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| Leaving the Fold (Jewish Action) |
This is a subject I have always been interested in. The idea
of someone radically changing the lifestyle in which they were raised is
something I find very difficult to understand. I have always wondered, ‘What
causes someone to do that?’ Similarly, I find it just as perplexing - perhaps
even more so - when someone embraces an observant lifestyle after being raised
in a non-observant home. However, that is beyond the scope of this post.
Dr. Moshe Krakowski is the lead researcher for the OU study,
which he describes in the latest issue of Jewish Action magazine. I
found his insights to be quite illuminating, some of which align with my own,
albeit very limited, observations.
There were several key findings in Dr. Krakowski’s study
that stood out. One of them echoes a concern I have had since my children were first
enrolled in a religious day school. At the time, it seemed like a no-brainer
that parents who identified as centrists - like me - would naturally choose a
centrist school for their children.
I was genuinely shocked by how many centrist parents instead
chose right-wing schools. Their reasoning was invariably that they could always make their
children less frum at home. I tried to convince these parents that this was a
mistake, but they were convinced they were making the right decision. Only to
regret it in some cases later on. The study confirms that this type of thinking
can be problematic:
"In the OU study of people who have left Orthodoxy, twenty-two out of the twenty-nine participants reported experiencing a ‘misalignment’ between themselves or their families and the schools they attended. They described having to ‘constantly negotiate their religious identities,’ performing for an audience of teachers and peers at school while adopting a different lifestyle at home. The feeling of hypocrisy this engendered—and ‘secondary consequences’ such as bullying from peers—eventually became a factor in their decision to leave the community."
Misalignment, as defined by the study, can manifest in many
ways. Dr. Krakowski explains:
"Even if your family is more religious than the school, there’s a sense of disruption. My family is saying I have to do this or that, but my school doesn’t require it. So does all of this really matter?"
The study also found that misalignment at home is an even
greater factor in attrition. If one parent is observant and the other is not,
that certainly raises concerns about which path a child will choose. But even
when both parents are observant, if one is significantly more stringent than
the other - causing conflict between them - it can also create confusion and
tension that may lead a child away from observance.
Another striking finding was the impact of rabbinic figures
on individuals' religious trajectories:
"Another finding we had not anticipated was the enormous emphasis our subjects placed on the impact religious authority figures, particularly rabbis, had had on their life trajectories - both for good and for bad. In a cohort of twenty-nine people who left Orthodoxy, it was amazing how often, completely unprompted, we heard the refrain, ‘There was this one rabbi who . . .’ The end of that sentence was inevitably something horrible or something wonderful - never in between."
Another, more obvious reason some people abandon observance
is experiencing physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a loved one or a
teacher, as well as the poor response from teachers and rabbis when they
reported it. This is completely understandable.
One factor the study did not address is those who leave
observance for intellectual reasons. There are some highly intelligent
people who seem to have left not due to emotional trauma but because of
philosophical or theological doubts. Interestingly, none of the twenty-nine
people interviewed in this study cited that as their reason for leaving.
As I have said in the past, there are as many reasons for leaving observance as there are individuals who leave. However, the fact that the vast majority of this admittedly small sample cited their educational experiences as a backdrop to their decision cannot be ignored.
Dr. Krakowski acknowledges that
the sample size was too small to draw definitive conclusions about which
factors are the most significant contributors to this phenomenon. This is why
this is only the first phase of his study, which he describes as qualitative.
The second phase will be quantitative, involving a much larger and more
representative sample that can be subjected to statistical analysis.
This OU study is an important read for anyone who cares
about the continuity of the Jewish people. While Jewish education has never
been more widespread or more effective in perpetuating Torah values to the next
generation, there are nonetheless some serious flaws that need to be addressed.
I am glad to see the OU tackling this issue in such a methodical and scientific
way.
