Which religious group can be described in part by the limiting features of their ‘no-higher education’ lifestyle, their 19th century black clothing styles, their bearded men and head covered women? Which group lives a completely insular lifestyle …rejecting almost all of modernity?
If you guessed Chasidim or Charedim, you’d only be partially correct. This is a description of a sect of Christians known as the Amish.
There is another commonality that the Amish… and Chasidim and Charedim share. But it is only sanctioned by the Amish. It is called Rumspringa by the Amish. And it is called the ‘kids-at-risk’ phenomenon by the Jewish community.
For those who don’t know what Rumspringa is, it is a period of approved rebellion that takes place when an Amish adolescent turns 16. In an effort to teach their young people what it is they are missing… what they are being insulated from, the Amish have a religiously sanctioned period of time when they allow their children to taste the outside world before they are baptized.
All of the things that are normally forbidden to them are allowed for a time, sometimes lasting up to three years. After this period they are asked if they want to remain on the outside or return to their Amish traditions. If they opt out there is a huge downside. Something they call ‘shunning’. The closest thing to that in Judaism is a Cherem… an excommunication. All contact with family is completely severed.
Supposedly 90% of the Amish who go through Rumspringa decide to remain in the fold returning to a lifestyle of complete insularity… a lifestyle that is even more insular than that of Chasidim.
While this is permitted to the Amish by their ‘Torah’ it is of course forbidden to us by ours. There is no Rumspringa. At least not officially. But as has become so painfully obvious to most of the Torah world, it does exist without the Torah’s sanctions. Big time.
Thousands of Frum kids who now have an actual community of dropouts to become a part of, are dropping out and experimenting. And I have no clue how many of those young people return even under the best of circumstances. This is one of the most serious and heartbreaking phenomena the Torah world has to deal with today.
An article in The Jewish Week asks the question as to whether Rumspringa would be a beneficial option for the Torah world. Of course this is only a theoretical question since such a program would violate Torah law. But it is an interesting question none the less. Would a Torah sanctioned program like this give us better results than the rebellion that by definition is what take place when a young person experiments with the forbidden?
Of course this will not address the intellectual side of rebellion made by people who question the fundamentals of Jewish theology. That is an issue which I believe has yet to be addressed. I have no clue as to what the percentages of those who drop observance do so because of unanswered theological questions. But I would venture a guess that most of the ‘kids at risk’ are to one extent or another just unhappy with their religious environments for a variety of complex reasons and simply want out. It is quite likely that it isn’t just one factor.
But on the assumption that it is mostly an emotional decision rather than an intellectual one, would Rumspringa help? Would a sanctioned trip to MacDonald’s or a Saturday afternoon at a movie, or experimentation with non marital sex and/or ‘pot’ satisfy curiosity and bring most young people back or would it grease the way out for them?
I wonder.
