BS”D
Some rabbis may be the ones who are davka letting their problem cases go to EY so as to be rid of them. I know full well the chinuch system is badly in need of repair – but two wrongs do not make a right.
EY does not help these kids unless they happen to be sent to a remedial program or end up in the good hands of someone like my friend. In some cases, they fall in with OTD children of olim and end up staying in EY – on Kikar Crack or in rehab.
However, I know of quite a few cases where kids, usually modern but strong modern, ended up OTD in E”Y. The reasons would take me hours to discuss for some of the cases whom I knew personally. But one of these reasons most certainly was exposure to secular Jewish culture that was being presented as an alternative to Torah chas vesholom. And that reason pertained davka to a kid, an activist in Bnei Akiva in his home city, whom I saw fall with my own eyes.
When you live among goyim, you know you are am Segula and you know who you are and why you are. It was no coincidence that I was listening to “Sheloi Asani Goy” on my walk home from shul as I was passing a goyish wedding hall. I had to turn my head sideways and look at the (polluted Dnepr) river for shmiras eynayim because some very pritzusdige and prust female guests were out getting fresh air.
But what of the boy, half my age and without my experience in life, who passes a typical frei wedding party in EY? The music is in Hebrew and he understands it; he may even hear a familiar song from a crossover artist like Haim Israel or Gad Elbaz being sung. If he is strong, then he knows that while he should not think “sheloi asani goy”, he should remember that Hashem was hivdilanu min hatoim and these people don’t understand that. If he is weak, or even has a moment of weakness, he can be drawn into the music and the openness and that can be the beginning of his fall L”A.
When you live among Yidden doing everything wrong and building a society based on that wrong superseding Torah, it takes a lot of strength to withstand the temptation to sink.
Not everyone has that strength. Those who don’t will fall, because when the highest kedusha is mixed with the lowest klipa, it becomes the equivalent of my infamous lye cake where the klipa infects and dissolves anyone who consumes it along with the kedusha. And not everyone can tell that the lye cake, which does have one cup of cocoa powder and one cup of sugar besides the lye, is not a sweet chocolate cake.
(and if you are sick of hearing about lye cakes, another moshol is a cup of Coke mixed in with a cup of Coke lookalike Hercules Clobber – Google it if you don’t know what it is but the name says it all.)