By the time the rosh yeshivah made his decision, Eli was done with learning. The emotional limbo had been so draining for him that he had no interest in looking into other yeshivos

“Your son said something unacceptable,” he said. “We’re sending him home early for Purim.” “Oh, no,” I croaked. “What did he say?” It was bad. Not printable. I was floored. Mortified. “We’re putting Eli on the seven o’clock bus,” the mashgiach continued. Fear for my tenth-grader’s welfare temporarily overcame my feelings of mortification. “The seven o’clock bus?” I asked.

“That arrives at three in the morning! A 15-year-old Jewish kid can’t be in the bus station at that time of the night! Can you send him out tomorrow morning? Or even on the eleven o’clock bus tonight? At least then he’ll arrive when it’s daylight.” “He has to leave now,” the mashgiach said flatly. Furious with Eli for getting himself into this mess, and unsure how to deal with the situation, I called up Rabbi Rollman, the master mechanech that my husband Aron and I consult with. “Whatever you do,” he advised, “greet your son with a smile when he comes home and let him know that you’re happy to see him.”

Greeting my son with a smile was the last thing I felt like doing. I wanted to shake his head and yell at him, “You stupid kid! We did everything for you, and you ruined it!”

FROM THE TIME I was young, my dream was to give my children the perfect upbringing. As a child of divorce, I had been shuttled around from house to house for most of my childhood, and I was determined to give my kids the stability and normalcy I never experienced. I taught for a number of years before I was married, and in the course of working with my students and their parents, I encountered many different types of parents and parenting styles. By the time I had my own kids, I knew exactly how to be a mother. I would give my children lots of love and warmth, but I would also set limits. I would be firm and consistent with my kids, but I would not pressure them. I would raise them to be frum, but not farfrumt. Our Shabbos table would offer just the right balance of divrei Torah, zemiros, good food, and relaxed conversation. When the kids were little, things went exactly according to plan. Although they each had different personalities and preferences, they were all so cute and innocent, and they dutifully followed the script I had mapped out for them. My family was just perfect — until my third son, Eli, started first grade. The first day of school, he came home sobbing. “It will get better, Eli,” I comforted him. Had I known then what a nightmare school would be for him, I would have matched him sob for sob. It turned out that Eli had sensory issues that made it difficult for him to learn. Aron and I were both in chinuch, and we didn’t have two pennies to rub together, but we borrowed money to pay for tutors and therapy. Even so, by the time Eli graduated eighth grade, he was missing key Gemara skills, and we had to find him a high school that was geared to kids who were not academic.

There was only one local yeshivah that fit that bill. But when I spoke to the principal of that yeshivah, he said, “Your two alef sons you didn’t send here, and your third son, your gimmel son, you want me to take?” As a teacher myself, I fiercely believe that every one of HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s children is an alef. What their report cards say does not define who they are. I would never dream of referring to a student as a gimmel, and neither would Aron. Hearing Eli described as a gimmel was enough to convince me that I didn’t want him in that yeshivah. After doing extensive research, we found Eli a small, out-ofthe-way yeshivah that was an eight-hour drive away. One thing that gave me confidence in the yeshivah was their rule that talmidim could not have any phones or devices with Internet connectivity. For safety reasons, they were allowed to have phones with them while traveling to and from yeshivah, but they were required to hand over their phones to the hanhalah when they arrived. With heavy hearts, we sent our 14-year-old son off to his new yeshivah, praying that the staff there would not only ignite his interest in learning, but would also provide some of the parental love and warmth we wouldn’t be able to give him from afar. Eli floundered his way through ninth grade, getting himself in trouble on several occasions and managing to rub the principal and several members of the staff the wrong way. His behavior infuriated me.

Aron and I had invested so much into him — couldn’t he just toe the line? The day Eli was sent home from yeshivah, I didn’t know whom to be angrier at — him, for messing up royally, or the hanhalah of his yeshivah, for dispatching him on the first bus out with no concern for his safety. At three in the morning, Eli called to tell me that the bus was pulling into the city. I jumped into the car and drove over to the bus station to pick him up, hoping that he wouldn’t be accosted by drug addicts or felons on his way out. “Hi, Eli,” I said with a big plastered-on smile when he opened the car door. “It’s so good to see you!” As the muscles in his face visibly relaxed, I could see him thinking, Oh, I’m not in trouble. Phew. I’m safe here. Mentally, I thanked Rabbi Rollman for his advice. Counterintuitive as it had felt to greet Eli with warmth, it was clearly the right move. I offered up a lot of tefillos that Purim, praying that Eli should settle down in yeshivah. Right after Purim, I asked Eli which bus I should book him for his return trip. “Uh, Ma,” he said, “they told me they’re not sure if they’re letting me back.” “Really?” I asked. The mashgiach hadn’t said a word to me about that; all he had said was that they were sending Eli home early for Purim. The morning of Shushan Purim, Aron called the rosh yeshivah. “We’re still deciding whether Eli can come back,” he said. My other boys went back to yeshivah, my girls went back to school, but Eli was still home. This was alarming to us, because structure is essential for any kid, and especially for a teenager who is struggling.

What would Eli do at home all day? He hadn’t been learning much in yeshivah, but at least he had been in a safe environment. Or so I thought. Only after Eli was sent home did I learn that the rule about Internet access was hardly enforced. If a boy decided not to hand in his phone, no one followed up with him. Eli wasn’t a major troublemaker, but he wasn’t a little tzaddik’l, either. In an environment where access to schmutz was readily available, he hadn’t had the inner strength to resist it. Unfortunately for him, a member of the staff happened to overhear him saying something inappropriate. Eli vehemently denied having said it, and I am inclined to believe him. But I’m his mother, so I don’t know how much my opinion is worth. Either way, the yeshivah did not accept Eli’s denial of the allegations. Each time we called them to find out when Eli could return, they hemmed and equivocated. “We have to think about whether we’re ready to have him back,” the rosh yeshivah kept telling us. Not knowing whether Eli was going to be allowed back into yeshivah was worse than not having a yeshivah to send him to at all. Had they told us, right away, that he was being thrown out, we would have made it our business to find him a new yeshivah, pronto. But we were in limbo, waiting for an answer for the yeshivah, and only after a couple of weeks had passed did we make an appointment for Eli to speak to someone who helps place boys in yeshivos. This expert recommended that Eli stay in his current yeshivah. “I think it’s the best place for him right now,” he said. “And I’m afraid that he’s not motivated enough to handle a move well.” We couldn’t send him back to yeshivah, though, because they weren’t giving us a definitive answer.

All we could do, other than daven, was call up the rosh yeshivah every other day and beg him to take Eli back. Each time, the answer was, “We still need to think about it.” Concerned as we were, we were optimistic that the yeshivah would eventually take Eli back. After all, his stuff was still in the dorm. It was just a matter of time, we figured, until the suspension was over. We went through four weeks of this torturous uncertainty. And then, finally, the rosh yeshivah told us that he had made his decision: Eli was not welcome back. After hearing that news, I stumbled outside to my car, alone, and drove around the neighborhood aimlessly, tears falling down my cheeks. This can’t happen to me! I wanted to shout. I don’t want to belong to this club! In the school where I teach, the hanhalah has a policy never to expel a child unless an alternative arrangement is in place. “These are dinei nefashos,” my principal says. He would never send away a student without asking a sh’eilah of daas Torah, but it’s rare that he would even ask such a sh’eilah, because he feels an achrayus to every student. When my car finally made its way back into my driveway, I called the rosh yeshivah back to appeal his decision. “Did you consult with anyone before deciding that Eli can’t come back?” I asked in desperation. He wouldn’t answer my question. By the time the rosh yeshivah made his decision, Eli was done with learning. The emotional limbo had been so draining for him that he had no interest in looking into other yeshivos. What do you do with a 15-year-old who doesn’t have a yeshivah to go to and doesn’t even want to go to yeshivah? We found him a job working as a grocery store, stocking shelves and manning the cash register.

At least he had something to do, something to get up for in the morning. And he actually liked the job, so he was happy. That was no small thing. Sending your 15-year-old son to work is hardly a magic solution, however. A kid that age belongs in school, not at work. Even if he is not going to continue on to beis midrash or, l’havdil, college, he needs the basic knowledge and skills you acquire in high school, not to mention the social stimulation of a peer group. Just because a boy can’t learn Gemara, does that mean he doesn’t need an educational framework that gives him the space to grow up and develop himself as a person? Way back when Eli’s learning issues were first becoming apparent, I had called up a prominent rav who is known for his wise advice. “What’s going to be with my son?” I cried to him. “Nu, so he won’t be a baki b’Shas,” the rav responded. “So he’ll be a balabos.” That thought comforted me somewhat, but I had no idea how to help Eli get there. Where does a boy go for training to be a balabos? After being kicked out of yeshivah, how can he survive with his self-esteem intact enough to be able to succeed at anything? Thankfully, Eli did not drop Yiddishkeit entirely. He still wears a yarmulke, and he’s still shomer Shabbos. I do not take that lightly. Yet there’s plenty that got lost when he was summarily sent home. Today, he hardly sits at the Shabbos table, and he doesn’t bentsh. His tefillin bag sits, forlorn and abandoned, on the shelf in the front closet. Each time I see it there, my eyes tear up, as I remember the sparkle in Eli’s eyes when he first put on his tefillin in the weeks leading up to his bar mitzvah. Where did that sweet little boy disappear to? What happened to his tzitzis? Why doesn’t he go to shul anymore? Will he ever open a sefer again? The experts all told me to shower Eli with love and acceptance and mix out of his avodas Hashem. “If you try to push him, you’ll just push him away from Yiddishkeit,” they said. “Don’t tell him what to do, and don’t ask him questions.”

Following that advice was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. In the beginning, it felt fake and artificial, just as it had felt fake to greet him with a smile when I picked him up from the bus station. Every time I looked at Eli, I felt like a failure as a mother. “What did I do wrong?” I would ask Aron in anguish. “This isn’t about you,” he would console me. But it was about me. Eli was my son, and if he had fallen out of the system, that must mean that I had not done enough for him. They say that a person’s heart follows his actions. I didn’t feel love and acceptance toward Eli at first, but I forced myself to act as though I did. I can’t pinpoint a specific time when the shift happened, but eventually, I started feeling acceptance — not just of Eli, but of myself. It was okay for him to be who he was, and it was also okay for me to be who I was. He was an alef, and so was I, even if we both had our struggles and imperfections.

Today, I understand that Eli has his nisayon, which is to find his unique place in Hashem’s world, and I have my nisayon, which is to create an environment in which he can succeed in his journey. My success is independent of his. I still dream of having the perfect family, but my idea of the perfect family has changed somewhat. A perfect family is not one in which every child turns out the way I want him to turn out, but one in which every child is accepted and respected for who he is, whether the rest of the world views him as an alef or a gimmel. I don’t know how much Eli is going to participate at our Seder this year. But I do know that our Seder would not be complete without the third son.

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(Originally featured in Mishpacha)