While secular men are in existential crisis, we must be doing something right. Seven ways our system sidesteps the current masculinity crisis 

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a frum society, we are excellent at self-flagellation. At the drop of a magazine, we can muster up long lists of all the problems in our communities. But sometimes I wonder if we know how to appreciate what we do have. Are we aware, for example, that as we speak, Western society is grappling with a serious masculinity crisis?

The New York Times, in a recent article titled “It’s Not Just a Feeling,” assures us that this is not just hype. The actual data on the ground shows how dramatically boys and young men are falling behind.

For example, only 41 percent of college degrees now go to men. Atlantic magazine has dubbed this “the new marriage of unequals,” as more-educated women marry less-educated men. Men in the workforce are in decline — in fact, one in ten men aged 20 to 24 is doing neither school nor work. Mental health crises among young men are climbing, as is addiction and suicide — at four times the rate of young women.

And all this is just the backdrop to the most tragic part — the way this crisis is affecting family life. A whopping two-thirds of American children are born to single mothers — even while research shows that the single most important marker for success in life is being raised by two parents. As one commentator put it, women are advancing in every area — while men are becoming really excellent at video games.

Taken together, it’s clear that referring to this as a “crisis of masculinity” is not hyperbole — in fact, it might be an understatement.

Vive la Différence

And then there is our community. Yes, we have our issues. But do you know what else we have?

We have idealistic young men who are interested in marriage and eager to commit to it at a young age. We have wholesome young men who see having children as part of their life mission. We have responsible young men who see supporting their families as a concrete goal (even if only as a line on their shidduch résumé). We have sincere young men who are motivated enough to invest some of their best earning years to growing in Torah.

As it turns out, we have a lot to be grateful for. In fact, maybe these concerned social commentators should ask the frum world what we’re doing right with our sons.

But truthfully, even if they don’t ask us, we can ask ourselves. The outside world is scarily compelling — a parent recently confided in me that his terror of failing to keep his kids on the straight and narrow informs most of his interactions with them. Breaking down the elements of our system — especially in contrast to the secular world — can be a wonderful tool to help us be more intentional (and less defensive) about what we do.

Here are seven ways our system sidesteps the current masculinity crisis.

1. Commitment Is Expected — and Valued

Western society likes freedom and abhors anything that might stifle that freedom — which, of course, includes marriage. While secular women are also delaying marriage today — the median age for both men and women has shot up from the early twenties to the early thirties in the last three decades — even the New York Times is willing to admit that the main problem here is the men. “Why aren’t more people getting married?” a recent Times article asks in its title. And the answer it offers? “Ask the women what dating is like.” As it turns out, it is the Western man who is allergic to commitment.

Judaism, on the other hand, sees masculinity as deeply intertwined with obligation and commitment on the part of the man. Under the chuppah, he gives her the kesubah, and not vice versa. While Western society throws around terms like “situationships” and “commitment-phobic,” the Torah flips this cultural model, inviting the man to be a giver rather than a taker.

2. A Cure for Loneliness

Getting married at a young age addresses another aspect of the masculinity crisis: loneliness. American men are stuck in a “friendship recession”; a Gallup poll reveals that Gen Z and millennial men under 35 are among the loneliest demographic. The frum world offers a plethora of built-in social opportunities for men — from davening with a minyan to shalom zachars and family simchahs. But the truth is, there is an existential loneliness that really has only one solution: an ezer k’negdo.

While fleeting relationships may dazzle, all the flings in the world can’t fill that empty hole the way marriage can. In a published study that is unlikely to topple anyone from their chair in surprise, Sam Peltzman, a University of Chicago economist, reports that marriage was “the most important differentiator” between happy and unhappy people — way more than a person’s income.

How lucky for the frum man who marries young, early in his emotional journey — before he is scarred, jaded, and disillusioned — to a woman who is committed to him and only to him. As Shlomo Hamelech points out in Eishes Chayil, when his “heart trusts in her,” then “he does not lack for spoils.” An emotionally satisfying relationship compensates for a lot of other “needs.” Marriage at a young age pulls a man out of his lonely bubble and draws him into a world of caring and friendship. In the beautiful words of the sheva brachos, he and his wife become rei’im ahuvim — beloved friends.

3. Torah Preserves Distinctly Male Spaces

It is an uncomfortable truth that progressives prefer to ignore: Women’s advancement often coincides with men’s regression. As it turns out, the minute women become more prominent in a particular field, men disappear. This is borne out in fields that used to be mostly male, such as: psychology (77% women), pediatrics (65% to 75% women), veterinary medicine (80% women), and clinical pharmacy (65% women).

In fact, there is a hidden price to pay for egalitarianism, one that Reform and Conservative congregations — much as they loathe to acknowledge it — struggle with mightily today. So, for example, current enrollment at Hebrew Union College is 38% male versus 61% female. Reform and Conservative temples are initiating a plethora of “men only” events (including, unbelievably, “men only” prayer services), in a desperate attempt to reclaim their men.

We can pontificate about this or that seminary being too text-based or not text-based enough. Women can tap into the many wonderful Torah learning resources available, women can relish going to shul when their life circumstances permit. Yet nothing will change the fact that a man is a metzuvah v’oseh in talmud Torah and tefillah in a way that a woman is not.

Perhaps those halachically designated male roles and male spaces are what keep our young men from the frustration and sense of worthlessness that accompany so many secular men. No less than the New York Times observed that the “disappearing men” phenomena isn’t happening among Orthodox Jews, “whose public religious rituals are led exclusively by men, which allows boys to see an obvious place for themselves.”

It is not a contradiction to celebrate women’s progress in many fields and at the same time to acknowledge the Divine wisdom in creating halachically designated male roles.

4. Purpose Isn’t Optional — It’s Built In

A recent article in the Free Press bemoans the cynicism that permeates today’s youth culture, as an “almost incapacity to be serious.” Youth vie to be even more sneering, sarcastic, scornful, sardonic, and skeptical than their peers — the better to defend themselves against the existential terror of being perceived as “uncool.”

In contrast, Torah inculcates us with the idea that we were sent to this world for a purpose — and even the most seemingly mundane actions matter. However inadequate mussar study in yeshivos might be, our sons are learning a language that is becoming completely foreign to secular society. Next time you are at a sheva brachos, or hear a devar Torah at a Shabbos table, note how concepts that have faded from the secular discourse — about honesty and introspection, about caring and responsibility for others, about cultivating spiritual and moral goals in life — are threaded through every derashah and devar Torah. We may not always live up to our ideals — but the ideals are definitely out there, celebrated in the public arena.

5. Fatherhood as a Path to Greatness

Men in the secular world feel anchorless, with no reason to get out of bed in the morning. Contrast that with the experience of the young fathers whose reasons for getting out of bed might be bouncing on their bed as they deliberate.

There is so much talk in the secular world about whether someone “feels ready” to have children. But maybe being ready for children is an oxymoron. If there is one absolute about having children, it’s that it sets you on a one-way journey to you-have-no-idea-where. As it turns out, having children is often a catalyst for our most dramatic growth as human beings.

On a recent Friday afternoon, I found myself at a local park with some of my grandchildren (don’t ask) and I noticed that there were very few mothers at the park. Mostly there were fathers — tying shoes, handing out sandwiches, but also running through the sprinklers with their kids and organizing relay races. It occurred to me how much big families (and small budgets) encourage participation and cooperation on the part of fathers.

In contrast to the vague desire for “our children to be happy” — which researchers are discovering underlies most parenting decisions — Judaism’s emphasis on v’shinantam l’vanecha, along with the halachos of honoring one’s parents, creates a very different parenting dynamic.

A friend shared that she saw a child walking with his father, wearing a T-shirt proclaiming: “If you think this kid is bad, you should see his Dad.” How tragic for that child to be parented by a man who takes pride in being “badder” than his four-year-old. Indeed, there are probably few things that motivate a person more to make something of himself than little eyes looking up at him.

6. Real Role Models, in Real Time

Richard Reeves, in his work on the male crisis, notes that many boys today not only don’t live with their fathers — they also attend schools where nearly all their teachers are women. Combine that with a media diet of hyper-masculine influencers or apathetic gamers, and it’s no wonder that many boys don’t know what kind of man to be.

In contrast, our boys are surrounded by male role models — in school, in yeshivah, in shul, and at our segregated family simchahs. Rabbeinu Yonah, in an insightful twist to the pasuk in Mishlei, tells us that a person’s true nature is revealed not by how people praise him, but by whom he praises. Imagine how different our world would look if on our dais sat sports figures, movie stars, or secular influencers — instead of the refined, learned, wise, caring, and compassionate people we look up to.

7. Self-Discipline as a Virtue

It’s fascinating how deeply we’re shaped by the culture around us. People steeped in Western culture, for example, might see the entire Vayimaen project (which encourages shemiras einayim) as vaguely unhealthy. Self-restraint is dismissed as being “inhibited” — one of the worst epithets in a society that champions a “let it all hang out” mentality. The prevailing cultural narrative doesn’t just normalize men giving in to their impulses — it glamorizes it.

And since we, too, recognize both the importance of self-acceptance and the dangers of shaming, we can sometimes feel defensive about the goals we set for our youth.

It is worthwhile to contemplate that in the not-so-distant past, many Western thinkers, artists, and philosophers held views that were much more compatible with halachah. They believed that lack of self-discipline was a sure path to narcissism and emotional stunting. Interestingly, some of them even saw clear parallels between physical self-control and intellectual and artistic creativity. Is it possible that Western society’s devaluing of specifically male-focused self-discipline might have some connection to the “male crisis” they are so anxiously pontificating about?

As secular men flail around trying to give positive expression to their masculinity, many find succor in the gym — the modern altar where identity is shaped and (if he can stick to it) affirmed. The number of bench presses he can do becomes a marker of his masculinity.

Strength is indeed closely linked to masculinity. It is not for nothing that the Hebrew word for man, gever, shares a root with the word for strength, gibbor. But while being a power lifter, body builder, or gym bro may give him a macho physique, it does not necessarily turn him into a man. “Who is strong? [Who is a man?]” the Mishnah asks. “He who conquers his desires.”

When I asked a student of mine, whose heart had been shattered to smithereens, how on earth a supposedly normative young man could behave so abysmally, she looked at me strangely. “Miriam, what do you want from him? He’s a guy.”

How tragic that the high ideals of “self-expression” and “radical autonomy” find expression at the end of the day in treating adult men as if they were toddlers. We can’t expect much from you — secular society says — because boys will be boys.

Human beings are not angels. We are physical, flawed, and constantly tested. The “living your truth” bandied about in the secular world may seem more appealing — and certainly more relaxing. But Torah offers us a different vision of man.

“What is man, that You should even remember him?” Dovid Hamelech asks in Tehillim. And the answer? “ Yet You have made him just a little lower than G-d.” —

Miriam Kosman is the author of Circle, Arrow, Spiral: Exploring Gender in Judaism — now in its sixth printing and translated into French and Hebrew, with a Russian edition forthcoming. She is also a lecturer for Nefesh Yehudi, the Israeli branch of Olami.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1077)