Once again Rabbi Yakov Horowitz's weekly column raises a great question: What is a parent to do when he makes Aliyah with teenage children? I've discussed this problem in the past.
In fact I think that one should rarely if ever consider doing anything like that considering the relatively high instances of young people who become Shababanikim. Those are American young people who have dropped out of society and “hang out” on street corners. In Israel the “street corner” of choice is Kikar Tzion, near the upscale Ben Yehuda shopping mall. As I understand it the young people ending up there have no specific Hashkafic backgrounds. They come from all walks of Jewish religious life. It doesn’t seem to matter if they are American Modern Orthodox Religious Zionists or Yeshivishe Charedim or Chasidic. What they all have in common is the desire to drop out from their respective new communities. Apparently they cannot handle the drastic changes in their lives.
Being an adolescent in our time is hard enough. There are plenty of problems right here in America with dropout children who of course not only drop out of observance but drop into drugs, casual sex, and all manner of self destructive behavior. Add to that the complete change of cultural environment and lifestyle that Aliyah entails, it’s a wonder that any teenager can survive it at all and stay Frum.
The Charedi parent who writes the letter in Rabbi Horowitz’s column is kind of trying to close the barn door after he let the horse out. He (or she) has made Aliyah and damage has been done to his son. Especially since he was not the greatest Yeshiva student while yet in America either.
Now the parents want to “save” their son by sending him to Nachal Charedi. I’m not so sure that will solve the problem. The parents are getting mixed signals about Nachal Charedi and they don’t know what to do. I think the problems their son displays may just be the tip of an iceberg. I don’t know this but the young man in question may be “heading for the exits” of Judaism, if they don’t get professional counciling. It is certainly a big problem that cannot be solved by a stint in the army… even if it is Nachal Charedi.
I know personally of various families who made Aliyah over the years and the dropout rate of their children is frightening. Just recently, a dear old friend dropped by my house who made Aliyah back in the late seventies or early eighties, when his oldest son was about 9 years old. That child is now an adult. He has since moved back to the United States and is no longer Frum. He is currently a professor in a university out west, Stanford, I believe. I asked my good friend whose wife runs a seminary in Israel how he deals with the fact that his son is no longer observant. He answered: Bechira Chafshis. It was his option and that is what he chose. He has a good relationship with him and sees him often. But what a high price my friend paid for making Aliyah a bit later than he should have.
And that’s why I urge anyone with children over the age 6 or 7 to think long and hard about making Aliyah no matter how appealing the idea is to them. It is a noble ideal to make Aliyah as the very name implies. But the cost to your child’s Neshama may be a price too high to pay.
