On Rosh Chodesh Nissan, Shimshi and four of his friends “rented” a car from a married acquaintance who was looking to make some easy cash, and they set out on a bein hazmanim trip to the Dead Sea, an hour’s drive from their yeshivah.

The trip went off without a hitch. Until, on the way home, the other bochurim turned to Shimshi and suggested that he take a turn driving.

Five minutes into Shimshi’s stint at the wheel, a cop stopped him. “License and registration.”

The fact that a different bochur had been the one to rent the car and arrange the trip was irrelevant at this point. Nor did it matter that Shimshi had taken the wheel just a few minutes earlier, or that the other bochurim were equally guilty of driving without a license. Shimshi was the one who was caught, and the one who was censured by the police officer. He was also the one slapped with a court summons and threatened with a four-month jail sentence.

The boys remained stranded on the highway for an hour, until two married fellows in their yeshivah who did possess licenses were able to drive over and meet them. One drove back in his car, while the second drove the boys’ rented car. (The owner of the car was none the wiser; he was just happy that they hadn’t added any scratches to his bumper.)

“Shimshi had a court appearance shortly before Lag Ba’omer,” Dudu concluded. “I got the judge to let him off with a 300-shekel fine and no jail time. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I thought you should know about it.”

“I appreciate your telling me,” I said, my voice shaky. “Thanks for getting Shimshi off the hook. How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I did this pro bono.”

I made a mental note to have a nice gift basket sent to him. How to deal with Shimshi, now that wasn’t nearly as simple.

After hanging up with Dudu, I sank into a nearby chair, my hands on my temples. How could Shimshi have done something so irresponsible? What had he been thinking, going on this crazy trip that almost landed him in jail?

And why hadn’t he told me about it? Now, my blood was really starting to boil. So Shimshi did something stupid and got himself in trouble. What do you do when that happens? You call your parents! My husband Yerucham and I are loving, devoted parents — not the type who would have gone into hysterics. Yes, we would have been upset, but we would have done everything we could to help Shimshi. Yet Shimshi had opted to leave us in the dark.

“Betrayal, that’s what this is,” I declared to Yerucham a few minutes later, when I called him up at work to share this disturbing news with him. “I’m so upset, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Yerucham was even more incensed than I was. “Never mind a jail sentence — he could have gotten himself killed! Or killed someone else! To get onto the highway without a license and without knowing how to drive?”

Discussing it with Yerucham just made me more agitated. After I hung up with him, I called my son Yoel, who learned part-time in Shimshi’s yeshivah. “Do you know what’s been going on with Shimshi?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said uneasily. “I thought you should know about it, but Shimshi swore me to secrecy.”

I pursed my lips. So Yoel had known about this, too. “I have one question, Yoel. What possessed Shimshi to get behind the wheel? It’s so not like him!”

“Peer pressure,” Yoel replied. “You know that all the boys in his yeshivah drive without licenses.”

They do? I had no idea. Neither did Yerucham. But apparently, this was common knowledge — to everyone but us. Once a chutznik, always a chutznik, I guess. There are some things about Israeli society we still don’t understand, even after living here for 30 years.

From speaking to Yoel, I learned that in their yeshivah, there’s a magnanimous adult who does “chesed” by lending out his car to anyone who requests it, no questions asked. “Why does he do this?” I asked Yoel in frustration.

“I guess for the same reason that adults give out liquor or cigarettes to bochurim,” he explained. “To give them a good time.”

Driving with a license is hardly possible for these bochurim, since the rule in their yeshivah — and most other chareidi yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael — is that bochurim are not allowed to drive. And the process of earning a license in Eretz Yisrael is far more rigorous and expensive than in America, where I come from. Before you can take a driving test here, you need to take 28 in-car lessons. Not something you can do under the radar. Driving without a license is a lot easier, and less risky — as long as you don’t get caught, that is. But which teenage boy thinks he’s going to get caught? Invincibility, thy name is adolescence.

A bochur from their yeshivah actually got into an accident while driving without a license, and was left with a 200,000-shekel debt for the damage he caused. Still, the boys remained convinced that it wouldn’t happen to them.

Further enabling the practice of driving without a license are the enterprising fellows who figure they can make some extra money by renting out their cars. These no-frills rental operations don’t fuss over niceties such as age, possession of a driver’s license, or even driving skill. You give me the money, here’s the car, just don’t scratch the body or bang up the bumper. And lock the doors when you park.

What really infuriated me — as if I wasn’t angry enough already — was hearing from Yoel how the bochurim in the yeshivah had reacted when Shimshi was caught driving without a license and threatened with jail time. They contacted some influential people and arranged for tzaddikim to storm the heavens on Shimshi’s behalf. They proclaimed their bitachon that Shimshi would be let off the hook. Then, when Dudu Roth managed to get Shimshi exonerated, they attributed it to the tefillos of the tzaddikim. “A mofes!” they crowed.

Did they learn their lesson? Did they get scared? Not at all. If anything, their belief in their own invincibility was reinforced: Even if you get caught, Dudu the lawyer can get you off the hook.

By the time I finished hearing all this from Yoel, I was shaking in anger. That Shimshi was really going to get it. He should have known better. He should have told us. For Heaven’s sake, he should have at least invited us to his court appearance! Instead, who came along with him? Dudu. Yoel. His friends. Imagine what the judge and prosecutor were thinking when they saw this frum kid show up to court without any parents!

Worse, the entire yeshivah knew the story — and they also knew that we, Shimshi’s parents, were in the dark. How humiliating!

It was tempting to call Shimshi home from yeshivah in middle of the week to excoriate him, or at least give him a piece of my mind — a big one — over the phone. But after lengthy discussion with Yerucham, we decided that the best strategy would be to play it cool until Shimshi’s next off-Shabbos, which was a couple of weeks away.

For the next two weeks, all I could think about was the upcoming confrontation with Shimshi. I wanted him to see how hurt I was. I wanted him to understand how badly he had compounded his original misdeed by hiding it from us. And I wanted him to show genuine remorse and apologize wholeheartedly.

Countless times, I rehearsed in my mind how I was going to broach the subject with Shimshi. Should I say something to him the minute he entered the house? No, he wouldn’t be in the right frame of mind then. Better to wait a little.

When Shimshi finally walked into the house that Friday afternoon, it was an effort to look him in the eye and greet him cheerily. I felt like a tiger waiting to pounce. But I forced myself to be calm and even sit with him while he ate a slice of the homemade kokosh cake I had baked in his honor. (Even an angry mother still loves her child.)

Finally, my heart thumping, I turned to him and said, in a mild voice that belied the tempest inside me, “Shimshi, I got a call from Dudu Roth recently.”

I don’t know how I would have expected Shimshi to react. What I was not expecting was to see a hunted-animal look in his eyes, the look of a terrified little child. The moment I saw his face, I lost all of my desire to pounce on him.

Suddenly, my mind started to play back scenes of Shimshi over the past couple of months.

Pesach, at the meals. Shimshi is quiet, not participating in the conversation, hardly joining the singing. I’m busy with all the Yom Tov commotion, so I don’t pay much attention to this. Probably just a passing thing

Talking to Shimshi on the phone in yeshivah. Conversation is an effort, because Shimshi answers in monosyllables and doesn’t offer much information about what’s going on in his life. That’s strange; Shimshi is usually quite talkative. He’s having a hard time settling into the zman, I tell myself.

Shimshi’s first Shabbos home from yeshivah this zman. Again, he is withdrawn, not interested in talking to me or to anyone. I feel bad for him, but I resolve to respect his space and not pry too much.

Now, I finally understood. Shimshi had been too afraid to say anything to us, because he was so angry and disappointed with himself that he couldn’t take the risk of exposing himself to our anger and disappointment. As I put myself into my son’s shoes, I felt the hurt and betrayal ebbing away. This was no foolhardy daredevil I was looking at — he was a scared, suffering boy.

Yes, he had made a mistake by agreeing to take the wheel. A dangerous mistake. But it was a mistake that he would never make again. So to berate him would not only be pointless, it would also further deter him from taking me into confidence the next time he found himself in any sort of trouble.

“Shimshi,” I said softly. “It’s okay to make a mistake. We all do dumb things sometimes.”

The look of grateful relief on Shimshi’s face more than made up for the lost opportunity to lace into him and vent my wrath.

Imagine if I would have come down hard on the poor kid. He would have been broken completely.

“Let’s talk about it,” I suggested. “It’s good for you to get it out.”

He talked. And talked. Later, Yerucham joined the conversation — after I explained to him that Shimshi was in no state to be lectured.

We heard about how frightened Shimshi had been when the cop had pulled him over. How he hadn’t been able to sleep, for weeks, thinking that he might land up behind bars. How he had had to hide this fear from the other bochurim and play Mr. Macho, because they were all convinced that nothing would happen to him, and he was too embarrassed to let on that he wasn’t quite as confident. How he had gotten off to a rocky start this zman, because he couldn’t concentrate on his learning with the specter of incarceration hanging over his head. How, even after Dudu had managed to get him off the hook, he had continued to feel anxious and tense.

Hearing all this, I silently thanked Hashem for not having allowed me to blow my stack in front of Shimshi.

It’s so easy to get angry when a kid does the wrong thing, I mused. It’s so easy to convince myself that it’s my job to show him how wrong he is. It’s so easy to let loose on someone else and ride on the momentum of righteous indignation.

But Shimshi had already learned his lesson. What he needed now was support and empathy from Yerucham and me — and if we had reacted with fury, we would have lost a priceless opportunity to gain our son’s trust.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 625)