Our worst fears were realized. We soon found out she was smoking and had managed to sneak out of the dormitory at night. Soon we were told that even this school would not keep her. What to do? Where could we possibly send her? The suffering my husband and I have had and continue to have is beyond description. Now we had no choice but to send her to a public high school where her Torah observance came to a complete end.
In time she went on to college where she met a boy who was agonistic and sarcastic about our Torah. Thank G-d he was a Jew, but he didn’t act like one. They got married and now are raising a daughter, a sweet little girl but a tragic victim of their completely irreligious lifestyle.
I think about this all the time and about how easily it could have been avoided with just a little chesed and rachmanus. What an amazing asset she could have been to our people and our family. What great nachas she could have been to my broken parents who are now in their late eighties and were hoping to see Yiddishe simchas.
My daughter carries the name of my grandmother who perished in Auschwitz. To have a granddaughter who carries the name of your mother who was murdered by the Nazis and to see that granddaughter reject everything her grandmother lived and died for – can there be anything more painful?
Please share my letter with your readers so that people can realize how the cruelty of children and the indifference of adults can forever scar and shatter not just one life but generations. It’s time to stop the meanness that is all around us and that has invaded the sanctuary of our homes and our schools.
Rebbetzin, when and where will this self-destruction end?
