The Derech

Yesterday our family and a good friend went walking at the Arboretum. This is a huge nature center with a lot of hiking paths, called things like "Blueberry Walk." I was thinking that the set-up illustrated the issues with the concept of people "going off the derech." There are two things that people might mean when they say this:

1. There is some behavior that is negative by all accounts - using drugs, stealing, etc. In the Orthodox context, this would also include things like eating pork or purposely ignoring Shabbat. This is a genuine concern for a family and a community.

2. However, most people use the phrase to mean when someone stops following the specific way of their sub-section of the Orthodox community. In many yeshivish communities, it would be "off the derech" to stop wearing a black hat and start wearing a knitted kippah. And a lot of parents, rabbis, and schools make a huge deal about things like this. But what is the actual problem? Who cares if you want to hike on the Blueberry Path or the Butterfly Walk? And, in fact, it may actually be more appropriate to try to get different people to follow different directions. Just as hiking trails are more or less difficult, and therefore might be appropriate for different people's skill levels, people have different orientations of what works for them. Some people need a huge amount of structure, and a very formal religious life is exactly right for them. Other people need a creative aspect to their religious life in order to have feeling towards it. (When I was in Israel, there was a class where they would learn some Chassidic teachings and then sing and dance the concept, or make art projects about it. For me, this was weird. For the people who enjoyed it, they had a very spiritual experience.)

My husband also posted on this thought.

AND - right after I finished posting, I found Rabbi Gil Student's great post on a similar idea.