I live in Baltimore and it is no secret of the atrocity which occurred in our community a week and a half ago. Having said that, I was hoping one of the small good thing to come out of this would be the community waking up and acting on this on a major scale. Maybe it will still happen, but talking to some highschool kids, I get the impression that nothing substantive is being done. The kids still feel rejected by their community, their school and some even by their families. Children who do not get enough love, attention and validation as important, look for other ways to fill the void. They turn to drugs, they turn to alcohol and many many other things. There needs to be an all out war against these things, and yes even at the expense of exposing some real good kids who come from very frum homes and don’t know much from these things. I keep hearing the same excuse, “we can’s expose the other kids who aren’t exposed”. I strongly disagree, there is a way to expose them to the dangers and the concepts without getting too specific. We must expose all the children to the dangers so they know that their rebbeim, teachers and community are aware that its a problem and when they are faced with these issues they feel comfortable talking to people about it. A few of the kids I have spoken to since the tragedy happened feel that the issue is not being tackled and that there is only finger pointing and not enough action is being done. We must help our children, they need to know that making mistakes is part of life, they wont be excommunicated for it. They need to feel loves, wanted and needed, by their community, their school and their families above all. Its a scary world out there for the kids but we need to make them feel that there is fight is not theirs alone and that we, the adults, the rebbeim, the community is there to guide them through the rough waters. I can only say that with the situation the way it is, may mashiach come soon and end all of the troubles in the Jewish Community at large.
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