But this is wishful thinking. Because a certain percentage of teens— despite all the intervention in the world— simply opt out of frum life for something cooler.
Rachel Ginsberg’s piece on the heartrending questions raised by a child’s departure from frum life (Still Our Children) was an inspiring and thought-provoking read. But the story told about the off-the-derech phenomenon felt incomplete.
The core idea was that trauma or hurt — not rebellion — is the root of most young people’s struggles with Yiddishkeit today. Parents are told that “someone or something broke your child. No one gets a tattoo just to spite their parents, but because they’re so wrapped up in their pain it’s not even their consideration.”
But the anecdotal evidence suggests that while the above is true in many if not most cases, it is only a partial explanation. There is a significant percentage of teens and adults who have never been abused or bullied but still leave frum life, and it’s clear that there is often something else at work.
That little something is what we call bechirah. Think of the choice that the 21st century presents a frum teen: You can spend years learning much of the day, looking different from most of society and living with restrictions in a world where all boundaries are down. Or, for a certain social cost, you can actually join that fun, look like most people your age, and indulge urges with abandon.
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