Where has the derech gone?
The following is a dramatization. It represents a growing problem in the Jewish community: kids going off the derech and experimenting.
I wake up at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. The previous night my friends and I got together to get drunk and smoke a little weed as the minhag is on motzei shabbos for anybody between the ages of 15-25. Shabbos was the usual snooze-fest mixed in with some texting my other off-the-derech friends and surfing the net in my room while I try to hide it from my parents. I watch a little porn Friday night to relax me.
This Sunday morning is the usual: I tell my dad I davened, made brachos, wore tefilin, and did all the other religious things they force down my throat or tell me to do because otherwise I will go to hell. Even before I started to violate the Torah, my davening was slurred, and most of the time I just put on tefilin and ripped it off. Even when I would daven, it might have just been shema and shemona Esrei. It would take me 5 minutes, and all of shachris would take me 15 minutes. Who knows how many times I actually appreciated or considered the Torah I learned in school?
Religion was a fence that I had to stay inside of or else my friends, my family, and I would feel G-d’s wrath. I always wondered what Taco Bell tasted like and what sex felt like. I don’t need to wonder anymore,though. The Rabbis at school said TV and movies were bad, but my parents didn’t seem to care what I was exposed to on TV or in the movies as long as I got good marks. Another 90 on a gemara test meant I could have treated myself to a Whopper and a pack of smokes with my fake ID using the money I made selling pot to freshies. Why did my parents send me there if they weren’t going to abide by the school’s policies?
Why are there so many kids like me? I’m not the only kid who decided to do his or her own thing.
I don’t understand why some boys wear bigger kippas and others wear smaller ones; Some Jews dress in black and white, others wear jeans and t-shirts; Some people are doctors while others learn in kollel; Some girls wear long skirts, others wear short ones; Some keep cholov Yisroel, others don’t; Some women cover their hair, others don’t; Some go to college, others go to Yeshiva.
What the hell do I do? How do I choose? My family is half bais yaacov, half modern orthodox. My friends are the same.
Goyim have it so much easier…
We keep saying that Hashem is merciful (13 attributes), so why can’t he have mercy on me? Why can’t he forgive me?
I don’t even know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore. All I know is that I can’t use electricity on Shabbos or eat treif, but I’m allowed to speak lashon hora, talk in shul, touch my girlfriend, use nivel peh, and not learn Torah because everybody else around me seems to act like that.
People get labelled as frum only because they keep shabbos and kosher? How did this religion get so f!@#$%d up?
Posted on January 9, 2012, in Frummies, Off The Derech, Opinion, Orthodoxy, Rants, Uncategorized and tagged davening, kippas, minhag, off the derech, Shabbos. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
Frum From Bathurst 
It must be annoying to see people acting one way when the Torah says differently. It must be annoying to have the same people who stress kashrut, not be completely shomer negiya with their girlfriends. It’s confusing when there are so many different approaches to Torah out there. Could it be that you are confused because, you are using the people around you as a moral compas? Is it possible that if you sat down with yourself and asked yourself truly what you believe from the Torah that you studied that you could determine a correct way to act for yourself? Judaism teaches us that we are supposed to have rabbis and we are but, are we really supposed to ask our rabbi’s every single question or is it just the problems that are too difficult for us to solve? Perhaps it would be beneficial if you sat down with yourself and asked yourself who is it you really want to be? What do you believe in, instead of going by what the people around you do? Could it be that the person who keeps Kashrut and Shabbat might do a whole lot of mitzvas that you don’t see when you are not around them? They might not be perfect but, are you? Is it important for you to be the best you that you can be? Maybe if you really sat down with yourself and determined what you believed, you would be less bothered by the people around you. Yes it’s annoying. I’m annoyed to by a lot of things… but you can control those people. You have to focus on you, developing your sense of self and what you believe and perhaps focus less on what they are doing because their actions are their actions but, your actions are yours.
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This is only an example with exaggerations, albeit a really strong one at that. It’s an example of the growing problems we have today. Of course, you are absolutely correct in your analysis, but some struggling, at- risk youth probably can’t see it that way; if he/she could see it that way, he/she wouldn’t be in that position. You should spread your message.
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what kind of porn?
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I’d like to know this too…
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What is just as bad is the kid who is trying to go the opposite way and is trying to find the derech. However, in their search they are getting the same mixed messages and have to attempt to try to figure out where they fit into the whole mess… and yes, I use that term for a reason. It would make more sense if someone got a basic clue as to what “frum” is in this community.
That said, with the old adage, 2 Jews, 3 Opinions, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
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Well put. Couldn’t agree more!
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