While many families in this "club" cringe from exposure, Rav Shimon Schneebalg has put his own shame and discomfort on hold, and gone public

Photos: Tzvi Miller, JDN

It’s the club no one wants to join, even though membership is free and growing, gaining unlikely members from the most insular, sheltered, and “choshuve” families. One new member is Rav Shimon Schneebalg of Bnei Brak, a chassidic mashpia and a chinuch advisor, son of the Zidichoiver Rebbe of Bnei Brak (known for decades as a baal mofeis), and son-in-law of the Stropkover Rebbe of Jerusalem. But this club makes no distinctions — not about yichus, wealth, or influence. Parents with children who’ve left Yiddishkeit know that the pain crosses all sectors.

While many families in this club cringe from exposure, Rav Schneebalg has put his own shame and discomfort on hold and has gone public, in order to spearhead a shift in the collective thinking and to make it easier for parents who are struggling in this area.

“We are a very judgmental society,” I remark when we sit together for a wide-ranging conversation about unconditional love, about unfathomable pain, about sleepless nights, about hope and acceptance. “Aren’t you afraid of the embarrassment, of what people will say?”

“Embarrassment?” he said, holding my gaze. “Bushah is a human condition, I won’t deny it’s not there. I just have to remember I’m just a shaliach of HaKadosh Baruch Hu and now, this is my place: to hold the pain and move forward with love and acceptance. And that my pain will generate benefit to other families and other children. My job right now is to do everything possible to make sure people don’t repeat one of the most common, most critical, and most tragic mistakes that we see every day: because alienating oneself from a child that you brought to the world is the greatest embarrassment.”

He makes a shehakol and sips from the cup of tea. It’s not an easy conversation for him. This wasn’t the trajectory his life was supposed to take. Still, he composes himself and continues.

“Chezky, who recently turned 25, was a beloved child with a good head and good heart. Last year, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave me a tremendous challenge, a very difficult ‘gift.’ My Chezky, the light of my life, whom I waited a few years for, a zisse kind, a getrayer kind, a geshmacker kind (a sweet, loyal, and pleasant child) informed me that he was totally cutting off from a Torah life.”

For a moment, it sounds like a eulogy.

Chezky, a shtark chassidishe bochur with black knee socks who never even removed his hat during the day while he was in yeshivah, married young (as do most rebbishe eininklach), had two children, and then, it doesn’t matter why, he fell into a downward spiral and his life went haywire.

“The first blow was the divorce. And then one day, after the marriage fell apart, Chezky came to me and said, ‘Tatty, I’m leaving it all.’

“Chezky was ready for the worst — he expected me to tell him that from that moment on, our relationship would be over, that I wouldn’t want to hear from him anymore. That I wouldn’t want to know him. That I would sit shivah for him.

“Yet with the kochos the Ribbono shel Olam sent me at that moment, I did perhaps the hardest thing in my life — I gave him a strong, powerful hug and said to him, ‘Chezky, I love you just like I have loved you until now. My love for you is not stopping. It never stopped and never will.’

“Chezky was stunned. ‘Tatty, how can you still love me? How does that make sense? I’m going to cause you so much distress. I’m going to do things that embarrass you. I’m going to put you through a very hard time.’

“And I replied, ‘My dear Chezky, when you were born, you also had no yarmulke, no tzitzis, no tefillin. I loved you then, and that love continues. It’s the same love.”

Rav Schneebalg with Mishpacha’s reporter. While many families in this club cringe from exposure, he put his own shame and discomfort on hold and has gone public in order to spearhead a shift in the collective mindset

Rav Schneebalg admits that the parameters of his new relationship are not easy. “My heart is torn to shreds. I don’t deny it — my wife and I don’t sleep at night. For parents who raised their child to Torah and yiras Shamayim, for a mother who stands each Erev Shabbos at the candles and asks ‘Vezakeini legadel banim ubnei banim oskim b’Torah ub’mitzvos,’ and for a father who davens in front of the Chanukah licht with tears uttering ‘veyihiyeh zar’i vezera zar’i talmidei chachamim v’chassidim…’ there is no bigger pain than this.

“But,” he hastens to emphasize, “that pain is not connected in any way to the love, and does not dull it. My love for Chezky is complete, unconditional, without asterisks. And more than that, without expectations. It’s the unconditional true love of parents to their children who they brought to the world. Being a parent doesn’t stop, and neither does the love stop.

“Chezky gave us a very hard test. But he’s seen one thing: No matter what would happen, we love him.”