In forceful and characteristically blunt remarks, Rav Yaakov Bender, the longtime rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Darchei Torah and one of the most influential chinuch voices in the U.S., issued a grim warning about what he called a “terrible, terrible problem” spreading through frum communities: a rapidly escalating culture of drinking that he says is fueling danger, hypocrisy, and tragic consequences for families and children.
Rav Bender laid responsibility squarely at the feet of parents — particularly fathers — who have normalized high-end alcohol, glorified drinking, and built a social ecosystem where whiskey isn’t just a beverage but a badge of status.
“It’s a terrible, terrible problem,” Rav Bender said, describing a recent case in which a teenage boy from a prominent frum community caused a fatal car accident and is now facing years of jail time. “You know where he got it from? He went to a toameha in a very choshuv city. Toameha should be stopped.”
Rav Bender took aim at the now-common toameha phenomenon — men gathering on Erev Shabbos for kugel, cakes, and rounds of expensive liquor. What began as a casual pre-Shabbos meet-up has metastasized, he warned, into a weekly ritual that tears fathers away from their homes during the most critical hour of the week.
“Seven or eight men get together, buy very fancy drinks — not the women, they are wonderful — and they drink to their hearts’ content,” he said. “On Erev Shabbos, when a man should be home helping his wife, they go to a party called a toameha. I have mothers who told me their husbands show up drunk to the Friday night Shabbos table.”
“If you find out about a toameha in your neighborhood,” he said, “go protest against the family. Put up signs. It’s going to kill a kid.”
But Rav Bender’s message was more pointed: the drinking crisis is not a youth issue — it’s a parental issue.
“They come to me complaining that their kid was drinking,” he said. “I ask, ‘Daddy, do you drink?’ And the father does drink.”
The pattern, he warned, is unmistakable. Fathers consume high-end whiskey. Fathers glamorize alcohol. Fathers stock their homes with $5,000 and $10,000 bottles. Fathers participate in kiddush clubs and turn Shabbos into a tasting event. And then fathers express surprise when their sons mimic the culture they grew up observing.
“The kids by us in yeshiva who drink on Friday night — they are getting it from home,” he said. “I blame it on the parents.”
“There are bottles selling today for five to ten thousand dollars,” he said. “And the gadlus by the toameha club is the guy who can tell the difference between the $5,000 and $10,000 bottle.”
What used to be a simple l’chaim has become, in Rav Bender’s framing, a performative display of status and sophistication — one that communicates to children that drinking is not only acceptable but admirable.
“We glorify these things!” he said. “And the kids are seeing it.”
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24 Responses
Agreed and this shouldn’t be “explosive.”
Finally! It’s about time someone came out and said it!
Alcoholism is a problem, and materialism is a problem, but I’m not really seeing the connection here. Are people who collect $10,000 whiskey bottles really then drinking them to inebriation? Surely people who “stock their houses” with $50 whiskey are at least as likely to drink it. Alcoholics are kind of famous for drinking cheap alcohol.
Can we bring awareness to issues and disagree with other people without words like “ban” or “protest”? It’s childish and its behaviour is far worse then drinking.
For the last two people that posted comments is get the point and be smart and stop trying to trip up Rabbi Bender.
Its about tome someone called a spade a spade!. But this phenomenon is caused by another one. Somehow everything in our dor, gets completely blown out of proportion. I recall when growing up in the 70’s a Vacht Nacht was a Kreiyas Shema laining for the kids. Today its like a chasuna, it keeps on growing, just like the shtraimel’s! Every heilige ritual has been commercialized and just goes off the rails. It has to stop!
When I study ואתחנן then I make my emphasis on observing ונשמרתם מאד לנפשותים [by so absolutely not even taking a משהו of whiskey ever] & only after being fully compliant with this מצוה can I begin to move onto observance of שמור את יום השבת לקדשו by wearing a nice suit & a laundered shirt & a tie from קבלת שבת thru after הבדלה and of-course by coming to Shul on time, to reach שמע and עמידה both before their זמן
What Rav Bender is describing isn’t really about alcohol — it’s about a community that’s lost the ability to distinguish between kavod and gaavah, between simcha and self-indulgence.
The toameha culture is just the most visible symptom. It’s the same mentality that turns every simcha into a competition, every Shabbos table into a display, every mitzvah into an opportunity for social positioning. When a $10,000 bottle becomes a status symbol in a community that’s supposed to value bittul hayeish, something has gone profoundly wrong.
And the worst part? The fathers participating in this aren’t seeing themselves as part of the problem. They probably view the toameha as ‘oneg Shabbos’ or ‘achdus’ or ‘Torah atmosphere.’ They’ve convinced themselves that expensive whiskey culture is somehow part of being a ben Torah, when really it’s just American materialism in a streimel.
The kids aren’t the problem. They’re just honest mirrors reflecting back what we’ve taught them to value. Until the fathers are willing to admit that their own behavior is assur or at minimum deeply problematic — not their sons’ — nothing changes.
Rav Bender is right to call it what it is: a crisis of chinuch that starts in the father’s liquor cabinet, not the teenager’s backpack.
How come I never got invited to any of these, now I feel like a loser. I guess I just don’t know the nursing home administrators, the cash advance guys, or the real estate moguls
My shul made a takana a few years ago, zero alcohol by a kiddush. Our Rov said you can make kiddush on wine. Saves a lot of money.
Thank you Rav Bender for calling this out! As much as many of us understandably enjoy drinking we need to acknowledge how addictive and dangerous it can be to ourselves, our families, and others! How can someone sit with a quiet conscience knowing that he may cause another adult or teenager to drive a car intoxicated! How can someone sit and ignore the social and emotional dangers of coming to his Shabbos table intoxicated thereby neglecting his wife and children and setting a terrible example of how a Yid should behave! Let’s stop deluding ourselves!
Exagerations and fabrications dilute the chashivus of the message.
Banning anything that could be controlled is not a healthy approach to Yiddishkeit and disregards mesora.
Banning Kiddsuh in shule??? Why not talk about an alcohol free kiddush instead?? In many yeshivos there are takanos about a Kiddush. Wine, grape juice seltzer soda, cake and kugel. No shnapps, no herring or cholent. But the inyan of giving Kiddush for a simcha, yourzeit, siyum is mainatined. And expenses are controlled.
Some of the statement reads like someone is unplugged when the message is important, timely and does need attention.
Maybe our institutions should stop groveling over rich people
As a therapist dealing with our younger generation, I think that as many people have mentioned, the issue is not Tomeaha. I think as a community we fail and have failed, to deal with the root (hidden under the carpet) issue and have shifted our concentration to the more visible one.
Abolishing Toameha will not miraculously stop people drinking and getting drunk. Today’s generation are dealing with more pressure especially peer pressure than any other. Many have pointed out these issues, especially the crazy competition we have created with our lavish chasunas and bar mitzvah and any other “simcha” we make. These “simchas” become the opposite of a simcha behind closed doors. The debts that pile up the loan sharks knocking on the door, the sholom basis issues which follow. More often than not, the responsibility falls squarely on the husband’s shoulders. He is the one who needs to find the money to pay it back. Drinking is his safe space, it’s his happiness it’s what numbs the pain, the stress the hardship. I’m not condoning it, I am saying that this is the issue. In many cases parents work more hours to make ends meet meaning less time with their kids.
This then spills over to the kids. They feel the tension. They feel the pressure at home, they hear the fights. They lack the attention they crave so desperately. Eventually they too need to find a way to numb the pain to drown out the noise. They start to fail in school/yeshiva because they can’t concentrate. They then end up in the “wrong” crowd, the same “wrong” crowd who are going through the same experience they are. These teenagers now become the shoulder to lean on giving them the attention they crave. They seek validation and get it from their friends. Then the alcohol cycle kicks in. They aren’t really happy. They then too need to numb the pain drown out the noise. Only by them it’s not just alcohol, it becomes a drug issue. No, I am not being extreme, this is the harsh reality.
Rabbonim and Askonim can shout out as loud as they want from the rooftops, but as long as they don’t fix “the system”, this problem is gonna stay here with us for a long time. There is an even bigger issue today. The kids who are average or less than average are left out of yeshivas. Their self esteem is hit a massive blow. I haven’t seen enough people advocate for them!!!! Why??? The sad truth is, because they brush these kids under the carpet. They are all too busy trying to push their own agendas. They need to hide the visible “drinking” issues because it creates a bad image. It’s the outside image which is important to them.
It’s easy to make impassioned speeches and yell at people. When these same men who buy $10,000 bottles of scotch come to give $100,000 to the Yeshiva does the Rabbi refuse to take the money? Does he refuse to attend their Simchos, refuse to be mesader Kiddushin/Sandak, etc. If the Rabbonim really want this to stop, then let them push these people away altogether. Shun them! Refuse to take their kids into your Yeshiva, etc.
What are all these fathers doing in middle of davening having kiddush clubs, while they tell their own children to stay in shul and daven? That is a massive hypocrisy too. Instead, rabbonim, roshei yeshivas, and school must educate everyone of the importance of coming on time to shul, staying in shul till the end, and not run out in the middle. Kids will of course mimic their fathers when they grow up. It is a bigger machleh today than anything else. People need to get educated more in the area, whether its hilchos tefillah and simply also the translation of davening too.
This problem comes from (parts of) the Hasidic-Hymish-Ingarishe chevreh. That is why they call it “toyamehWHO”, with their distinctive pronunciation. The true Bnei and Bnos Torah, whether Litvish, Chasidish, Yekkish, Poylishe, Hungarian, Sephardic, Teimani, etc., must take a strong stand against them, and their corrupt practices, which have been condemned by gedolei Yisroel, whether it is their “frum” fress culture (which toyamehWHO is part of it), their flaunting of wealth, or other abominations.
Why does Sruly Besser love interrupting?
Don’t “TAKE THE SHOT”. Remember?
Last words of Shulchan Oruch, Orach Chaim: “V’tov lev mishteh tomid.”
this past Shabbos, an unnamed Mesivta had an In-Shabbos and over 35 kids got extremely drunk, kids were going to the bathroom on the street, one kid even took off his pants and was walking through the streets, etc…
Ban In-Shabbosim.
@emeskeit, I can confirm I learn with a bachur who is currently suspended
I live in Israel. Encourage your sons to make aliya and join the IDF and they will quickly find something more meaningful and more Torahdik to do with their energy.
I will not comment on this video and what was said, since it is only a short sound bite, and it is irresponsible of “TheYeshivaWorld” to post just this short clip. I will say that where I live, I am not aware of these Erev Shabbos gatherings. Regardless, I must say no good comes from these “parties”, wherever or whenever they transpire. Yet the decadent parties are not the problem, they are only a symptom of the real problem.
Teenage drinking is a major problem that has now become an epidemic in our circles. Yes there are those that learn about drinking from their parents, but the majority are learning to drink while away from their homes in yeshiva. How that happens i wouldn’t know, but it is happening during the zman.
Once upon a dream the yeshivos I grew up in, and this is a lifetime ago, followed Divrei Chazal. “Yophe Talmud Torah Im Derech Eretz, Sheyegias Shnaihem Mishkacha Avoin!. We can debate how much Talmud Torah with Derech Eretz is appropriate, but the main point is “Mishkachas Avoin”. ALL boys need shmirah to stay out of trouble, and today that is not happening. Parents from all walks of life put their faith in our yeshivos, yet our boys are not busy enough or being watched enough by the Hanhallah.
This is a long conversation that must be had, but it’s not. R’ Avigdor Miller z”l used to say, the Yetzer Hora is a malach, the same malach who destroyed Sdom. That malach can fool any bochur into trouble, so what are we doing to keep the boys out of trouble. How can our boys be expected to behave properly if no one is guiding them properly. This includes smoking, drinking and more.
Our boys need shmirah, and they don’t receive that. The Hefkeirus must be controlled.