New York – For years we have heard the term “kids at risk” to label children who are seemingly heading off the derech, turning their backs on their families, their institutions of higher learning and the mesorah that they were raised with.
But an enlightening and timely must read article in this past week edition of Mishpacha Magazine discussing an insidious and pervasive problem that seems to plague many of today’s youth: boys and girls who outwardly conform to society’s standards of frumkeit, but inwardly are completely disconnected from Yiddishkeit.
The article discusses the sudden surge of children who externally appear to be frum, yet in private have an apparent lack of emunah and yiras shomayim, picking and choosing their mitzvos, deciding to be michalel Shabbos, eat items of questionable kashrus or not to put on Tefillin.
“These children haven’t been turned off from Yiddishkeit,” said R’ Chaim Aaron Weinberg. “They just haven’t been turned on.”
What is the cause of this sudden decline in our precious children?
Experts who were consulted for the article including R’ Moshe Hillel Drew (a chinuch consultant), Reb Chaim and Mrs. Shifra Glancz (founder and director of Our Place in Brooklyn), Mrs. Rivka Goldberger (a Brooklyn mechaneches), R’ Daniel Mechanic (director of Project Chazon), R’ Dovid Sapirman (founder of Ani Maamin Foundation) and R’ Chaim Aaron Weinberg (Menahel, Yeshiva Ateret Torah, Brooklyn) seem to agree that it is the invasion of today’s deteriorating secular values into our society. Indeed with today’s technology not only are there countless ways that dangerous influences can be brought into our children’s lives including internet, cell phones, iPods and even handheld video game systems, but inappropriate activities can be easily hidden from parents and other authority figures.
Click below on link to read this full article. PDF
Reprinted with permission by Mishpacha Magazine exclusively to VIN News