Rejection is not a good thing

My chavrusa is a good guy, cow notwithstanding, and he bought a book for me to read (what else would I do with it?) entitled "Off the Derech-Why observant Jews leave Judaism, how to respond to the challenge," by Faranak Margolese. We'll talk about this book and other things after a brief message from our sponsors:
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Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming. So yeah, I'm reading this book, and a lot of what she says makes sense. At first I was thinking, "Hey, these issues she's describing aren't found in Lubavitch homes," but then I realized that Lubavitchers are frieing out too, so obviously these problems are found in Lubavitch homes. What's the solution? How the heck should I know? But the following are some things I gleaned from the text. I know that they might be a bit obvious, but it can be good to see the bleeding obvious every once in a while and realize that it might just be true.

You know, I was thinking about my own life, and I realized that I am the way I am today because I had some excellent parents and teachers. I could have very easily turned out way different, but they didn't respond with rejection and all that shtuff, they responded with love. Or something like that. Here's that list:

1. Put your child first.
2. Love unconditionally.
3. Never abuse in any way.
4. Set realistic expectations.
5. Don't fight everything your child does.
6. Never embarrass your child publicly.
7. Accept your child.
8. Never reject your child
9. Rebellion now does not equal life long behavior.
10. Your child needs both quality and quantity time with you.
11. Respect your child, and he will respect you.
12. Judaism must be filled with joy, infused with meaning, practiced
enthusiastically.
13. Don't ignore questions.

Pretty good, eh? This doesn't mean that I agree with everything she says. I think that a lot of the problems she describes could be dealt with very nicely by chassidus. Obviously that's not the only answer, but it can be very helpful.

One very good point she did make is that ninety percent of the Jewish population is not observant. Ten generations ago the vast majority of Jews were observant. What happened? One kid went "off the derech", his kid went further, eventually society permitted for many more Jews to leave their faith, and Boom! There we are. People who think that the solution is to ignore the problem or send it away are in fact ignoring the real possibility that orthodox Judaism could very well disappear. Seems far-fetched? So did the possibility, 300 years ago, that nine out of ten Jews would not be religiously observant. But when you think about it, once upon a time, those kids were also at risk, they were also going "off the derech". And what happened? Someday failed big time.

Will we fail big time? I'd sincerely hope not. But this is a major issue. It's possibly the major issue. If we believe in Judaism, then we must do everything possible to ensure its continuity. If we ignore the issues, then that's not going to happen. It's not enough, as I wrote last night, to simply have faith and believe that it will all be good. No, we have to ensure that it will be good.