“My fellow Yidden, what are we doing wrong? Why have we been unable to transmit the truth and beauty of Yiddishkeit to so many of our children? Gitty and teenager and so many others that I meet in person just break my heart.”
Do you REALLY want the answer to that? The answer will open a Pandora’s Box that you will not ever want to know about. The frum world does NOT want to really know why so many kids are off the derech, because the answer strikes at the heart of the Yiddishkeit that is being practiced by the Lakewood Bubbies and Zaydies. Fifty years ago, we were also frum Jews, but we lived NORMAL lives. Our boys and girls (horrors!) talked to each other after shul and in the street. Some went to Coed schools (like Crown Heights Yeshivah, as did I), and we were allowed to be normal kids playing in the street. We were tzniusdig, because the emphasis was not so strong on what we were wearing on the outside, but who we were INside. People were friendlier, more welcoming, more accepting, and less judgmental. Now there is a schism even among the various frum factions, where if you come from one frum background you may still not be good enough for another one. These are harsh observations, I know. But the truth is often harsh. I truly do not mean to climb on a soapbox, but it really does break my heart when I hear an intelligent, sensitive girl like Gitty say that she does not believe. Clearly she is one of MANY of our children who need to be shown that there are other equally valid ways of being a religious Jew, ways that do not necessarily “shtim” with being observant in exactly the way that the Yeshivish world is observant. I would be thrilled to hear that Gitty was keeping a kosher lifestyle and not being mechalel Shabbos. Those two things are critical to being frum, NOT how long the skirt length is, how many prakim of Tehillim are being said, or if she wears the color red. We focus so much on certain minutiae ( as perceived by those who eventually go off the derech), that we cannot see the forest for the trees.