by Debbie Shapiro

one recent evening, I arrived home from a PTA meeting to find I had missed a phone call from my close friend Tova*. My relationship with Tova goes back many years, and the connection is deep. Even though it was late, I called her back.

“Debbie,” she began, “I’d like you to write an article about the drug problem among Orthodox youth.”

Drug problem? I had not noticed any yarmulked junkies walking around our Jerusalem neighborhood. “I can’t image that children from a decent family would get involved with something like that.”

Tova persisted. “Debbie, some of the best families have children who have gotten caught in a vicious web. It’s an epidemic.” I thought that my friend was exaggerating.

“Debbie, believe me.” She paused for a moment. “Our own daughter is now in rehab for drug abuse.”

I took a deep breath. Tova’s family would certainly not be considered “fringe.” Her husband is a prominent yeshivah educator, and together they have built an ideal Jewish home. I remembered her daughter, Sima, as a chubby toddler with long curly hair and stunning blue eyes, and later as a lanky teenager who adored her younger brothers and sisters. She certainly did not fit my stereotype of a junkie. If it could happen to her, then it could happen to anyone.

I decided to write the article.

Rabbi Eitan Eckstein is the founder and director of Retorno, an Orthodox drug rehabilitation program located in the mountains bordering Beit Shemesh, about thirty minutes west of Jerusalem. (The word “retorno” is Spanish for “U-turn.”) Rabbi Eckstein, a graduate of the renowned Ponovitch Yeshivah in B’nei B’rak, previously was a rabbi in Mexico. One evening, a wealthy congregant confided to Rabbi Eckstein that he was secretly a drug addict. He begged the rabbi to help him kick the habit. But Rabbi Eckstein never got the chance; the following day, the man died of an overdose.

Immediately after the funeral, the man’s daughter handed Rabbi Eckstein an envelope. “My father left this letter for you,” she told him. In the letter, the man begged Rabbi Eckstein to help others who were addicted to drugs. He also left Rabbi Eckstein enough money to open up a rehabilitation center. “When I finished reading the letter,” said Rabbi Eckstein, “there was no way that I could possibly refuse.”

How do nice Jewish kids get involved with drugs? Thankfully, for the overwhelming majority of children, the “system” works. What causes those precious few to leave it?

“Shmuel came to Retorno straight from prison,” Rabbi Eckstein says. “He joined our program for kids who are awaiting trial. Shmuel was being detained for stealing. It was not a first offense; the police department knew him well.”

Rabbi Eckstein recalls that at first Shmuel refused to warm up. For three months, they could not seem to get through to him. Finally, a group therapist posed the question: “What is the first thing you want to do when you leave the rehabilitation center?”

When Shmuel’s turn came, he said: “I want to buy the biggest truck that I can find.”

“A large truck?” asked the counselor. “What are you planning on doing with this truck?”

“I am going to kill someone with it.”

Rabbi Eckstein says: “At that point we realized that the ice had finally been broken. During the sessions that followed, we found out why Shmuel had become the person he was. And once we unlocked that gate, Shmuel was able to face himself and slowly recover from his addiction. Today he is a contributing member of the religious community. But the most amazing thing is that Shmuel himself had forgotten that there was one person in this world whom he was capable of hating with such intensity that he would want to murder him.”

Shmuel had been a sweet cheder boy, with curly earlocks and deep brown eyes, loved by his family and successful in his studies. One day, as Shmuel was returning home from cheder, an older boy molested him. Shmuel ran home as quickly as he could, locked himself in the bathroom, and vomited.

“What did you eat today in school?” his mother asked him.

Shmuel was too young to explain what had caused him to vomit. Instead, he ran into his room and slammed the door behind him. That evening, when his mother asked him if he felt better, he yelled at her and once again ran to his room.

The next day, Shmuel beat up a few of his friends in school and was rude to his teacher. No one understood what had happened to Shmuel. He had always been a model student.

“The parents should have realized when they saw their son acting so out of character that something must have happened,” says Rabbi Eckstein. “But they did not. Instead, they punished Shmuel for his disobedience.”

Rabbi Eckstein continues: “Shmuel had once been a model student. Now he became the class terror, and eventually he was expelled. Every year, Shmuel’s parents were forced to find a new cheder for him, until by the time he was old enough for high school, there was no school willing to accept him. And once a child is without a school, it is very easy for him to find his way to drugs.” The lesson learned is that parents must look for warning signs, for unusual behavior that can indicate a problem.

The frightening statistic is that in the United States alone, several thousand Orthodox kids are out of school. And thousands of kids without a proper framework means thousands of kids potentially exposed to drugs.

I was very skeptical about the ready availability of drugs to our youth, and so I asked Yossi, a young man who for several years was unable to find an alternative framework to his yeshivah. His answer threw me for a loop. “Sure,” he told me, “I knew plenty of kids who had nothing to do and were taking drugs. Drugs were offered to me many, many times.” Yossi resisted the temptation, but others are not as strong.

Please G-d, help me
It’s You who I turn to—
I don’t want to fall
Into the bubbling stew
—by Shira, a girl in rehab

Aidel is a young woman who is on the road to recovery at Retorno. She grew up in a loving home in the heart of Boro Park, Brooklyn. When she was in tenth grade, her mother developed cancer. Aidel’s brothers and sisters were married, and all the household responsibilities fell on her young shoulders.

She took these responsibilities seriously. When she wasn’t managing the house, she would be saying Tehillim. She kept a straight A average. She continued with her regular extracurricular activities. She took upon herself various halachic stringencies, hoping this would help her mother merit a recovery.

Eventually the strain took its toll, and Aidel started to slip religiously. “I had always been the frum girl in school, and no one could understand what was happening to me. I was called into the principal’s office, and my parents became very upset. But no one told the school that my mom was going through very difficult treatments for her cancer.

“It seemed as though every day the school was calling my parents and complaining to them about my new friends. Things just went from bad to worse. I was unable to deal with my home and family, and thought that somewhere, out there, I would be able to discover something that would make me happy. I was only fourteen years old at the time.

“Everyone began to pressure me, but the more I was pressured, the more I felt a need to rebel. I began to go to movies and pool halls, and once you’re in the pool hall, it is really easy to find your way to drugs. Within three months I had done everything; I had become a different person.”

Aidel’s parents tried to help, “but I was already hooked and I could not come back. I remember coming home at five or six in the morning and finding my mother — my sick mother — sitting in the armchair, reciting Tehillim for me, tears streaming down her face. But by then it was just too late. Had they let me know at the beginning how much they cared for me and loved me, who knows?”

I’m going and going
Down the long
Meaningless road
In my heart
I want to make a right turn
I want to go and go
Down a long
Meaningful road
One that will take me to greatness
And not lose me to the beasts
—Shira

Rochie is a vibrant young woman, with glowing eyes and a sense of purpose about her. She is a recovering drug addict who counsels other youths at Retorno.

Rochie came to Israel two years ago to study in one of the American seminaries. But in reality, she came to get away from her family in America. “When I was in the States, I was not using drugs. I would drink alcohol, sometimes half a bottle at a time, but somehow I was always able to hide it from my family.

“When I first came to Israel, I continued to drink liquor. One time I was caught, but I lied to the school and told them that they must be mistaken — I would never do something like that. I put on such a good act that they believed me. I was also smoking marijuana. There were a few of us in my seminary who smoked, but we were able to keep it very quiet. The school never knew. None of the other girls caught on, either. Eventually I was offered hard drugs, and I began to take anything that I could put my hands on.” Why do people take drugs?

Rabbi Eitan Eckstein

“An addict wants instant gratification, and that is what drugs give you. At first, I enjoyed it so much that I actually felt that when I married and had a family, I would want the pleasure of giving my children their first joint! But when I continued, I realized how fake it was. The ‘high’ kept on getting lower, until I needed to become ‘high’ just to feel normal, and the ‘low’ was absolutely the pits. I began to hate my friends and myself even more than I did before.”

Once when Rochie was very high, she called her mother, begging for help. “My mom dropped everything — a job, a family, all of her responsibilities —and was on the first plane to Eretz Yisrael. When that happened, I finally realized that she did love me dearly. Perhaps when I was growing up she did not have the tools to show her love, but it was really there. Now that I am on my way to recovery, I love my mom, and I finally have a real relationship with my family.

“Someday I hope to have my own family. A religious family. But I am afraid to go too quickly; it’s so easy to fall. Once when I was still on drugs I decided to become very observant — long sleeves, Tehillim at the Kotel. But it was too difficult for me, and then I fell very far. Today I am working slowly at becoming religious again. I have been keeping kosher and Shabbos now for almost a year.”

In dealing with kids who are on the way back, we have to have a lot of patience. They are trying to build permanent and stable bridges, which takes time.

Life is funny that way sometimes
We know what we want
But get pulled by the wind
And drawn by the waters
Of the road with no meaning
—Shira

Suri is a vibrant woman with piercing blue eyes and a strong aura of optimism. How did she discover her son’s addiction? “I had a lot of suspicions, but the doctors and social workers could not imagine that a child who had grown up in our neighborhood and was from a good background would reach such a point.”

Suri’s son deteriorated gradually. “At first he was thrown out of school, then he changed his dress, and later he began to wear a smaller kippah. Eventually he threw off his kippah and stopped keeping Shabbos. The worse he behaved, the easier it was for him to fall even farther.

“About two years ago, the social worker convened a meeting between my son and myself. At that meeting my son told me everything. I cried non-stop for twenty-four hours. But as strange as this might sound, I also felt relieved. My maternal instincts were finally validated.”

At that time there had been several drug-related deaths in the American Orthodox community. “I was beginning to get scared,” she recalls, “but everyone thought that my fears were unfounded. Once I knew what we were dealing with, we were able to take steps towards recovery.

“Today, my son is recovering, and I am finally able to sleep at night. He knows that not only do I love him, but that I am also willing to stand behind him — and that knowledge has made all the difference.”

Suri has powerful advice for parents of children who are at risk. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” she insists. “There are places to turn; there are support groups for parents. It’s important to use them. It’s important, as well, to trust your instincts as parents. If you feel there is a problem, you are probably right. But no matter what happens, always remember to continue to show your child that you love and support him.”

Huna Friedland is a young chassidic man who works with kids on the fringe. Aside from the therapy groups that he runs in Retorno, Friedland works in Kesher, a program for boys from Orthodox homes who are finding their way back to their roots. How does a yeshivah bochur descend to such a level?

“These kids step over the boundary, an invisible line dividing acceptable behavior from non-acceptable behavior, and begin to view themselves as bums. Once that happens, they lose whatever self-esteem they had. Of course they want to associate with similar kids, kids who won’t look down on them for their ‘bummy’ behavior.

“Besides that, the drug scene itself causes isolation. The kids who are on drugs isolate themselves into a small, secret community: those who know how and where to obtain the ‘goods.’ It’s the straight world out there versus the ones who are ‘with it.’ The kids end up drifting from the pool halls to the girls to the drugs — one sin quickly leads to another. They are racing around in an amusement park of desire.”

I was reminded of something that had happened thirteen years ago, while visiting my family in San Francisco. Waiting to catch a train on the subway, I was drawn to a computer that was supposed to explain the newly built subway system. The computer was broken, and instead of an explanation, there was a screen saver of shooting stars.

As I watched the stars drifting across the screen, an old drunken man approached me. He was unshaven, with broken teeth, reeking from filth and alcohol. My immediate reaction was to run, but I realized that fleeing would be fruitless; it was night, and the station was deserted. To my utter amazement, the old man stood next to me and began to quote the words of the Torah commentator Rashi, who, in Genesis, compares the Jews to the stars in the sky.

I was shocked. The man asked me in Yiddish where I came from.

“Yerushalayim,” I answered.

He in turn hailed from Kletzk, the great bastion of Jewish learning in Europe. I asked him if he had studied in the yeshivah there, and he replied in the affirmative. I then asked him if he had ever heard of Rav Aharon Kotler.

“Rav Aharon?” He gave a big toothless grin. “Rav Aharon was my rebbe.”

The entire encounter was beginning to seem surreal. I could see the headlight of my train approaching in the distance. I turned to the old man and asked him one quick question. “What happened?”

His poignant reply has remained with me ever since. “I fell,” was all he said.

I could not help but think how easy it is to fall, and how difficult it is to get up again.

Moving around
Nowhere to go
What am I to do
I don’t know
Being a wanderer
Is really no fun
Sitting and doing nothing
Being a bum
Living on the streets
Begging for change
What can I do
For a room in exchange
Trapped in this hell
Nowhere to turn
—Shira

“One of the biggest problems,” says Friedland, “is that these kids lack a personal and emotional attachment to G-d. Their religiosity is based on intellectual pursuits, a need to excel and get approval. But a true connection with G-d is often missing. “On an intellectual level, these kids know the truth. They believe in Hashem. They eventually want to build a warm, religious family. They’ve just gotten lost on the way. One thing that turns them off is hypocrisy; they can smell it right away. A rebbe, a parent, a teacher should never pretend to be more religious than he is. The kids will sense it immediately.”

How do we reach these kids? “First of all,” says Friedland, “we make sure that we are genuine with them. Nothing phony. I ask them a lot of real questions, questions like: ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ ‘Is what you are doing now helping you attain that goal?’ Even though the kids act hip, they are basically square, and they hope eventually to lead a normal life. We help them to become aware of their own beliefs and to resolve the conflicts that they are having in their value system.”

Friedland will discuss a youth’s past, “the things that led up to the current behavior. But once we’ve faced the past, we don’t waste precious time dwelling on it. We impress upon the kids that they have to take responsibility for what they are doing now, even if they had a difficult childhood.”

The issue of genuineness and hypocrisy emerged with every teen whom I interviewed. Each one had posed theologically sensitive questions in school that were not answered. Either they were given a non-answer, or they were yelled at for having the nerve to ask. Kids need real answers. And sometimes a real answer is to say, “I don’t know.”

A friend of mine told me that when she was in Bais Yaakov almost thirty years ago, one student had asked her teacher a difficult philosophical question. “I don’t have the answer,” the teacher told her, “but I will try to find one by tomorrow.”

The next day, the teacher told the girls that she had spent most of the night trying to find an answer. She had even spoken to several rabbis, but still did not feel that she had found an answer that would satisfy her student.

To this day, my friend remembers the lesson she learned from that teacher: “Sometimes we do not have the answers. But it takes a great person to admit that.”

The peace that I have
In this outstanding place
This incredible enchanting dream
It brings me close to G-d
I’m holding His hand
He’s walking me through life
What for me He has planned
The rush of the waves
The hardships of my way
Reach the sand with peace
This is the miracle of the day
—Shira on her eighty-fourth day of recovery

I thank G-d that the disease of drugs does not affect my own children. But I no longer believe they are immune. Yes, it is our own children, not just someone else’s, who can fall into the trap. There are people who want to get our children hooked on drugs. And in a certain respect, children like mine, who grow up in a sheltered environment, are more susceptible than other kids, because they have absolutely no idea about drugs. Therefore, you must learn how to handle the issue. In some instances it may be necessary to speak directly to your kids about drugs. If you can’t do it, find someone who can.

I recently befriended a young drug addict, Sue, who was sent by her family to her sister’s home in Jerusalem. One day she mentioned that “someday” she hoped to get married and have children. Minutes later, my children arrived home from school. Sue complimented me on their beautiful personalities.

For some reason I stopped what I was doing and looked her straight in the eye. “Sue,” I said, “I would like to give you a blessing.” With tears in my eyes, I blessed her that someday, she, too, would have beautiful children. When I finished, I noticed her eyes, as well, were wet with tears.

A few days later, Sue blew her mind on drugs. She is now in a psychiatric hospital. I still pray that she will have those beautiful children.

Debbie Shapiro, who lives in Jerusalem, writes frequently for The Jewish Homemaker. Her last article, “The Beatles and Me,” appeared in the April issue.

How prevalent is the drug problem among Orthodox youth?

The problem is significant and growing because we are affected by what goes on around us and because in a substantive sense we are not doing much to fight it. In the secular world, the statistics are going down, but we are going up. They have fought the issue for twenty-five years, while we have been reluctant to face it.

Are drugs more prevalent among boys than among girls?

Yes, but the girls are catching up. And drugs are part of a package of problems. For example, promiscuity is a very serious problem in certain parts of the community.

Is it easy to tell if a child is involved in drugs?

Parents do not necessarily know. A parent told me, “My son has a problem in school, but it is not a drug problem.” We found out that the boy was on drugs while the mother had no clue. One indicator is a child who starts acting differently, out of the norm for his peer group.

What can be done about the drug crisis?

We have to educate kids as to the evils of drugs. How to educate depends on a school’s population. If the students don’t know about the problem, you don’t want to introduce it. But by junior high school, the kids in the schools ranging from the center to modern are very savvy. By high school, even the right-wing world knows about drugs. Still, you don’t want to be over-descriptive about what is involved.

Rabbi Cohen’s Prevention Recipe: Stopping Drugs

1. The Torah curriculum has to be exciting, challenging, spiritual, and fulfilling, emphasizing a connection with G-d. The latter is essential, yet is not addressed enough.
I tell addicted kids : “You guys want to come close to Hashem, and using drugs is the only way you have found.”
2. Train parents and teachers to see the warning signs. Recognize signs of kids who are positioned for failure. Substance abuse is often just relief from empty feelings, which may come because of depression, family tragedy, learning disabilities, and similar issues not being properly addressed.
3. Kids need people to whom they can look up and relate.
4. Early detection is dependent upon proper training for parents, teachers, and rebbes. Kids not acting according to the norm in their circle are a possible problem. I told a certain rosh yeshivah, “Learn all you can about drugs, because five years from now some of your best boys may be involved, and you won’t want to throw them out.”
5. Schools must have a psychologist and/or a social worker on staff.
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