DEPROGRAMMING YOUNG PEOPLE

QUESTION:

A considerable number of young people, Christian and Jewish, have deserted the faith of their parents and have joined various sects, such as Moonies, Hare Krishna, Jesus Cult, etc. Some parents, deeply grieved at the loss of their children to these new cults, have turned for help to the newly developed profession of “deprogramming.” These “deprogrammers” sometimes actually kidnap the young people from their various cult communes and hold them in a sort of captivity and subject them to “brainwashing” in order to “cure” them of their delusions. The question asked here is whether, in the light of Jewish tradition, Jewish parents may avail themselves of this new method in attempting to win back the hearts and minds of their young people who have left them? (Asked by Rabbi M. Robert Syme, Detroit, Michi-gan.)

ANSWER:

THE QUESTION asked here is based on an entirely modern situation which has no exact parallel in the past. Nevertheless, certain elements involved are part of universal human experience and find reaction in the pages of Jewish legal and Midrashic literature. That members of the young generation turn from the faith of their fathers has certainly occurred many times in the past. An interesting reaction to this tragic family experience is found in the first section of the first chapter of Midrash Rabba to Exodus. We are told there that Abraham’s older son, Ishmael, was attracted to idolatrous worship, which, of course, he saw outside of his father’s home; and he followed this practice and became an idolater. The Midrash, attempting to explain how the first-born son of the world’s greatest monotheist preferred idolatry, bases its explanation on the verse in Proverbs 13:24: “He who spares the rod hates his son.” In other words, this happened to Ishmael because Abraham never disciplined the boy and let him follow his own predilections. That this is a frequent family experience is indicated by the rest of the Midrash. The Midrash asks: How was it that Isaac’s son, Esau, also picked a way of life different from his parents? Again the explanation was given that the boy was never properly taught and disciplined. The same explanation is given in the same passage as to why Absalom became a rebel against his father, David. In other words, the phenomenon of young people breaking away from the life of the parents is not an exceptional one, and it is considered in the Jewish tradition as largely the fault of the parent. The child was not properly trained and taught.

Of course, this explanation cannot be applied indiscriminately to all parents in modern occurrences of the same nature. There are so many new temptations and new methods of persuasive propaganda that were not available in the past to bear upon the impressionable minds of the young. However, parents cannot rid themselves entirely of some blame for not having provided a sufficiently meaningful religious life. This is certainly true of many modern Jewish homes.

But whether or not the parents themselves are re-sponsible to some extent, there is no question that they suffer greatly from this new isolation from their children. So they wonder, what can they do to win back the hearts of their Ishmaels and Absaloms. The question, then, arises as to whether the modern professional method of deprogramming is meaningful or acceptable in the spirit of our Jewish religious tradition.

Most of the cults chosen by the youth for their new loyalty seem superstitious or even dishonest to the parents, who find the new cults disgusting or hateful. This disgust or hatred should not be allowed to create a complete estrangement, as can easily occur. Scripture, in Leviticus 19:17, says: “Do not hate thy brother in thy heart, but first reprove thy brother.” The duty to find some way to reprove or to teach or to convince is basic in the law. The purpose of such reproving is not to denounce, but to help restore the balance of thought and judgment. The Talmud, in Pesachim 1 13b, discusses the following verse in Exodus 23:5: “If you see the animal of your enemy staggering under his burden, do not turn aside, but help.” The Talmud then asks whether this enemy is meant to be a Jewish enemy. But how can it be so, since we are forbidden in Scripture to hate our brother in our heart? The answer the Talmud gives is this: We hate not the person but the sin that we know he has committed, and what the verse directs us to do is, even though we know and hate the sin he has committed, never to refrain from helping as much as we can. This Talmudic discussion is carried on through the tradition and is codified as law in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpot 272:11. In other words, we have at least this much guidance from tradition, that even if we hate these new cults which we feel have lured our young, we must not permit ourselves to refrain from helping as much as we can.

But is this sort of help, which often involves kidnapping and holding the young person captive, a proper mode of help? In this regard it is well to call attention to the laws concerning the instruction of the young. It is among the primary duties of the parents to train the young to a life of faith and good deeds (b. Kiddushin 29b). And by the pedagogic standards of those days, it was considered permissible to use corporal punishment. However, the law is careful to add that under no circumstance may a father use corporal punishment on a grown child because the parent will be committing the sin of “putting a stumbling-block in the way of the blind.” That particular sin is often discussed in the law, and it means to tempt a person into committing a sin, and what the law here about smiting a grown child means, then, is that the young person will be tempted to retort in anger and perhaps act with violence against his parent, which is, of course, a grave sin (cf. Tur, Yore Deah 240, end).

Therefore, hateful as some of these cults are, and serious as is the duty to rebuke, violent methods could well be counter-productive and might alienate the two generations permanently. Jewish tradition, knowing of such alienations in the past, and frequently blaming the laxity of parents for them, imposes the duty to help restore the mental and emotional balance of the estranged youth. But it is evident that the forcible methods of the modern deprogrammers today are contrary to the Jewish ideal of the relation between the generations. May those parents thus afflicted with these estrangements persevere in pa-tience and in hope. There is no easy solution.