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October 02, 2003

More Than Meets the Eye (2)

Here’s the continuation of More Than Meets the Eye. The quotes in italics are from this article in the Daily News.

“Frimcha and Elky were looking for a freer, less restrictive life”
“They wanted to go as far away as possible… They had plans to disappear off the face of the Earth”
“They wanted one-way tickets to a place far away from the strict religious regimentation of their insulated, ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclave.”
What do we see from the three quotes above? I see two girls feeling that they are living a restrictive life. Not seeing anything in their Yiddishkeit. They only saw routine and ‘regimentation’. So, like many teens I know, they were dreaming of running away. Most teens just dream about it but don’t actually do it. They end up rebelling and doing anything and everything while still maintaining some ties with the community and hanging out with other teens who think the same way. Sometimes there’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Sometimes something happens that would push one off the edge but causes another to take drastic action. So they steeled themselves with resolve, took all their savings and left. Did they know what awaits them? No. Had they done the same thing if they had known? Yes. When that straw hits, when a teen gets that feeling of suffocation, s/he doesn’t really care or think about the outcome. Just as a man being accosted by robbers who outnumber him and have many weapons, if he thinks they will kill him, he will fight. Although the rational mind tells him that he will lose. When a teenager gets that suffocating feeling and is trying to find a way out of living with it for the rest of his/her life, they will do almost anything.

“They were on the road, running away and free.”
We’re they really free? No. They were not free from their parents as they were under age. They were not free from their religion either, but they thought they were free from both. Why they wanted to be free from their parents I do not even want to speculate. The last paragraph of the article, -“We were told by the therapist to tell her we love her and be accepting. To start fresh.” They were told!!! We’re saying it because we were told!!!,- may shed some light on that, although the bulb seems to be quite dim.
“Elky… had two really large dolls that had blood on their faces and marks all over them, as if they were cut and had stitches… She said she would not get on the plane without these dolls. I didn't know what to think about it."
“…agents saw and pulled a 5-inch silver dagger and an 8½ -inch knife out of Elky's blue canvas tote bag.”

Why did they run away from their religion?

“…children naturally follow its dictates.”
Because they thought that the religion is suffocating them. Maybe the interpretation of Judaism that they were fed really was suffocating. A way of life with near-zero tolerance for questions; a way of life with no support for teens who slide a bit off the beaten path; a way of life where these teens are shunned and basically has no middle way, you are either on the beaten path, or you’re on the wrong path; a way of life where nothing needs more reason than “everyone is doing it”, a way of life where just being different is wrong, even if you did nothing wrong; such a way of life does seem suffocating.

What do we have schools for?

“One of the advantages from their point of view is that with insularity, you don't see another way of life”
Is that what being a Jew is all about? Doing everything exactly the way you grew up? Of course we have to do all the minhagim our fathers and grandfathers did; of course we have to keep the halochos and the pesakim they kept; but should we be doing because we don’t ‘see another way of life’? Or should we be doing it because we believe in Hashem and in his Torah, because we’ve learnt it and understand it? Shouldn’t our schools be imbuing in us Emunah and Yiras Hashem strong enough so that even after ‘seeing another way of life’, we should still keep the Torah and Mitzvos?

This story could have ended in disaster. I don’t mean the disaster to the families’ names. It could’ve ended in ‘real’ disaster.
“The apartment… was in the city's most dangerous precinct.”
“Their resolve cracking, they made several more calls to the teacher and brother…”
I can think of many things that two teenagers could have done when their resolve cracked. And that was prevented by one real teacher and one chilled-out brother. Now if the schools were staffed by such teachers? If all teachers were pillars of support to whom a teenager can speak to openly? Wouldn’t we have had a better society?

“…teens in conflict are not uncommon”
“…girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are a growing concern”
And what happened when the story broke that they are missing / ran away? “…neighbors clucked and tongues wagged”.

And what are ‘community leaders’ doing now? “…community leaders have kept in close contact with both families, trying to counsel the parents and girls about what issues in the home contributed to their leaving.” A very good idea indeed. Even better is the fact that “Neither girl is living back home in Borough Park” . But do you really believe that it stems from the home? Of course the home ‘contributed’, but the home may not have been the core of the problem. And if the home of one of them was the core of the problem, go up one level and see where the problem is with the home. I believe you’ll always come back to these facts:

Our children are not getting the strong chinuch they should be getting
Our Emunah is very very low
We are, and are telling our children to, do everything by rote
We do not have support nets for teenagers who have questions or have a hard time in school
Our schools have become elitist
We would rather shove problems under the carpet then be humiliated and deal with them
Our Rabbonim are too politicized (the largest chasidus in America is led by Baalei Machlokes!)

Shouldn’t community leaders use this case to initiate change in our society and community in general? I sure hope that when they are finish ‘counseling’ these parents they move on to everyone else and teach all of us some of the lessons learnt.

Today, at the touch of a button, you can be connected within seconds to someone in the other end of the world. Back in the day, if you wanted to speak to someone by telephone, even in your own town, you had to go thru the operator. The operator was bored in her office most of the day waiting for the phone to ring so she can do her job. When she had to connect someone she would take their number or name and connect them thru the central switchboard. If it was a call to someone out of town the steps were doubled and so on.
The operator in our story always did her boring job without complaints. She learnt to recognize when a caller is upset or calm; when a caller had good news or bad. Over the years she even became friends with many of the people calling her for a listening ear.
There were also callers that used her to get the correct time. There was no internet or phone number to just dial and get the exact time, so they would call her to get the exact time.
Between these callers there was one regular caller who would call every day before noon. “Hello Madam, could you please tell me the EXACT time? Thanks in advance.”
Usually she would answer “The time is five minutes before noon” .
This would repeat every day, summer, winter, fall or spring, for decades. He would call and she would calmly tell him the time. The time came and the old operator was about to retire after all these years. On her last day she looked around the office that she got to know so well. She was more patient with everyone and said goodbye to all her friends. When the time came before noon she thought that now she’ll find out who it was that calls every single day.
As usual, today he also called. “Hello Madam, could you please tell me the EXACT time? Thanks in advance.”
She almost answered him automatically before she remembered that she has to satisfy her curiosity. “Sorry for prying but today is my last day on the job and I would very much like to know who you are and why you call every day at the same time?”
The man answered “You sure hear the bell on the firemen’s tower that rings every day at noon?”
“Sure, I hear it”
“Well” he continued with a bit of arrogance, “I am the one who rings that bell every day at noon. That’s why I needed the EXACT time.”
“Oy, all these years I set my clock to the ring of the bell…”

We are now at the time of year when we all synchronize our clocks with Elul and the Yomim Noroim. Have we been setting our clocks to the clock tower? Is the clock we’re using being set by the same clock we’re using?

Posted by notepad at October 2, 2003 05:40 PM

Comments

If they want to live a less restrictive life, they should be entitled to that. In the U.S. we have, "freedom of religion." It should be their choice regardless of what other people think.

Posted by: Ben Brawer at December 20, 2005 04:39 PM

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