Surely dear readers you remember last week’s column about Rabbi Yair Nahari and the incredible work he does in creating safe secure environments for girls who for whatever reason wind up on the tough streets of our holy cities. You will recall that Rabbi Nahari singlehandedly founded Beit Naomi which responds to the challenge of saving these young girls — all from religious families — who due to domestic social or emotional factors have landed on the streets after fleeing or being thrown out of their homes. If you read the column last week presumably you too were moved by the story as I was when I first heard from Rabbi Nahari himself about his work and analyzed the documentation he showed me. But relieved as I was to see the results of his amazing one-man project an overwhelming sadness I can’t shake continues to loom over me.
The next time I met Rabbi Nahari I told him he still owed me an explanation.
“An explanation for what?” he asked.
“How could all this even happen?”
“What do you mean — how girls wind up on the street?”
“Rabbi Nahari I’m quite familiar with situations of unresolved friction between parents and their children. I’m a people person and I’m no stranger to these things. But I still can’t understand how parents — no matter how much bad blood and resentment there may be between them and their daughter — can be indifferent to the horror of their daughter rebellious though she may be out there wandering the streets alone and unprotected with nothing to eat no place to sleep easy prey to all sorts of evildoers. In some cases the girl’s very life is endangered.
“I’m telling you Rabbi Nahari that ever since we spoke I’ve been imagining such a girl in my mind’s eye seeing her wandering in the street with an overnight bag over her shoulder and I’m trying to fathom what thoughts are going through her mind — we’re talking about a girl of 15 or 16! True she brought it on herself. But the image makes me feel so awful that I just want to escape from these thoughts although my brain has me trapped. What sickened me most of all was what you told me about the father who phoned and threatened to have you arrested for kidnapping if you took his daughter in. Kidnapping! Something is very wrong here don’t you think so Rabbi Nahari? What kind of society are we living in where a parent can for whatever reason abandon his child to the elements? What am I supposed to think?”
But Rabbi Nahari is calm and in control. Where does he store his pain? To my pain-laced tirade Rabbi Nahari replies simply “Don’t judge others until you’ve been in their shoes.”
“Rabbi Nahari!” I interrupt him hastily. “Chas v’chalilah I wouldn’t dream of judging them! Who am I who baruch Hashem have never faced a situation like this to judge parents — normal G‑d-fearing Jews — who’ve had such a heavy piece of baggage fall into their hands? I know the situation could become so miserable that it reaches a point where they feel they just can’t live under the same roof with their daughter. Who am I to evaluate how deeply they’re suffering? But with all due empathy for these poor parents something still just isn’t adding up. I want to understand this Rabbi Nahari. Can you explain it to me? It’s not that I want to preach. Ribbono shel Olam I just want to understand.”
“So what you need to understand Reb Moshe is the shame these parents have suffered because of their daughter. They feel that she’s betrayed them. She’s humiliated them in public because everybody’s talking about how their daughter went off the derech. This is what she does to us she puts us to shame in front of the whole world? After we sacrificed so much for her after we nurtured and raised her she turns around and spits in our faces? Feeling betrayed Reb Moshe is the worst feeling. A person who feels betrayed is capable of anything.”
“Anything for revenge?”
“Yes for revenge. When that feeling is burning inside all other feelings are extinguished. At that moment it doesn’t matter that this is his own child. All he feels is the wrong that’s been done to him and his whole family. The lust for revenge is harsher than the grave. And in extreme cases parents can come to a point where they won’t even try to find a suitable arrangement for a daughter who needs another place to live; they’ll just put her out of the house. You betrayed us? All right then — let’s see you get along on your own! This is the feeling I get when I try to talk with parents of girls I’ve taken in from the streets. Some of them thank me for taking care of their daughters. But there are others although not many whose resentment over the shame their daughter has caused them is so overwhelming that they just don’t care what happens to her.”
“What you’re saying Rabbi Nahari reminds me of what I heard recently about Rav Steinman shlita. Some of the big rabbanim were protesting the fact that he didn’t object to the founding of the Nahal Haredi army unit for young men who were already off the derech and on the streets. Rav Steinman asked one of these rabbanim if anyone had come to him yet to ask him to daven that their son should die. The rav was taken aback by the question naturally and then Rav Steinman told him ‘This week 15 fathers came to me with this request regarding their sons who had gone completely off the derech.’ So this is the feeling that brings parents to such an insane conclusion….
“Permit me Rabbi Nahari to try to define this feeling of shame more precisely. Would you say I’m right in thinking that such extremely harsh feelings which are felt by a minority of disappointed humiliated parents stem from a perception that their children are their personal property and they can do with them as they please? And this is why their shame goes so deep and hurts so much that they cannot control their reactions? Let me emphasize again that I am talking only about the most extreme cases.”
Rabbi Nahari was silent for a moment mulling over what I said — and I imagine recalling his own personal painful exchanges with brokenhearted fathers and mothers. Finally he said “I’m not sure… but yes I think you’re probably right.”
Our conversation went on for some time as we delved into several fundamental insights about parenting about responsibility and about letting go. G-d willing I will bring you more of our conversation next week. —