When a Teenager Leaves the Path: The Torah’s Message of Unconditional Worth

Rabbi Uri Zohar once related that at the wedding of his grandson, who studied at the Mir Yeshiva, the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Aryeh Finkel, approached him and said with great enthusiasm, “I love your grandson very much. He is genuine.”

Rabbi Zohar was struck by the unusual warmth of the comment. Later, he asked his grandson what had earned him such a special relationship with the rosh yeshiva and what Rabbi Finkel had meant when he described him as genuine.

His grandson explained that while studying in the yeshiva, he had once approached Rabbi Finkel and spoken to him with complete honesty. “I have a problem,” he admitted. “I think about girls all day.”

Rabbi Aryeh Finkel immediately replied, “So do I! Now let’s think together about what we can do about it.”

That response changed everything. “By answering me that way, he showed that he accepted me and raised my sense of self-worth,” the grandson explained. “It was as though the rabbi was sharing a ‘secret’ of his own with me and even ‘consulting’ with me about what we could do. He won me over. From then on, we became very close, and I was able to open myself to him and receive everything he had to teach me.”

The story illustrates a fundamental principle in working with people, particularly with struggling teenagers: sometimes the first step toward helping someone change is not criticism, correction, or confrontation. It is joining them where they are and helping them rediscover their own worth.

It All Begins in the Mind

For years, I wondered why one of the most noticeable signs of rebellion among teenagers who openly leave the religious path is often a dramatically different or unconventional hairstyle. Why choose something that is almost guaranteed to create conflict with parents, teachers, and the surrounding community?

Eventually, I gathered the courage to ask a teenager sitting across from me that question directly. His answer stunned me.

“You rabbis are always saying that you don’t care about appearances, only about what is inside,” he told me. “So here you go. Now let’s see whether all you care about is my haircut, or whether you really know how to look at what is inside me too.”

At least for this particular teenager, I discovered that the haircut was not simply an act of rebellion. It was a desperate cry for help. “Save me from myself,” he was effectively saying. “Help me find who I really am beneath all the confusion surrounding me. Prove that you love me and can see beyond the mask I have put on.”

One of the most serious difficulties faced by teenagers who have drifted far from the religious framework in which they were raised is their damaged self-image. The problem does not begin with the haircut. It begins in the mind.

Before we can help such a teenager, we must first clarify for ourselves how the Torah views someone in his situation. Only then can we communicate that perspective to him and recognize the essential inner identity that remains beneath labels, stereotypes, and outward behavior.

What Is the True Value of “A Jew Who Has Sinned”?

The Talmud in Sanhedrin 44a teaches a remarkable principle: even when a Jew has sinned, “he is still a Jew.” The Talmud compares this to a myrtle growing among thorns. Even though it is surrounded by thorns, people still call it a myrtle.

The significance of the analogy is profound. The Talmud does not compare the sinner to a fruit that has rotted from within. Instead, it describes a beautiful myrtle surrounded by thorns. The problem is around it, but its essential identity remains intact.

This distinction is crucial when dealing with a struggling teenager: we must separate the person from his actions. The teenager himself possesses inherent worth, even when many of his actions are wrong. We must make that separation first in our own minds, following the principle expressed by the Sages: “Let sins cease,” rather than “Let sinners cease.”

This distinction also has tremendous therapeutic value. A young person must learn that he himself is not the problem. Rather, he has problems, behaviors, struggles, or circumstances that he can confront and, through the right process, eventually leave behind.

Inherent Worth and Personal Achievement

The Talmudic tractate Arachin distinguishes between two concepts: a person’s fixed erech, or assigned value, and his damim, his individual monetary valuation.

An erech is fixed by Torah law according to age. Within a particular age bracket, the value is the same regardless of whether a person is righteous or wicked, attractive or unattractive. Damim, by contrast, reflects an individual's particular market value. One servant might possess valuable skills, while another might perform simple labor.

These two concepts can also serve as a model for understanding human worth. There is a fundamental value that belongs to every Jew and does not disappear because of sin or failure. At the same time, there is another level on which our choices, accomplishments, and spiritual work certainly matter. The actions of a righteous person are not equivalent to those of someone acting wrongly. However, that is a separate measurement of what a person does, not the destruction of what he fundamentally is.

We find a similar idea in the half-shekel contributed by every Jew. Everyone gave the same amount, neither more nor less, and this money was used for the foundation sockets of the Mishkan. The foundation was equal for everyone.

Other contributions to the Mishkan, however, were given according to each person's generosity and ability. Here there were differences. The message is powerful: at the foundational level, every Jew possesses an essential value that cannot be increased or diminished. On the practical level, however, each individual determines what he will build upon that foundation through his choices and actions.

When a Teenager Feels He Has Crossed the Line

One of the great dangers of leaving the religious path begins with a person's perception of himself. Once a teenager has crossed certain boundaries, he may begin to believe that he has gone too far. He sees himself as outside the community, beyond the limits of the world in which he grew up. He may feel that he has fundamentally changed and that there is no longer any way back.

Once that belief takes hold, further deterioration can seem almost inevitable.

Family and cultural responses can also affect this process. Some environments are more likely to maintain warmth and closeness even when a child changes religiously or outwardly, and that acceptance may help a struggling teenager continue to feel that he belongs. Other families may instinctively distance themselves from a child whose dress and behavior have changed, fearing the influence on siblings or the possible effect on the family's reputation and future marriage prospects. Clear boundaries can sometimes have positive effects, but rejection carries serious risks as well.

A friend recently told me about a father who had two sons who had left the religious path. Another of his children was proposed as a match to a highly respected family, and the father could not understand why the other family was willing to enter a match with a family carrying such a complicated “file.”

Eventually, he asked the prospective father-in-law directly whether he had known about the two sons.

“Yes,” the man replied.

“And you weren’t afraid?”

“I was very afraid,” he answered. “That is exactly why I went to ask Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman. He told me: ‘The fact that two sons have left the path is not so terrible. This is a difficult generation. But I suggest that you investigate whether the parents maintain a relationship with them, and how. If they know how to accept them with love, it is worthwhile making the match with that family.’”

Torn Apart Inside

A teenager who is leaving the religious path is often already carrying an enormous sense of failure. Perhaps he cannot learn Gemara like his younger brother, whom his parents praise every Shabbat. Perhaps he cannot function successfully in school or yeshiva and is repeatedly reprimanded by teachers and rabbis. He feels that he continually disappoints his parents, and hears the worried whispers of grandparents and relatives.

Often, the person most disappointed in him is himself. He may not even feel comfortable with the friends he has begun spending time with or with the things they do together. He lives with an intense internal contradiction. Eventually, he may conclude that if he simply abandons the religious side of himself that currently feels so painful, life will become easier.

At first, it may even appear to work. A new social group accepts him and reinforces his new identity. For perhaps the first time in years, he feels that he belongs somewhere. If he never succeeded at being “good,” at least he can succeed at being rebellious.

This is precisely when he needs to hear the Talmud’s image of the myrtle among the thorns. The thorns may surround him. His environment may have changed, and his actions may have changed, but the thorns are not the myrtle itself. His essential Jewish identity has not disappeared.

The Midrash similarly compares the Jewish people to a walnut. A walnut can fall into mud without its inner fruit becoming ruined. The dirt remains on the outside. In the same way, external influences can surround a Jew without erasing the deepest part of who he is. Our task is to believe that the young person can eventually rediscover that inner self, even when he cannot yet believe it himself.

The Danger of Becoming “Acher”

The Talmud's account of Elisha ben Avuyah, known as Acher, “the Other,” presents an extreme and fascinating counterpoint. Elisha ben Avuyah had once been one of the great Torah scholars of his generation. Even after abandoning observance, Rabbi Meir continued learning Torah from him.

Yet Acher believed that his own return was impossible. He told Rabbi Meir that he had heard a heavenly voice declaring, “Return, wayward children, except for Acher.”

Rabbi Meir nevertheless continued trying to persuade him to return. At one point, children were asked to recite verses, but each verse seemed increasingly ominous. According to the Talmud, the final child recited a verse beginning, “But to the wicked, God says...” Because the child stammered, Elisha heard the words as though they said, “But to Elisha, God says...”

The story reveals a profound conflict in self-perception. On the one hand, although Elisha himself insisted that he had no path back, hearing what sounded like the same verdict from someone else provoked an intense reaction. Perhaps even a person who says the worst things about himself still retains, somewhere deep inside, a small hope that someone else will tell him that it is not true.

On the other hand, why did Elisha hear “Elisha” when the child actually said “the wicked”? Because that was the message he had come to expect. He had come to see himself as Acher, as fundamentally “other,” different, excluded, and beyond repair. Once that became his identity, everything he heard seemed to confirm it.

This may be one of the greatest dangers facing anyone who has fallen: not the fall itself, but the conclusion that the fall defines who he is. As long as a person believes that change remains possible, wherever he may be and whatever he may have done, the myrtle is still a myrtle. The thorns are still on the outside.

The Power to Renew

At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people received a promise that speaks directly to this ability to begin again: “I carried you on eagles’ wings.”

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, in Kedushat Levi, explains the symbolism of the eagle. The eagle sheds its feathers and renews them. In the same way, at the giving of the Torah, God gave the Jewish people the power of renewal. Even after a person falls into sin, he still possesses the ability to renew himself.

That power belongs not only to the “eagles,” but also to those who have fallen. We can help struggling young people rediscover their strength, change the way they see themselves, learn from their failures rather than become defined by them, and channel their experiences toward growth and success.

Sometimes the most important message we can give a struggling teenager is remarkably simple: What you have done matters, but it is not the entirety of who you are. Your story is not finished. You still have the power to renew yourself.