White House where the president’s daughter was inside. It took four days for the Secret Service to realize it.

An outside government study demonstrated that the Secret Service has systemic problems associated with its culture of leadership that will not resolve overnight. These were egregious systemic failures.

Now let’s go to Purim and our Yeshivos. Our Yeshivos do a fine job in educating our children in Gemorah. But there is also a secret that we are keeping – one that many of us don’t wish to talk about. The “secret” is an accident waiting to happen.

The secret is that there are high school aged students who dorm away from home in yeshivas. On Purim, many of these students go collecting for various institutions and or Tzedakos. They tell their parents that they are going to Person X or community Y.

“Don’t worry, Ma, I am going with responsible people.. One of them is Gadol B’s grandson! Everything will be fine.”

They go. They drink. They are given more alcohol by well-meaning Baal HaBattim distributing Tzedakah to those who knock at their door. The reluctant host parents are unaware, in fact, that they are the host parents. The parent is assuming that there is a host parent. The Yeshiva takes no responsibility for anything.

There is drinking, more drinking, and running around to find a fun “Matzav” as the term goes. The period can last anywhere from after the first Megillah reading on the night of Purim – all the way to the day of Shushan Purim – 36 hours in total.

Boruch Hashem, some Yeshivos have actually hired bouncers to take control of the alcohol consumption. They keep out strangers who have imbibed too much. But this is a rarity.

The situation is such that there are people asleep in a drunken stupor at homes where the mothers do not even know the identity of the kid in the drunken stupor.

Indeed, recently, one reluctant host parent who did not even wish to be a host parents asked another reluctant host parent to take and email a photo of the kid in the drunken stupor to make sure that that kid is not the kid that they were looking for.

One responsible ninth grader told his parents that there were meat balls in front of the house. He then commented and inquired, “First I thought it was vomit, but then I saw that it was meatballs. Is it even possible for a person to actually throw up whole meatballs?”

In the meantime, there are hundreds of young men getting seriously drunk to the point where they need medical attention. There are Hatzolah calls, hospital visits, and thousands of incidents of vomiting. There are home break-ins in which the drunken to Lot-level-shikrus Yeshiva student needs a bed to stay. There are DUI and there are arrests. There was even a case of a life-threatening stabbing, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery – a stabbing from unzer to unzer. And thousands of mothers are worried sick if they are aware of what is happening, and if not – they are oblivious.

All this information is suppressed. The Yeshivos suppress because if people knew the extent of what has or can transpire they would neither send any child to that Yeshiva nor support it. And the parents suppress because of Shidduchim.

There are systemic problems in the Dorm Yeshiva Purim scene and it is an accident waiting to happen. Wait one second – that is inaccurate. The accidents are happening and they are happening all the time.

A protocol needs to be developed where these systemic issues are addressed. Signing Kol Korehs and taking out ads in Jewish newspapers is not enough. It is a mere platitude – lip serviceto a deeply rooted problem, that not only endangers our children but is a huge cause of national Chilul Shaim Shamayim.

The protocol should address and delineate the Yeshiva’s responsibilities, the parents’ responsibilities, the Tzedakos’ responsibilities, the responsibilities of the Tzeddakah homes they visit, the host parent responsibilities (reluctant though they may be), and the friends’ responsibilities.

Those in the know realize quite well that the problem here is not being overstated in the slightest. Women in our community dread Shushan Purim because of the volume of vomit cleaning that they must perform. There is a reason why every Hatzolah is spending much needed money in the newspapers.

My personal thinking is that the collecting should be stopped. It is a recipe for disaster. The providing of alcohol to young men collecting should also be stopped – aside from the fact that it is illegal. Both the parents and the Yeshivos should work together to ensure that the whereabouts of each child is known at all times – hour by hour.
Are we mad? Why are we accepting of this reality – a situation of sheer and utter lunacy? The dangers are far greater now than ever before.

Why do we need a death or a tragedy to spur us into action?

These issues are the pressing ones that should be addressed at our organizational conventions and meetings. Kashrus issues such as bugs in orange juice, and Hashkafic threats about schismatic movements like Open Orthodoxy or people that go on the Temple Mount are certainly important – indeed, this author has written a number of articles about these issues. But we need to develop a protocol and a solution to this systemic problem within our own communities. These are the pressing of our time and we cannot remain with our heads in the sand.

May Hashem bring yeshuos to Klal Yisroel.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY 5TJT