By Yocheved Lavon. Ever since Noach emerged from the ark, planted a vine and imbibed its potent fruit, heavy drinking has drawn ridicule and disapproval. Until recently, overindulgence in drink was commonly perceived as a non-Jewish thing, and if it existed among us, we thought of it as the sad fate of the “town drunk,” a weak character who couldn’t face life without his bottle.  

Today, liquor’s reputation has changed. Some of our sons and brothers — boys who learn Torah, believe in Jewish values, and are trying to cling to them — are indulging in recreational drinking, and not just a l’chayim. Yet these boys resent being labeled as drunks or alcoholics. In a world fraught with spiritual dangers, they claim Friday-night drinking is an outlet that helps them stay on an even keel the rest of the week, and instead of being frowned upon, they’d like a pat on the back.  

What lies behind the shift in attitude, socially, emotionally, and spiritually? And where is it leading these boys?  

Can we — may we — ever condone such behavior? 

We Are Not a nation of teetotalers. From Russia to Morocco, from America to Israel, alcoholic beverages have always been part of Jewish life. “Let wine make the human heart rejoice,” said David HaMelech. The Torah recognizes the legitimacy of using alcohol to awaken joy in our hearts — and the illegitimacy of drinking to a point where self-control is lost.

Some of us associate a fine wine or liquor with the good things in life, a way to upgrade any joyous occasion; others think of alcohol and see images of rowdy and destructive behavior, addiction, and ruined lives. The debate obviously can’t be framed in simple terms of “which side is right?” The questions we need to ask instead are: Where is the line between good and bad drinking? Who draws it and how is it discerned?

My Outlet Moish, 23 years old, looks the part of a nice American yeshivah boy in dark trousers and a suit jacket over a white shirt. His manners are pleasant, while at the same time direct and down to earth, New York style. At a slow hour in a Jerusalem cafי, we begin our meeting, and two things become evident right away: one, his intense desire to make himself understood, to be heard as one who knows what it’s all about as an insider, not a commentator from the outside. Two, his scorn for some people’s tendency to judge or to slap labels like “alcoholic” on him and his peers with no understanding of the word’s implications.

Clearly, retaining the identity of a yeshivah bochur is important to Moish and his friends. They have no argument with Torah hashkafah or with Jewish morality. Somehow, they see their Shabbos drinking habit serving a purpose in helping them to stay grounded the rest of the week. They want to know what’s wrong with letting loose with their buddies on Shabbos or at a simchah, if that’s the outlet that works for them.

In order to better understand the mindset of these boys, we asked Moish to share some of his feelings. They may be shocking or disturbing, but they are honest and real. After hearing what Moish — and likely countless others — have to say on this delicate subject, we presented his take to a distinguished panel for review, analysis, and hopefully a solution.

“First of all,” Moish begins, “I want to say that when we drink, it’s got nothing to do with escape. An alcoholic comes home and goes straight to the bottle. That’s not us. These are good frum guys we’re talking about.”

Moish adds a disclaimer:

“We’re not talking about guys in excellent yeshivos who are really into learning. We’re talking about the average or below-average guy who isn’t learning 24 hours a day. He goes to yeshivah, he learns, he puts in his time, and at the end of the week he feels the need to relax.”

Moish himself grew up in a very hospitable family that liked to see their guests having a good time, and good wines and liquors were always on the Shabbos table. A boy doesn’t have to go into dens of iniquity to get wine or liquor; he can get it at a kiddush, a simchah, or the table of an accommodating host on Shabbos night, and that in itself makes it different from narcotics, in terms of the kind of boys it attracts and their attitude of being entitled to it.

“People want to know: Why is this going on? They say that even just ten, 15 years ago, bochurim drinking was unheard of. Someone who’s older has to understand; there’s something called yeridas hadoros — it isn’t the same world that it was then.”

Good Wine, Good Times  Moish describes the following that has developed around high-quality wines and liquors: “Alcohol these days is totally different from alcohol in years past. You go into a kiddush, and wow! Check it out — $300 bottles, 25-year-old bottles of scotch, 30-year-old bottles of bourbon. Even in the yeshivos: ‘Rebbi, try this fine scotch.’ Hardly anybody is going to turn it down. So today it’s much more common, people are into it, people have hobbies collecting bottles, and people enjoy it.”

There’s no need to take Moish’s word for it. Look at the full-page, color ads for fine kosher wines in this magazine and compare them to the ones for sweet Kiddush wines that used to appear in Jewish publications two or more decades ago. The Jewish community has developed a sophisticated palate, and the market caters to it.

“For guys like us, what constitutes a good Friday night meal? Good conversation, everybody’s feeling relaxed, the food’s good … and alcohol enhances all that. The best memories I have of hanging out with guys would be when we had a drink or two. It enhances the meal a lot of times in a good way. People sing, people are out there talking. Mostly, a guy’s not going to a 45-year-old’s house for the Friday night meal; he’s going to younger people … and you’ll be shocked, but even if he goes to the rebbi’s house, the rebbi knows what guys enjoy and what they need.

“Yes, there are certain circumstances when people get out of hand,” Moish admits. “Somebody might do something stupid and regret it the next day, but for a single guy, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s Friday night, he learned the whole week, and he has no responsibilities. He doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t have kids. So between the guys, nobody makes a big issue of it. So you were crazy last night. The next day, everything just keeps going.”

How bad does it get? “Maybe somebody gets sick and has to apologize afterwards … or he kicks a garbage can on the way back to the apartment. Nothing worse.”

So Play Basketball  While bochurim look to their hosts to provide enjoyable entertainment, this expectation often works the other way, too. How often do we hear people say, when they’re planning a Shabbos meal or a simchah, that they’re looking forward to having bochurim on hand “to make things leibedig”? Boys are well aware of these expectations, and criticism of them for getting tipsy at weddings puts Moish on the defensive.

“You go to a wedding, and some people may say [he puts on a gruff, bad-guy voice], ‘Ohh, yeshivah guys — alcohol — they drink!’ Well, you can’t expect a guy to dance for four hours at a wedding without getting a little high.”

What makes boys cross that line between getting what he calls “a little high” and getting really drunk — be it at a wedding or at a Shabbos meal?

Moish thinks for a moment and replies, “They may think they know their limits, think they can handle it. They’re not only drinking, they’re eating and talking too, having a good time and not counting how many l’chayims they’re having … and they might end up losing control.

“It’s Friday night, they’re getting that outlet, not an escape from depression or anything, it’s just … they’re free. There are a lot of things you can’t do. You’re locked in, so now you feel free.”

At this point a chorus of voices is undoubtedly asking, “But what do they need an outlet like that for? Let them go talk to their rebbeim, let them get some advice about more appropriate outlets.”

Moish says he isn’t averse to guidance from a rebbi; he’s averse to condemnation from outsiders who don’t understand the thoughts behind his drinking.

“Everyone should have a rebbi who’s open with him, a rebbi he can be open with, and if the rebbi says, ‘I feel you’re drinking too much, let me tell you my perspective on this,’ it’s a thing you discuss, and maybe you have to stop. You discuss it with your rebbi,” Moish repeats for emphasis. “Maybe your rebbi tells you, ‘I don’t want you to drink for a month, but at that wedding you can drink, you can let yourself out a little.’ But that balabos who’s watching, he doesn’t know what your rebbi said. Everyone just looks at the other one and judges, no one inquires … Instead of just seeing drinking, maybe look beyond, at the nisyonos a yeshivah guy is facing. The drinking is like a side issue to him.”

As for outlets, Moish honestly doubts whether the typical basketball game can effectively counter the nisyonos he faces.

 “Are you kidding me? Do you think basketball is gonna … do you know the things we’re going through? We’re surrounded by enticement and challenges … this is the generation we’re living in, whether people want to know it or not. The nisyonos are crazy out there, and you tell a 20-year-old guy to go play basketball. Very nice; he’ll play basketball, he’ll enjoy basketball, but it’s not gonna take away … you know, you tell a guy to get a good outlet, so I go to the gym every day. I do it. It’s a good outlet, a kosher outlet, but it’s not going to help for what a guy’s up against … people know what works for them and what doesn’t.”

Time to Move On Parents have begun to question the wisdom of sending their children away for a year or more of study in Eretz Yisrael. The practice has turned into a tradition, but for some kids, the year in Israel turns into a high-risk playground instead of the spiritual journey it was meant to be.

Is this where the drinking parties typically begin?

According to Moish, the drinking issue isn’t linked to geographical location or proximity to parents.

“A regular yeshivah guy, 21–22 years old, in Eretz Yisrael or in America, doesn’t feel like he’s ‘running away from his parents.’ If you want to know about the parents, I’d say the parents are forced to feed into the society. Some of them might say, ‘No alcohol in the house!’ So what does a guy do? He goes to a house where they have a nice oneg.”

Needless to say, a “nice oneg” doesn’t mean Viennese crunch.

Is Moish’s Shabbos habit the start of a lifelong dependence on alcohol? Moish’s feeling is that bochurim like him hold family values that are strong enough to motivate them to cut back on drinking once they have obligations to a wife and children, and that it happens naturally. Can he count on that? Since we have no statistics, only time will tell.

“A lot of my friends are married now,” Moish says. “We go to a married friend’s house, and they let us drink because we’re single, but our married friends aren’t drinking the way they used to. You’ll rarely see them get out of hand, because they’re married now, and that’s it. And people understand that. When they’re going into marriage, they slow down, because it’s time. Life is happening. When you’re single, it’s fun, it’s enjoyable, it has its moments, people love it, but when you reach a new level, you have to move on.”

So how does Moish envision the future for himself and his friends?

“I’ll be going back to the States now,” he says. “It’ll be time to start dating, and I know I’m going to be working when I’m married. I can imagine being 35 years old, raising a family, looking back on the memories as fun. I’m not going to deny it, because that’s the world we live in.

“When my friends and I see a 40-year-old guy getting drunk at a kiddush and coming home like that to his wife and kids, we look at him as, you know, nebach. Maybe that’s a case of alcoholism. Maybe he started when he was 25 or 30 and he has a hard life, so he’s bringing it out this way. But we look at ourselves, we’re 20, we’re single, and most guys understand that once you have a family, it’s wrong.”

Does Moish really think it’s okay to get drunk if you’re young and single? Or is it just that he doesn’t see a better alternative?

“Nobody has any doubt that it’s a bad thing, it leads to bad things,” he concedes. “And there are thousands, I guess millions, of people in the world who have an addiction. And it could be that for some guys, yes, there are trends that are starting, and if they have a bad day they might reach for a drink in the middle of the week. But for the average yeshivah guy, right now, if you want to know why they drink on Friday night, it just enhances. It’s an outlet, it’s a fun outlet …”

Thanks, Moish, for your honesty. We appreciate your opening your heart to our readers and have a feeling that your experience reflects the attitude of some other bochurim as well.

How can we help Moish and his friends reevaluate their attitudes? How can we guide future generations of bochurim to avoid using alcohol as “just another outlet”? We asked a panel with experience and expertise to weigh in on Moish’s outlet. Here’s what they had to say. 

Dear Moish, there’s something I’d like to tell you

4 Views

Four community members share their view on Moish’s outlet — and its ramifications for his health, spirituality, and future.

Rabbi Greenwald is rosh yeshivah at Yeshiva Tiferet in Jerusalem. When he speaks to talmidim about recreational drinking, he frames the discussion in terms of the struggles a Jew faces in This World. Here, Rabbi Greenwald shares with us some profound Torah concepts to shed light on “innocent” drinking as a form of recreation.

“The issue of how to use alcohol is at the heart of our age-old conflict with the pagan and secular world,” Rabbi Greenwald prefaces. “While cultural norms have shifted over the past few decades, we’re not looking at a new phenomenon.

“People are struggling in their lives,” he says. “Whether it is health, relationships, parents, children, responsibilities, parnassah, social standing, or something else, no one goes through life without hardship. Adam l’amel yulad — man was born to toil. Yet secular popular culture relentlessly broadcasts a message that life should be fun, easy, and rewarding. And when hard work is praised, its value is generally for the pleasure it can bring in terms of money, success, comfort, and so on. [Read more in the Mishapacha Magazine].