I would like to commend Meir Brodsky on his letter in the Jewish Link (“A Different Look at Attrition Stats” December 12, 2024) for correctly pointing out how to read and analyze the statistics presented regarding the “off the derech” phenomena in the Jewish world. I would like to take a moment to utilize an observation he made and a conclusion he reached and apply it to a growing reality I suspect many of us are aware of but sweep under the rug.
The observation Meir makes (correctly so in my estimation and anecdotal experience), is that “a huge majority of the kids with an Orthodox upbringing that leave secular college non-observant also entered college non observant and were non-observant already in their yeshiva high school days.” The proposition he offers is “the bigger concern is how much we rely on the gap year to “fix” any kids that left observance at some point in their upbringing … The amazing rabbis in these gap year programs don’t have magical powers that the rabbis in our schools and shuls are missing. We can work on combating attrition within our high schools without outsourcing the problem to yeshivas in Israel and taking no responsibility ourselves.” We must indeed combat attrition. There is something lacking in our Jewish educational process across the board. The gap year fix often breaks down after a few years and even then, it would be impossible to address legitimate questions about Judaism to the next generation without somehow keeping up with the philosophical and scientific inquiries of the time. We would need to rely on educators for at least some of this. There are not only Jews who go off the derech completely but also those who live an Orthodox life while either completely nonbelieving or “going with the motions.” I suspect this is more common than we might think.
With this in mind, I would like to draw your attention to a recent uproar in frum and OTD blog circles. Recently, there has been much confessed by people living in more right wing communities about living a double life. Many “frum” looking adults, married and with children, have lost all faith. They did not ask to be inquisitive minds. They did not ask to have their questions rejected or to be shunned by the community at large for asking such “blasphemous” questions. They have, after expending immense amounts of energy to remain frum and find God, simply given up. Neither gap years nor textual expertise have given them any tools with which to combat their doubts. One such “Inverse Marrano” (as Heschel puts it empathetically), recently wrote about how he and others like him have found each other and gather in a place in where they can be themselves. This group is not simply one of decadent teens, upset at mommy and daddy for not buying them a Tesla, it is a group of Hakhamim, knowing Jewish texts inside and out (so it is described). This person writes how he allows himself this life only because his wife loves and supports him though she is a complete believer. Many are not so lucky. He sacrifices by performing the Jewish routine while wholeheartedly believing it false for the sake of his wife and children. If she or the kids were at risk of being “exposed” with a father who is leading this life, he writes he would leave it and deny ever having felt this way. Let that sink in. We have people living amongst us who are terrified of being exposed as non-believers to their community. It is a well-known issue that we do not lack for judgmentalism. As the famous joke goes, “that person holds one mitzvah to a stricter degree than I do so he must be a loon and the other holds one mitzvah to a lesser degree than me so he must be completely OTD!” We can barely find a bridge between other sects of Judaism so of course it would be difficult to build this bridge to those who are off the derech. It appears that what all Jewish denominations have in common besides the Torah is people going off the derech in droves. This will not stop anytime soon unless changes are made.
Why is this problem ubiquitous? I believe that it is because yeshivas outside of Israel never teach Biblical criticism and how to combat it at all. Tanach in a serious manner, or the Halachic process appropriately (Halacha vs minhag and the like). Gap year yeshivot only sometimes offer a brief glimpse into a potentially different approach to Judaism. These approaches are not enough. Not on their own and not joined together.
The road to a shared future is a return to understanding of Jewish philosophy in a serious manner. There is a letter of recommendation from Rabbi Soloveitchik to YU on how to structure the RIETS program germane to this. Rabbi Soloveitchik writes: “It is almost incomprehensible that a rabbi leaving the portals of our yeshiva should not master at least the four basic texts of Jewish medieval thought, if not in their entirety, then at least their most essential parts. I therefore suggest that a study of the essential parts of Emunot ve-Deot, Hovot ha Levavot, the Kuzari and Moreh Nevukhim be made compulsory.” I would like us to sincerely question if we had even a fraction of exposure to the Geonim – who were masters of philosophy and balancing Torah attitudes with scientific discoveries of the time – as we did to the Rishonim and Aharonim. This may seem a minor detail, but the Geonim were masters of the Talmudic traditions, spanning hundreds of years of thought. They have methodologies vital to addressing these perennial concerns. We ignore them at our expense. There is much occurring in the world of science nowadays which does serious damage to “traditional” thinking in the yeshiva world. The things I heard in yeshiva in my gap year by people with backgrounds in science and Torah in order to mesh the two have been based on understandings of science now outdated (a mere decade)! We have an attrition problem, it begins with our own lack of understanding Judaism, continues with a hope that our children not be exposed to any true challenges to religion, and will inevitably end with disappointment. We must find a path to education and acceptance of the reality of the science around us. We must emphasize faith and making room for what seems irrational, for the gap between our knowledge and the Torah, trusting that there is a way for the two to coalesce. This is not easy, but it is, in my view, the most sacred path forward.
