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.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)