BS”D
I did not grow up in the system; instead I returned and returned again. Therefore, I have no idea what is being taught in the system, and by that I mean any system from MO to Mishkenois HaRoim. (As I was never confronted with anyone who spoke that way in my chosen community, I assume this is not the way Yiddishkeit is taught in our particular yeshivas, schools and seminaries, although we too most definitely have serious problems reaching some of our young people who are questioning and testing the boundaries).
But if people are being taught that they will be struck down by lightning for not keeping Shabbos, then of course rebellion and a desire to test the boundaries will result.
When a Jew who knows what Shabbos is does not keep it, he is just not fulfilling his potential and doing what Hashem put him here for. Nowadays, you do not get zapped for that. Even in the days of the beis hamikdash it was not Hashem Himself, or a ray of lightning that He sent, but rather the human beis din or Sanhedrin, that carried out skila for chilul Shabbos, and that only in very restricted circumstances.
I must say that I do know of two people – actually three, with the second two being involved in the same maaseh – who seemingly were clearly punished by Hashem for certain aveiros. The one I know firsthand was a clear case of mida keneged mida in that he destroyed something very dear to Hashem and a few months later Hashem took away that which was dear to him. The other two were conspirators in a resolved aguna case that BH ended very well for the now freed and remarried young lady, whereas these two met up with very unpleasant, but seemingly natural, circumstances at the time of the case.
But none of them did what they did out of questioning or doubts in their belief. On the outside these people are very frum. They did what they did out of plain old greed; they are like the real or imagined haimishe gonif who goes on and on about how he does not want to see “his tax money” pay for welfare while he himself runs a successful business off the books or in his bubbe’s name and gets Medicaid and Section 8.
And I knew of the first one before I went off; what happened did not change my decision at the time because for every person like that who seemingly got “zapped” there are ten who prosper despite their aveiros bein odom lamakom and bein odom lechaveiro.
Instead, the right approach to education is bekol drachecho doehu – to understand that within the limits of Torah, there are many ways to serve Hashem and all of those ways were created or enabled by Hashem in order to allow us to fulfill our true potential as members of the am segula who were created with a particular purpose.