To be "Aish'd" | Imamother

Motek

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 8:08 pm

With a brand-new, floor-length skirt swishing against the linoleum tiles, I walked into school the first day of 11th grade to confused stares. Where had the graphic, midriff-baring T-shirts and sweatpants gone?

Three weeks of my summer vacation had been spent traveling the West Coast of the United States with an Orthodox outreach youth group. Alongside Grand Canyon hikes, I had been immersed in Halacha (Jewish law), and becoming "modest" seemed like a natural step.

How did a 15-year-old girl of the 21st century, who gave no thought to slipping tank-top straps, underage clubbing and kissing boys in camp cabins, end up considering covered elbows and knees a necessary virtue?

High school and university campuses have noticed this phenomenon for years: Their friends come back after school breaks from Orthodox outreach programs clutching Artscroll siddurs, imbued with a penchant for Zionism and an aversion to intermarriage.

"They've been Aish'd," is the commonly whispered comment, equivalent to "They've been brainwashed."

The number of Orthodox outreach programs for non-Orthodox youth, like those of Aish Hatorah and NCSY, have exploded in the past decade. According to the Aish Hatorah Web site, it alone entices more than 100,000 people in 17 countries to its programs annually. Many of the programs offer several week-long trips combining learning and traveling in Israel, Canada or the US. They are ridiculously low-priced, often up to five times less than other tour groups.

The participants pay through other means, though; they absorb a particular brand of Judaism that seems to be an extra ingredient in the twin hallot eaten every Friday evening.

"They overload you with free stuff, and then you work because you want it. You'll do anything," says Sarah, a participant on two Israel programs and several long-term programs in Canada by Aish Hatorah and NCSY.

IS JUDAISM so compelling, so inherently true, that as soon as youths discover it, they cannot stay away?

In fact, Orthodox Jewish laws are exotic and offer a reverse way for youth to rebel. Drugs, drinking and relations are all passé rebellions by now. But how many young people actually refuse to touch the opposite relations? These organizations are offering an exciting way to be different and get attention.

Still, it's a tiresome lifestyle to maintain - and after the programs end, most participants don't. As valuable as the Orthodox lifestyle may be, the methods used by these organizations are eerily cultish and the results often short-lived.

The organizations present their Judaism as the uniquely accurate one, the Halacha that the non-Orthodox have merely forgotten but that all their ancestors invariably followed. Their assumption that all our great-great-grandparents grew up in an Eastern European shtetl contributes to divisiveness among Jews, for it fails to acknowledge that Halacha has had a variety of interpretations across different times and cultures.

A fellow participant on my trip was ignored by advisers when she remarked that for some Sephardim, the only halachic requirement was to be more modest than one's neighbors, and that the stringent laws that guide current frum fashion (good-bye collarbones, elbows and knees) were unnecessary. Outright dismissal of alternative views may drive sales of skirt manufacturers, but it is not beneficial to learning about the history of Judaism.

SOME PROGRAMS make participants adhere closely to Orthodoxy, and others just introduce them to it. But all are extremely effective at what they do by using rudimentary indoctrination techniques .

They remove participants from their normal environment and place them in a new, vulnerable context. Traveling is a mentally exhausting experience in any case. How much more so that is in Israel, where one suddenly finds oneself part of the majority - an intensely emotional experience that these programs capitalize on. Foreign ideas suddenly seem reasonable: Instead of lecturing someone with mostly secular friends to stop eating pork, it is easier to just stop serving it for a month in a completely Jewish environment.

Within such an environment, participants are made to feel guilty about a lack of observance. The organizations criticize the secular lifestyle as hollow so that young people, always in search of identity, undergo a crisis of confusion about which path to take.

A FALSE dilemma is presented: Be secular and remain in impurity, where life is merely a game played for fun - or move toward a purpose and filled with holiness.

When presented so simply, which road seems more attractive?

The organizations transmit these teachings through trip leaders who often succeed in making observance seem fun and relevant, at least for the duration of the program.

But the teachings are superficial and the Orthodox world they present bears not a trace of dissatisfaction: Never did I ever hear a speaker or trip leader discuss any problems within the Orthodox world. Apparently, as long as they follow proper Halacha, everybody is happy and fulfilled, with neither depression nor repression, money nor domestic problems.

The female trip leaders imparting the message of how wonderful Halacha is are born Orthodox, with a sweet, never-been-kissed, perky charm. Unfortunately, they are unable to relate to the secular world, where they have had no experience. Instead, they drivel out the same stock responses on subjects like why to refrain from touching boys: Everyone has heard "your soul is a diamond that should be kept in a special case" a hundred times.

Metaphors like those sound wonderful and make superficial sense, but falter in the face of hormonal reality. The counsellors shut their ears to truthful comments such as "I want relations as much as he does." Their simplistic response is: "But as a female, you really want him to love you and hold you instead."

By addressing issues from an archaic, non-scientific, pseudo-psychological perspective and refusing to believe that at times women can be just as s-xual, forceful and unemotional as men, participants are left with beautiful-sounding concepts that prove unworkable upon return to the secular world.

PARTICIPATION IN these programs is similar to a summer romance, which is removed from reality through a heady mix of sun and beach. It lacks imposing obligations. Everything moves fast and intensely, yet rarely lasts.

"They make you some kind of fake family, that's why you feel all religious there. And then you get home and see your real family... and that's the way you have to live," says Sarah.

Many absorb Halacha like a sponge. But a few weeks back into one's regular routine in the secular world, the rational reasons for not touching boys, praying before meals and refraining from electricity on the Sabbath fade as fast as a dream.

Running into those who have remained Orthodox, unrecognizable from only a few years earlier, is an uncanny experience. They often work for outreach organizations and are as unsettling to me as Evangelical Christians.

As for me, was I "Aish'd"? Well, I'm spending this summer in Israel, but I'm wearing jeans.

The writer is currently an intern at The Jerusalem Post before returning for her final year in humanities and philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S.....wFull

DefyGravity

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 8:17 pm

Motek, took you long enough to post this article!

chavamom

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 8:45 pm

http://www.aish.com/jewishissu.....d.asp

chavamom

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 8:47 pm

My favorite comment: " We are all brainwashed- when we don't like it, we call it brainwashed, when we like it, we call it education."

Motek

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 9:07 pm

DefyGravity wrote:

Motek, took you long enough to post this article!

um, not sure what you mean

mumoo

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 9:11 pm

chavamom wrote:

My favorite comment: " We are all brainwashed- when we don't like it, we call it brainwashed, when we like it, we call it education."

HaRav Avigdor Miller zt"l was giving a shiur in NYC and a 'heckler' found the courage to shout out, "Don't you think you are brainwashing these people?"

HaRav Miller answered, "So, their brains need a good washing."

Mevater

Sun, Aug 10 2008, 10:01 pm

mumoo wrote:

HaRav Avigdor Miller zt"l was giving a shiur in NYC and a 'heckler' found the courage to shout out, "Don't you think you are brainwashing these people?" HaRav Miller answered, "So, their brains need a good washing."

ChossidMom

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 12:24 am

I recently had the pleasure of having Aish guys for Shabbosim. They were SMART guys.
One Shabbos I had guys who were on an Aish program in Toronto where Aish paid THEM to participate in the afternoons after college classes. They loved it and came to Israel for the summer program. One of these guys was a 26 year old entrepeneur - smart, funny and fun to be with. Real serious about yiddishkeit. Before he had encountered Aish he knew nothing.
Another guy we had wound up in Israel because his father's brother became frum through Aish many, many years ago. This guy also knew nothing about Yiddishkeit. He has a phenomenal hi tech profession but he came here to fill the yearning in his soul.

I have continually been and still am bowled over by Reb Noach Weinberg and his caring for each and every Jew. And I think that Aish is a very special organization. My family has been involved in having Aish guys for Shabbos since the 1970's. We have seen with our own eyes guys go from kibbutz to Yeshiva to being seriously frum balabatim and raise beautiful families. It was a privilege to be a part of this (and I look forward to continuing to help STOP assimilation by opening my home for Shabbosim).

mamacita

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 2:50 am

I don't know why I'm continuously shocked by the bias in the news (to use the term loosely). Besides the mixed message that Aish is a cult, that doesn't work, the lack of support for her POV is obvious in her only interviewee makes some pretty neutral comments compared to the rest of the points.

Read the book "Jews for Nothing" and you'll really see how cults are working on stealing Jewish neshamas. Even if people have a problem with Aish's tactics, comparing it to a cult just shows how vulnerable people are to cults since they obviously don't know how they work!

B"H dh got Aished and FTB, or my kinderlach wouldn't be here.

freidasima

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 3:09 am

Aish may b a "cult" but it's OUR cult and that makes it good.

(if you doj't recognize the saying's original version, it's from "he may be a SOB but he is OUR SOB and that makes it good")

sarahd

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 4:55 am

Motek wrote:

DefyGravity wrote:

Motek, took you long enough to post this article!

um, not sure what you mean

The article appeared weeks ago. Do you agree with the author's premise?

Bambamama

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 5:14 am

mumoo wrote:

chavamom wrote:

My favorite comment: " We are all brainwashed- when we don't like it, we call it brainwashed, when we like it, we call it education."

Hahaha, Rav Miller zt"l was so witty!

Ruchel

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 5:35 am

Quote:

A fellow participant on my trip was ignored by advisers when she remarked that for some Sephardim, the only halachic requirement was to be more modest than one's neighbors, and that the stringent laws that guide current frum fashion (good-bye collarbones, elbows and knees) were unnecessary.

are there sources for this?

sarahd

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 6:15 am

Ask the author of the article. Wink

DefyGravity

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 8:52 am

Motek wrote:

DefyGravity wrote:

Motek, took you long enough to post this article!

um, not sure what you mean

I was just joking because the article had been circulating all over the place for a couple of weeks, and you're a big aish article linker.

gryp

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 9:42 am

Many of the things written in the arrticle about Aish fits the Chabad programs as well. What an unpleasant article.

chavamom

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 12:04 pm

It seems to me (armchair psychologist that I am...) that the author feels guilty and a need to justify dropping everything. And what a justification! Basically boils down to "taiva is natural and therefore it's not normal to be frum"!

Raisin

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 12:12 pm

chavamom wrote:

the most jaw dropping conversation I ever had was with a very nice woman, not frum but traditional, whose son had become frum (either through aish or another org) and was now getting married to a girl with a simlar background. I don't think she was that bothered about him becoming frum, what really really worried her is that her son was marrying a girl whom he'd never even touched yet.

greenfire

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 12:13 pm

try coming from the other persons perspective ... I know somebody who is having this issue now ... the guy went to eretz yisroel and suddenly thinks he should get married or break up with this girl - cause he wants to be "shomer negia" ... she has always been more traditional than him in observance yet he gives her an ultimatum ... sounds more like he lost all sense of normalcy rather than he became more religious ...

JRKmommy

Mon, Aug 11 2008, 4:27 pm

It's not a full scholarly report on the total effects of Aish programs - it's an article by one person who went through it. Considered in that way...I think there is an interesting POV about what it feels like to go through a summer program and then bump back into one's reality back home.

The summer programs are great as an intense introduction. However, real lifelong commitment to a frum lifestyle isn't fully developed after one summer. The summer is a taste.

I remember having an intense summer with NCSY after high school. I loved it, and I'm very glad I did it. However, I did have struggles with new concepts. At one point, frustrated by the fact that I couldn't get through on the phone to my parents for a week (in the olden days before everyone had a cell phone, when overseas calls from Israel had to be placed through an international telephone operator from a pay phone), I actually started feeling like I was in something resembling a cult - no contact with family, not much sleep, not much privacy, not much protein (lousy food during the 9 days), intense learning and questioning everything in my life. This isn't a criticism of the program, but an acknowledgement that it IS an intense experience, and that can be unsettling.

It's easy to put on a skirt and be frum while on a tour. It's harder to deal with reality when you get back home - to a family that doesn't keep kosher or keep Shabbat, to an environment that criticizes much of what you have learned, etc. I also found that I'd get jarred by the odd thing like painting a picture of bubbies and zaidas that differed so starkly from my own grandparents. It's also easy to get disillusioned when you need to struggle with reality, as opposed to a dream.

I don't think we've heard the end of the author's story. I know I went through a whole range of Jewish movements before settling where I am now.