This motzei shabbos I logged onto Facebook to find two more tragic suicide stories of formerly religious young people. Sadly, this is becoming an all too common theme. Tonight I read about the young mother of a 3 year old child, who jumped to her death from a Tel Aviv hotel room. The other case was a 24 year old son of a rabbi, who apparently took his own life after being repeatedly rejected by his family. While the timing of the event that precipitated the man’s suicide is under debate (it is said that he was recently turned away at the door of his brother’s engagement party – the family says this party happened 3 years ago), the one thing that remains clear is that the man’s family cut off contact with him as he went off the derech. The man’s family issued a brief statement, in Hebrew, citing the young man’s mental illness as being the reason for the family rift.
Which came first, the chicken (mental illness) or the egg (going off the derech), is anyone’s guess. When going off the derech is seen as a form of mental illness, it’s hard to take charges of instability seriously. Alternately, if someone suffering from mental illness doesn’t get the help they require, it can cause such extreme family tension that the sufferer will seek to shed old ties and find relief in a fresh environment. The family might likewise feel relief that they are no longer saddled with the burden of a mentally ill child. In certain ultra orthodox circles, they can blame their child abandonment on a socially acceptable excuse – their child went off the derech.
Last week there was an article in The Times of Israel written by a wonderful man, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. Rabbi Steinsaltz talks about how the role of the rabbi has changed from being charged with halachic questions, to relationship questions. Most people now approach rabbis needing therapeutic advice, and not halachic advice. Rabbis are not trained therapists, and as such, are often not qualified to offer the best solutions –
“Consequently, nowadays rabbis are, unfortunately, dealing mainly with issues for which they have not been properly trained, and rarely are they dealing with those areas for which they did receive the proper training. How can a typical rabbi who married at the age of 19 and has been living with the same wife ever since, truly help someone who is involved in a relationship with his friend’s wife? How many rabbis have actually delved into issues of faith in sufficient depth as to enable them to answer questions on this topic?”
In some instances, when a parent struggles with a child who is lapsing in their religious observance, they are given the advice to throw that child out in order to save the remaining ones. Basically, one bad apple will rot the entire bushel. The deviant child becomes a korban to save both their sibling’s religiosity and the family’s good standing in the community.
A recent article in Mishpacha magazine highlights this phenomenon. For a window into a world where it is praiseworthy to abandon wayward children, read an article in Mishapacha magazine by Rabbi Moshe Grylak called, Shame, Blame, and the Eviction Game. In his article, Rabbi Grylak interviews Rabbi Yair Nahari, who works to save young girls from religious families who have been thrown out into the streets.
Rabbi Grylak tells Rabbi Nahari –
““…ever since we spoke, I’ve been imagining such a girl in my mind’s eye, seeing her wandering in the street with an overnight bag over her shoulder, and I’m trying to fathom what thoughts are going through her mind — we’re talking about a girl of 15 or 16! True, she brought it on herself. But the image makes me feel so awful that I just want to escape from these thoughts, although my brain has me trapped. What sickened me most of all was what you told me about the father who phoned and threatened to have you arrested for kidnapping if you took his daughter in. Kidnapping! Something is very wrong here, don’t you think so, Rabbi Nahari? What kind of society are we living in where a parent can, for whatever reason, abandon his child to the elements? What am I supposed to think?””
Rabbi Nahari, despite every type of family dysfunction he has seen, exhorts Rabbi Grylak not to judge these parents, who are in a difficult situation. Rabbi Nahari goes on to explain –
““So what you need to understand, Reb Moshe, is the shame these parents have suffered because of their daughter. They feel that she’s betrayed them. She’s humiliated them in public, because everybody’s talking about how their daughter went off the derech. This is what she does to us, she puts us to shame in front of the whole world? After we sacrificed so much for her, after we nurtured and raised her, she turns around and spits in our faces? Feeling betrayed, Reb Moshe, is the worst feeling. A person who feels betrayed is capable of anything.””
The section of the article that is most shocking, comes from a story that Rabbi Grylak heard about Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman -
““What you’re saying, Rabbi Nahari, reminds me of what I heard recently about Rav Steinman shlita. Some of the big rabbanim were protesting the fact that he didn’t object to the founding of the Nahal Haredi army unit for young men who were already off the derech and on the streets. Rav Steinman asked one of these rabbanim if anyone had come to him yet to ask him to daven that their son should die. The rav was taken aback by the question, naturally, and then Rav Steinman told him, ‘This week, 15 fathers came to me with this request regarding their sons who had gone completely off the derech.’ So this is the feeling that brings parents to such an insane conclusion….””
As a mother, reading these remarks is an ultimate test in being dan lchaf zchus. As a parent, it’s very hard for me not to be judgmental. An alive off the derech son is preferable to a dead son any day. I understand quite personally the desire to see my children follow in my footsteps. I know firsthand the sacrifices that are made to provide religious opportunities and lifestyles for a 21st century family. I sympathize with the communal judgment that befalls those who are different or undergoing difficulties that might be seen as the sufferer’s own fault. However, at the end of the day, regardless if I agree with my children’s life choices, they will always be my children – both in this life and the next. Likewise, if they have challenging psychological, emotional, or physical health issues, it’s my burden to bear as their parent. It’s a forever kind of deal. When we have a child, we all hope for the best, but we must also prepare for the worst – whatever that means to each individual parent.
