Without question we need learned leaders, but not all of our children can, or should, be rabbis. I often receive phone calls from rabbis seeking advice on how to deal with a “certain young man” who will spend twenty-four hours a day, every day, in the bet midrash. While the rabbi may see it as a sign of some underlying problem, the young man’s peers are often envious of him for sitting up all night and learning. Dedication, commitment and hard work are necessary for success in any endeavor, but there is a line of commitment that, when crossed, may result in pathology.
The social and financial implications of this lifestyle are obvious. If all our young men are in the bet midrash, then by virtue of this logic those who are not in the bet midrash are not “our” young men. If all our young men are in the bet midrash, where will our doctors, lawyers, accountants and businessmen come from? Who will be able to pay for yeshiva tuition, or, more to the point, where will living funds come from?
A more insidious corollary to the vicissitudes of the current dating scene is the problem of domestic violence. It is a commonly held belief in our community that the rates of domestic violence are exceptionally low. If this violence does exist, the reasoning goes, it can be eliminated by seeing to it that our children do not marry someone raised in a family where there has been domestic violence.
Both these beliefs are fallacious. Research has shown that the rate of domestic violence in the Jewish community, including the Orthodox community, are virtually the same as in the secular world. Further, children raised in a home where violence occurred are not necessarily more likely to be violent; in fact, they may even be less prone to violence. We are teaching our young adults to ignore the research data and follow a belief system that may end up being destructive.
Domestic violence is an ill that must be addressed, not ignored. But here, too, insularity causes further difficulties. There is good reason to believe that in many situations where men are violent there is an underlying depression that may need aggressive psychological treatment. But if it’s found out that an individual had a depression or was being treated for it, that could easily impact on his or his siblings or his children’s ability to get a shidduch.
Similar inconsistencies exist in dealing with the problems of substance abuse, sexual abuse, and even learning disabilities. We have disengaged from the reality of research that shows rates for these ills are virtually the same among the Orthodox as they are in the secular world. But when an attempt is made to address these problems, it is often done in ways that ignore or even deny the best intervention methods currently known. (And, going back to the shidduch scene, if God forbid someone in a family has suffered from one of these ills, that is enough to taint all the children, marking them as poor marital risks.)
What makes for a good match today most often relates to how many chumras or stringencies one chooses to follow. There is no questioning or rational discussion of where the chumras come from, how realistic they may be, and whether or not they apply. The only reaction is an automatic one. The literal is always chosen above the allegorical. If someone said it, it therefore must be real. And if you follow it, you will find a better shidduch for yourself or your child.
But this is superficial behavior. Just as changing the clothes worn by a substance abuser or a thief will not change his or her behavior, adding chumras gives us no insight into the inner workings of an individual’s personality.
Because we have become more insular, we have begun to lose our rationality. Questions of halacha resolved years ago return to the fore despite a lack of change or new information, and a more stringent, even strident, approach is applied. This approach strongly presumes that the more we disengage from society the healthier we become. I believe, as do most other frum mental health professionals, that the opposite is true.