Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Are MO Students Still "Flipping Out"?- Some thoughts on the movie Unorthodox (Part I)



I can’t stop thinking about the movie “Unorthodox” since I watched it. The movie, which is a documentary, follows the lives of three Modern Orthodox teenagers from the time leading up to their post-high school year in Israel, during the year in Israel, and in subsequent years as well.  It is narrated and directed by Anna Wexler, who also grew up in the Modern Orthodox world, but did not go to Israel, as she had left observance during her high school years.

There is much that can be learned from this film by Modern Orthodox parents, educators, and rabbis, as well as those from other parts of Orthodoxy. I plan to do a series of posts on this movie, as I think there is too much to cover in a single post.

In this post, I’d like to focus on what has changed about the year in Israel since 2005, which is the year when most of the film takes place. Although there will be few surprises in this post, I think it’s important to recognize how much has changed, and why the year in Israel is less effective than it was; both during the year itself, as well as in creating long-term change. In subsequent posts I will address larger communal and educational issues, and where we might go from here.

It is no secret that the year in Israel has become pretty standard for many Modern Orthodox teenagers. In some schools, it is almost like a 13th grade, as virtually all students attend. Even at schools where it is less automatic, I’d assume that 40-50% of graduating students attend. One of the topics which has been explored by many people is the “flipping out” which takes place for some of the students who become significantly more religious than they were coming into the year. Tzipi, one of the main characters in the film, goes through this process herself. She is a very compelling character, and we watch her develop religiously from the beginning to the end of the film. Even as we see that not everyone goes through this process, the movie makes clear why the year can be so transformational.

Although it came as no surprise, I was struck by the reminder that the technology of the time created a situation where all of the students were mostly separated from their former lives, including parents, friends, and girlfriends. It was difficult and somewhat costly to make calls. This isolation gave the students a chance to disconnect from their former lives, and imagine a life which may be different. In a world without Ipads, Ipods, WhatsApp, Netflix and more, the year in Israel allowed for the quiet space to consider how things could be different, as well as a lack of peer pressure from their friends who were not in Israel.

We no longer live in that world. The ubiquity of cell phones and all of the other technology means that current students are much more in touch with their former lives, which includes positive and negative influences. One can virtually “see” their parents or their boyfriend quite easily, sometimes several times a day. While some yeshivas and seminaries try to limit the technology, the reality is that it is very difficult to do so. Free time is now a time when students can watch all sorts of movies and TV shows. Students can binge-watch a popular series long after lights out.

There have been formal studies which confirm what I see anecdotally, which is that all of this contributes to the fact that less “flipping out” is taking place. I would also add that my sense is that even when change does occur, it often does not seem to last in the long-term. I would posit that students are often being pulled in different direction, leading to less change.

Why does any of this matter? If as many suggest, and this is mentioned in the movie, Modern Orthodoxy seems to count on the year in Israel to help produce the next generation of religiously committed adults, it is important that all of those who wish to see the community continue to thrive recognize that other things will have to be done to help bring this about. While good things do happen during that year, we can no longer count on Israeli institutions to do what we do not accomplish in Chutz La’aretz.

Do we want to change, and how we might do so, are things I will address in future posts.

1 comment:

  1. "Modern Orthodoxy seems to count on the year in Israel to help produce the next generation of religiously committed adults".

    I think this is part of the problem. MO is slacking off at inspiring religiously committed adults before the gap year. Teachers like yourself, whose sets as their primary goal teaching Big Picture Judaism and motivating an emotional draw to them, are the exception.

    (When I said this on FB, I garnered many objections. But then, the set of people who read what I write are pre-selected to be more focused on Big Picture Judaism and on teaching it than one would find in the general population.)

    So, if fewer kids are entering their gap year already facing the right direction, fewer will leave inspired -- or "over-inspired" into flipping out. The opportunity is being handed to a progressively less willing audience.

    ReplyDelete