How to Deal with Teenage Baalei Teshuva

Is it really your responsibility to go around inspecting teenage boys’ rooms to make sure they’re not on their phones?

Is it also your responsibility to make sure that someone doesn’t sleeps face down?

What kind of a rebbe are you? If I dealt with someone like you, I’d be turned off, also.

Teens need autonomy. They don’t need you to nitpick. You need to be gentle and kind-hearted. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. You seem to lack the ability to teach and impart Jewish values and spirituality in any significant manner.

You’d be best leaving kiruv to the professionals.

ummmmmm…..

not commenting on who was right or wrong in this case- just saying that I can ABSOLUTELY see where the kid was coming from.

For me, if I were the kid who was woken up, it wouldn’t be the whole halachic aspect that would bother me- it would be the fact that omeone woke me up to correct the way that I was sleeping.

Are these kids already baalei teshuva or not frum at all? If they’re not frum at all, then I don’t think it’s a good idea to regulate what they do in private AT ALL.

Ok i will ask what is a prakdon?

These kids aren’t on that level, though.

I agree with the above poster, and that was my point exactly: you cannot regulate personal, private issues in a kiruv environment.

I’ve been told that in kiruv, the only tochecha that should be given is correcting averot be farhesya; i.e. if a Jewish male is bareheaded, or if he’s taking his phone out in a public place on shabbat, or about to take out non-kosher food, then you stop them.

To have an impact on teens, you need to emphasize the positive things- ruchiyut, spirituality, singing, stories, fun activities, good food, good “chevrashaft,” things like that.

playtime

The issur is only to go to sleep on your back or front. If it happened while he was sleeping there is no issur. I dont know where it says you have to wake anyone up who you find sleeping that way. Personally I think if you don’t know halacha, don’t know how to present halacha and explain why we do the things we do, and can’t figure when its necessary to say something and when not you have no business being in Kiruv. In fact you probably will send them back off the derech.

Yes, you should apologize.

most kiruv shabbatons ive been to the rule is no public chilul shabbos. at an aish shabbaton, i was walking through the halls late friday night and yes i can hear the TV on and radio in other rooms, but barging in and making sure?

in megillas rus it naomi pushed rus away by explaining all the halachos of yichud and tchum shabbos, etc. paying close attention, after pushing her away exactly 3 times and rus still persisted, naomi did not continue mussairng her with nitty gritty halachos as to not overwhelm her. once someone makes the commitment now we welcome them with open arms and first let them see the beauty before what may seem to “diss” them. save that for when they value the reasons for such delicate halachos. i think you could have let that go….

Embarrassing a talmid, al pi Rambam, can be mutar, if it will motivate the talmid (Hilkhot Talmud Torah 4:5). Kids on this level won’t be motivated through embarassment, though.

The Az Nidberu (R’ Binyamin Zilber) 12:42 was asked if someone sleeping on their back or stomach ought to be woken up. He paskened that the issur is to go to sleep lying flat. Once a person is sleeping he is not over any issur and is not responsible to be in any specific position. Therefore you need not wake him up.

The issur of falling asleep perakdan comes from Berakhot 13b. The Gemara says that saying kriyat shema in this position is assur and R’ Yehoshua ben Levi curses one who sleeps like this. The Az Nidberu says that the peshat here is that it is assur to fall asleep face down or on the back.

You’re not endearing anybody to Torah by waking them out of their sleep.

Do you have someone who gives you eitzot on kiruv? If you’re doing this work, you need to have the proper rebbeim guiding you.

I have never heard of this halacha. What if someone is unable to fall asleep lying flat?

jewishfeminist02

The Halacha is that one should sleep only on their side preferably the left.

jewishfeminist02

unless the person has some kind of wound on their side there is no reason why someone cant sleep on their side. Its all a matter of training yourself and getting used to it.

To The Goq: Prakdon is (a) a sushi roll made with pollack, avacado, seaweed and rice, (b) a small dinosaur whose remains have been found in southern China, Northern India, Afghanistan and Iran, and (c) the mayor of Gemorrah, who slept on his back on a livingroom couch. The text about Prakdon was excluded from the Five Books of Moses, but his story can be found in one of the books of the Apocrypha.

Shabbos afternoon, he told me that if this is what Judaism teaches, he is very disappointed.’

You were so out of line, the line is not even visible. First you get a teenager to WANT to be frum. When he is solid in his frumkeit, he might be more receptive to being taught what you meant well in teaching him. You were wrong, IMO. And I pray you didn’t so negatively affect this boy that he has no further interest in being frum.

This is a problem that I see in many such programs. KNOW your target audience and worry about the BIG details. The smaller ones will fall into place at the right time, but you have to get them engaged and interested first, before hitting them with the things that are important to you, but might not yet have any impact on them.

Why not be dan l’chav zchus that he was sick?

I had a rebbi who said that. He would not wake someone up who fell asleep during shiur, because obviously the bachur is not feeling well. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sleeping during shiur.

WIY: The left side thing B’pashtus isn’t Halachah as that was a medical Eitzah (post-Gemara) and we generally ignore medical Eitzos from the Rishonim. I don’t see why this one would be different. (The reason given in the Poskim is something along the linesnot of having the liver move to the other side of the body so food can digest easier, something which our medical Eitzos nowadays obviously disagrees with.)

I don’t want this poster to be embarrassed, either that we are expressing our dismay. Fortunately we are on an anonymous forum. Playtime, I think you were absolutely wrong in what you did, though I do understand the kana-us that might have motivated you. I just believe you picked the wrong time, circumstance, and place to try to make what you felt was an important point, to someone who was nowhere in the ballpark ready to hear about it.

Its probably not a good idea to give a BT a comparison from a obscure character in the Tanach. He likely wont get it and very well will take it the wrong way

Sam, there is a medical difference between laying on the right or the left. I don’t know what it is about, though. It might have been an observed phenomenon, although we don’t like the explanations. (Truth is, even these days, it’s the observation that counts way more than the reasoning, which changes on a dime upon newer observations.)

You worried about them being mechalel shabbos and you’re waking people up because they’re sleeping the wrong way????? You shouldn’t be in Kiruv or working with kids at all if you can’t see the over the top expectations you have of these soon to be frum children.