WIF, as I said before you are not well informed in this parsha and therefore your observations are not objective, knowledgeable nor accurate. YOU are interpreting the TORAH to mean what YOU want it to mean. YOU are looking only at the pshat. And rarely is Torah ever looked at only for pshat. So what needs to be done is to apply the TORAH to today’s situation and today’s world because the Torah will always be part and parcel of our lives and yet life goes on and on and the world changes and WE change along with it. For instance, one of melochim we are not allowed to to on shabbos is make fire. Well we don’t make fire in order to have light in this century we turn on a lamp. However, our Rabbonim and Gedolim interpreted the Torah to today’s life and assured us from turning on electricity on Shabbos which in their opinion and interpretation is equivalent to light or igniting a fire. By your way of thinking, didn’t Hashem know when he wrote the Torah that eventually we would have electricity? Why didn’t he put a clause in for that? Didn’t he know we would have cars, why didn’t he put in a clause for that? In another thread it is explained why Gedolim assered swimming because we might build a raft for safety and horse back riding because we might break a branch to use to hit the horse. But in today’s generation we have swimming pools so there is no need to build a raft for safety. Didn’t Hashem know we would have pools so why did the Gedolim have to add that geder and why hasn’t it been removed?
Your words are extremely foolish and shallow and I am not going to waste my time arguing with you any longer. To me it seems you have a need to be right and thats it so you will argue your point to death. I will say this again. Yes children need to be taught responsibility at every level of their lives, but and this is a big but, the responsibility that they can be held accountable for has to be in line with their level of maturity and ability for that level of responsibility. And again I will tell you that YOU don’t understand the parsha because children do not just wake up one day and say “Oh, today I think I will go off the derech”. It is not a simple choice like what I will have for breakfast. It is a very painful situation, and it is a process because of an unbearable pain that is eating at them. A pain that was caused by another frum person either because of a dysfunctional family or a trusted Rav or mechanech! A child does not “choose” to be abused either verbally, emotionally, physically or sexually. And when that happens they do not choose to suffer the pain, humiliation and heartbreak that goes with it. They also do not choose to not know who to turn to and not know how to get help. AND they don’t choose to go off the derech it is a process that happens to them. Just like YOU don’t choose to get depressed and you don’t choose to have a tooth ache or cavity and you don’t choose to get a headache or cold. It happens to you and the only choice you have is what to do about it. The problem is children in the same situation try to help each other. The blind leading the blind and they lead each other off the derech. But B”H there is hope because there are others who help lead them back.
As for all those mathematical statisticians out there, good luck with your survey but really, there is no way to figure it out because it happens in every yeshiva, in every neighborhood straight across the board.