Introduction

Rarely in its 35 years of publication has The Jewish Observer devoted an entire issue to one subject. While the current phenomenon of “Children in the Torah community on the fringe… and beyond” in America does not remotely compare in numbers or intensity to Torah Jewry’s hemorrhaging in Western Europe in the nineteenth century, and in Eastern Europe and Israel in the twentieth, it can no longer be ignored. In contrast to other times and places, when poverty was rampant, the threat of pogroms and persecution hung heavy in the air, or exciting, “new” ideologies pulled at Jewish youth, American Jewry today lives in serenity and contentment, enjoys great prosperity and is not confronted by ideological challenge. In much of Europe and Israel, defections from Torah were accompanied by an attempt at philosophical rationalization. Today’s slide downward generally does not include even the flimsiest ideological veneer.

This should not be shrugged off as the problem of isolated individuals. Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik of Brisk once interrupted a gathering of rabbinic leaders to raise funds for the army exemption of a yeshiva boy. When asked how he could interrupt an important Klal meeting for the needs of one boy, he pounded on the table and said: “Every yachid (individual) is an entire Klal.”

It is precisely because every individual is an entire world that, even were we to contend that in relative terms the phenomenon is unusual, we must have the forthrightness to look this problem squarely in the face, rethink our premises, reconsider our attitudes, and ensure the fulfillment of our responsibilities.

We cannot afford to write off a single child.

From the moment that Hashem chose Avraham because He knew that he would “charge his sons and family after him to observe the way of G-d,” every Jewish parent has known that the ehrlichkeit of one’s children is the ultimate measure of success or failure in life. It is for that reason that the worry that ones children may go “off the derech” strikes such terror in the hearts of parents and grandparents, who don’t sleep at night for fear of what may become of their children. It is a horror that is rarely glimpsed by others and cannot really be shared.

The dread of “losing a child” often shatters domestic harmony as well. In the words of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, “Family problems and domestic grief gnaw at the hearts of men; they are like fine needle tips whose miniscule wounds the world tends to overlook, but which in the end may cause many a heart to bleed to death. For they strike a man in the one peaceful place to which he flees trying to escape from life’s struggles.”

The mutual responsibility of all Jews does not allow one who has been successful with his own children to cluck smugly in sympathy and do nothing. The mark of the great Torah leaders, from Moshe Rabbeinu until our day, is the care and concern that they evince for every individual, the conviction that every Jewish child is their own.

It is not our task to assign blame, point fingers, or self-assuredly maintain that there are conclusive answers. Every child is different and no two situations are alike. But there are risk factors, and there are areas that bear improvement. Clearly, many children in high risk environments will grow into fine, noble and righteous Jews. But we are still required to do whatever we can to minimize those risks.

One more point. It is human nature to blame “the system” for society’s ills and for personal failures. That is understandable for two reasons. On the one hand, the individual takes comfort in the assumption that whatever happens is not his fault. On the other, it gives people a reasonable framework with which to comprehend what may seem inexplicable or too painful to confront.

There are those who claim – inaccurately and unfairly – that fault lies with our heroic mechanchim. We reject that claim. Most rabbe’im and morahs are overworked, underpaid, underappreciated – and yet, notably effective. Are they all perfect? No. But they are far more devoted and caring than most of their detractors. And if all the critics of “the system” would focus their energies on ensuring the financial viability and societal prestige of the chinuch profession in America, the face of Orthodox Jewry across the country would be unrecognizable.

In preparing this issue, we have drawn on the insights and guidance of Gedolei Torah, benefitted from the experience of mechanchim (Torah educators), invited the comments of mental health professionals, and shared the anguish of parents. Not all of them are in agreement with each other, but every one opens a window to a painful – even tragic – scene, and instructs the rest of us in how to avoid pitfalls and traps, how to identify with the pain of the errant youths and their suffering families, and how to help them out of their grievous situations.

We have no illusions that any magazine issue or series of articles can effect a quick fix. The healing of societal maladies is measured in millimeters. But that fact does not absolve us from doing everything we can. It is precisely in regard to problems such as these that Chazal instruct us (Avos 2:21): “The task is not yours to complete; neither are you free to desist from it.”

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