Rabbi Akiva's lesson for Gap Year students

When I was in yeshiva in Israel (Kerem b'Yavneh, 20 years ago), mid-December was the time when hundreds of young men spending their "gap year" learning in Israel toppled over the edge of burnout.

Sometime around November, a combination of 1) studying mussar, 2) experiencing peer pressure 3) sensing they had a rare opportunity to learn and 4) escaping home supervision reached a tipping point and students began learning until 1 AM or later, taking few breaks other than to collapse into bed. Calls home were reduced, the "Out Shabbos" or Shabbaton was a nuisance, showering became a special pre-Shabbos experience, and relatives' visits certainly did not warrant leaving the yeshiva campus.

I don't know that things are still so, but in those days this phase would last for weeks, and then burnout would set in. The pace would prove too much, and most guys would drop into bed for a few days before coming to some sort of equilibrium. I have fond memories of that time.

One of the main drivers of the whole experience was the mussar I mentioned above – messages focussed on convincing us to take advantage of every moment. One of my favorites was the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Goldvicht zt"l's answer for a question raised in Tosafos Kesuvos 17a מבטלין:

The gemara there seems to conflict with a story involving Rabbi Akiva. The gemara says that one who is learning Torah should cease his study to take care of a funeral. On the other hand, a story (recorded in Masechet Derech Eretz) presents Rabbi Akiva saying, "Once, early in my time serving the sages, I was walking along the road and I found a meit mitzvah [a corpse without anyone to take care of it]. I took care of it, transporting it 4 kilometers until I reached a cemetery and buried it. When I reported this to [my mentors] Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, they told me, 'Each step you took was like spilling innocent blood.'"

What was wrong with Rabbi Akiva's actions? Don't funeral needs override Torah study?

Tosafot there asks the question and offers two explanations, but I recall the Rosh Yeshiva zt"l explaining it in his own way: Rabbi Akiva was 100% right for taking care of the meit mitzvah. However, being right doesn't change the fact that he had lost many hours from study, and he would never be able to re-coup those hours. Even were he to add hours from other activities, those would be hours which he could always have added. The Rabbi Akiva he could have become would never exist; he had murdered his potential self.

That sort of thinking can drive you crazy, I know that, but it's so blunt, black-and-white, unvarnished and unapologetic, that I find it compelling. It's true – being "right" doesn't mean you get what you want – and it's demanding. I loved, and still love, lessons like that.

The Avatar/Jerusalem Blues

CNN is reporting on an inevitable psychological phenomenon, The Avatar Blues, in which people who immerse themselves in the film have a hard time returning to their normal lives. As one movie fan put it:

"I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don't have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed."

This is similar to the problems psychologists have been predicting for years, as virtual reality simulations have improved.

Look at this 1995 article from the Society for the Advancement of Education:
Pitting the wonders of virtual worlds against real-world duties and concerns, they argue, will be no contest. Legions of electronic travelers will check in to their own little virtual worlds--and they won't check out!

Or this question from a 2007 course at University of California, Santa Barbara, Exploring Virtual Reality:
Is virtual reality generated by a quest for some new art for, or by the desire to replace an incomplete reality by another, more easily mastered one, an ideal, platonic reality?

Depression over our lot in life is nothing new, and neither is destructive addiction to a substitute - think of everything from drug abuse to adultery - but we keep inventing more advanced ways for people to find satisfaction outside of daily life, and the result is that people flee to those substitutes rather than search for satisfaction in the world in which they live.

The CNN article talks about combating the problem by joining support groups, and finding ways to introduce reminders of Avatar into their lives, such as through the soundtrack. These sound like reasonable methods for handling the addiction, but I would prefer to see the Avatar Addicts look for practical ways to make the world around them more ideal, rather than simply pretend it's a different place. Discontent can fuel change, and I believe it should.

For that matter, the same problem afflicts many of our Jewish community's kids. Teens go off to study in Israel after high school, entering a world of Yeshiva and Seminary that they had never imagined, and that seems entirely beautiful to them. Month after month of pure ideological devotion at the most ideological time of their lives, reinforced by wonderful role models in their rebbeim, reinforced by their most respected peers, and facing little outside responsibility - what could be better? And so, many of them face those same Avatar Blues when it comes time to return to Earth.

I believe the answer is the same for our students as it is for the Avatarians. The short-term fix of finding ways to extend the Israel experience into their lives and seeking the support of others is great. For those who can stay in Israel, that's wonderful. Ultimately, though, I believe that the answer for many should be to use that discontent to fuel change, and personal as well as communal growth.

Flipped Out: Life on the Fringes of Modern Orthodoxy

My “Modern Orthodoxy” has been called into question in personal conversation a couple of times recently, and each time it was odd and unsettling.

It felt odd, because I never would have thought the question would unsettle me. I’ve never liked the “Modern Orthodox” label. It feels somewhat pretentious - “Look at us, we’ve upgraded the system” – even though it usually isn’t meant that way.

And it was unsettling, because I didn’t think there should have been a question. I was educated in Modern Orthodox schools – Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, MTA for high school, Yeshiva University. I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home, in a Modern Orthodox shul with a Modern Orthodox rabbi. I believe in advanced Jewish education for women, in Zionism, in creating kiddush HaShem through involvement in the broader, secular world. I listen to Weezer and Linkin Park. I am part of a Jewish clergy group that runs the gamut, and occasionally speak in reform and conservative temples. I believe in Jewish unity beyond my own narrow frequency on the denominational spectrum.

So I’ve always taken it as a given that I fit into the “Modern Orthodox” mold, to one extent or another, and I don’t think there should be any question.

But then came the questions - not from people who really knew me, but from people who met me for the first time and read a lot into what they saw. I wear a hat for davening. I have a beard. I put my tallis over my head. I believe that some men (and women) should spend their lives in learning Torah. I am not a fan of women’s tefillah groups. I am not willing to support Modern Orthodox schools to the exclusion of supporting all others.

And so, it seems, some have decided that I no longer fit into Modern Orthodoxy.

I half-expect MTA to go back and crop me out of the yearbook photo.

All of this comes to mind as I continue to mull Flipping Out, from Yashar Books.

I read this book when it first came out and recommended it to quite a few people, as a good first look at the statistics and sociology of our children’s “Year in Israel” evolution – but I felt something was missing, and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

I liked the statistical analysis by Rabbi Shalom Berger in the first part, and I really appreciated the perceptive psychological analysis by Rabbi Daniel Jacobson in the second part. The book captures much of what parents are wondering about, and it gives them some ideas on how to prepare for, and cope with, the changes their children will likely manifest. I would have liked to have seen more on women’s seminaries – data which the authors did indicate should be coming soon – and I would have liked to have seen more practical guidance, but beyond that I felt something substantive was missing.

Now, I think I know: The book is missing an in-depth contrast between the religious milieu in which today’s teens live, and that of their parents thirty to fifty years ago, when they were teens. It's not the Year in Israel - it's everything that comes before the Year.

President Joel insightfully noted in his Foreword that the year in Israel should be seen as part of an educational continuum, not an end and not an entity unto itself. It is part of a bigger picture of environment and influences and formal/informal education. Following that thought, I think any serious look at this generational shift really ought to begin by asking about the differences between the pre-Israel experiences of the parents and their children. The book does touch on these issues, such as when both Rabbi Berger and Rabbi Jacobson talk about the pre-disposition of our children for change based upon their previous educational experiences, but not in an intense way, devoting a section to this discussion.

Some examples of key areas of difference between the lives of North American Jewish youth 30-50 years ago, and the lives of today’s North American youth:

-The political and economic strength of today’s Jewish community, and a resultant sense that we can be more fully Jewish and less compromising in our integration into society;

-The influence of NCSY, as well as other groups, in giving children a strong Jewish identity;

-The ubiquity of “right wing” influences, which were once seen as anachronistic and all-but-extinct but have now become a powerful voice in North American, and world, Jewry;

-The inculcation of religious ideas, with children growing up hearing – in school, camp, Jewish music, everywhere in the Jewish world - about an emphasis on talmud torah and mitzvos and deveikus to HaShem, and then attending yeshivot where those are presented as attainable goals.

Modern Orthodoxy, in any generation, is as much a product of its surroundings as it is a product of R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch or Rav Soloveitchik. I believe that one of the major reasons today’s youth have a version of Modern Orthodoxy that differs from the version of their parents is simply that they live in a different world, which sets up different poles and different compromises.

This is certainly true for me. As much as my own evolution in Israel was a function of the unique experiences and relationships from which I benefited there (Yeshivat Kerem b’Yavneh), I think it was really much more a product of these surrounding factors, of my upbringing and education and world. I hope that a future version of “Flipping Out” might add that to the formula as well.