As a frum society, we are excellent at self-flagellation. At the drop of a magazine, we can muster up long lists of all the problems in our communities. But sometimes I wonder if we know how to appreciate what we do have. Are we aware, for example, that as we speak, Western society is grappling with a serious masculinity crisis?
The New York Times, in a
recent article titled “It’s Not Just a Feeling,” assures us that this is not
just hype. The actual data on the ground shows how dramatically boys and young
men are falling behind. For example, only 41% of college degrees now go to men.
Atlantic magazine has dubbed this “the new marriage of unequals,” as
more-educated women marry less-educated men. Men in the workforce are in
decline – in fact, one in ten men aged 20 to 24 is doing neither school
nor work. Mental health crises among young men are climbing, as is addiction
and suicide – at four times the rate of young women.
And all this is just the backdrop
to the most tragic part – the way this crisis is affecting family life. A
whopping two-thirds of American children are born to single mothers, even as research
shows that the single most important marker for success in life is being raised
by two parents. As one commentator put it, women are advancing in every area –
while men are becoming really excellent at video games.
Taken together, it’s clear that
referring to this as a “crisis of masculinity” is not hyperbole. In fact, it
might be an understatement.
Vive la Différence
And then there is our community. Yes,
we have our issues. But do you know what else we have? We have idealistic young
men who are interested in marriage and eager to commit to it at a young age. We
have wholesome young men who see having children as part of their life’s
mission and
invest time and energy into their children’s upbringing; pedagogic experts
doing the speaker circuit easily fill up auditoriums with fathers. These
young men take their responsibility to support their families seriously, even
while being idealistic enough to dedicate some of their best earning years to
full time Torah study.
As it turns out, we have a lot to
be grateful for. In fact, maybe these concerned social commentators should ask
the frum world what we’re doing right with our sons. But truthfully, even
if they don’t ask us, we can ask ourselves. The outside world is scarily compelling.
A parent recently confided in me that his terror of failing at keeping his kids
on the straight and narrow informs most of his interactions with them. Breaking
down the elements of our system – especially in contrast to the secular
world – can be a wonderful tool to help us be more intentional (and less
defensive) about what we do.
Here are seven ways our system
sidesteps the current masculinity crisis:
Commitment Is Expected – and Valued
Western society likes freedom and abhors
anything that might stifle that freedom, which of course includes marriage.
While secular women are also delaying marriage today – the median age for both
men and women has shot up from the early twenties to the early thirties in the
last three decades – even the New York Times is willing to admit that
the main problem is the men. “Why aren’t more people getting married?” a recent
Times article asks in its title. And the answer it offers? “Ask the
women what dating is like.” As it turns out, it is the Western man who is
allergic to commitment.
Judaism, on the other hand, sees
masculinity as deeply intertwined with obligation and commitment on the part of
the man. Under the chuppa, he gives her the kesubah and not vice versa. While
Western society throws around terms like “situationships” and “commitment-phobic,”
the Torah flips this cultural model, inviting the man to be a giver rather than
a taker.
A Cure for Loneliness
Getting married at a young age
addresses another aspect of the masculinity crisis: loneliness. American men
are stuck in a “friendship recession.” A Gallup poll reveals that Gen Z and
millennial men under 35 are among the loneliest demographic. The frum
world offers a plethora of built-in social opportunities for men – from
davening with a minyan to shalom zachars and family simchahs. But the
truth is, there is an existential loneliness that really has only one solution:
an ezer k’negdo.
While fleeting relationships may
dazzle, all the flings in the world can’t fill that empty hole the way marriage
can. In a published study that is unlikely to topple anyone from their chair in
surprise, Sam Peltzman, a University of Chicago economist, reports that
marriage was “the most important differentiator” between happy and unhappy
people – way more than a person’s income.
How lucky for the frum man
who marries young, early in his emotional journey – before he is scarred, jaded,
and disillusioned – to a woman who is committed to him and only to him. As Shlomo
Hamelech points out in “Eishes Chayil,” when his “heart trusts in her,” then
“he does not lack for spoils.” An emotionally satisfying relationship compensates
for a lot of other “needs.” Marriage at a young age pulls a man out of his
lonely bubble and draws him into a world of caring and friendship. In the
beautiful words of the sheva brachos, he and his wife become rei’im
ahuvim, beloved friends.
Torah Preserves Distinctly Male
Spaces
It is an uncomfortable truth that
progressives prefer to ignore: Women’s advancement often coincides with men’s
regression. As it turns out, the minute women become more prominent in a
particular field, men disappear. This is borne out in fields that used to be
mostly male, such as: psychology (now 77% women), pediatrics (now 65% to 75%
women), veterinary medicine (now 80% women), clinical pharmacy (now 65% women),
and even rabbis. (The current enrollment at Hebrew Union College is 38% male
versus 61% female.)
There is a hidden price to pay for
egalitarianism, one that non-Orthodox congregations struggle with today. In
fact, many of them are initiating a plethora of “men only” events (including,
unbelievably, “men only” prayer services) in a desperate attempt to reclaim
their men.
Women can tap into the many
wonderful Torah learning resources available, and they can relish going to shul
when their life circumstances permit. Yet nothing will change the fact that a
man is a metzuvah v’oseh in talmud Torah and tefillah in a
way that a woman is not.
Perhaps those halachically
designated male roles and male spaces are what keep our young men from the
frustration and sense of worthlessness that accompany so many secular men. No
less than the New York Times observed that the “disappearing men”
phenomena isn’t happening among Orthodox Jews, “whose public religious rituals
are led exclusively by men, which allows boys to see an obvious place for
themselves.”
It is not a contradiction to
celebrate women’s progress in many fields and at the same time to acknowledge
the Divine wisdom in creating halachically designated male roles.
Purpose Isn’t Optional – It’s Built In
A recent article in the Free
Press bemoans the cynicism that permeates today’s youth culture as an “almost
incapacity to be serious.” Youth vie to be even more sneering, sarcastic,
scornful, sardonic, and skeptical than their peers – the better to defend
themselves against the existential terror of being perceived as “uncool.”
In contrast, Torah inculcates us with
the idea that we were sent to this world for a purpose, and even the most
seemingly mundane actions matter. However inadequate mussar study in yeshivos
might be, our sons are learning a language that is becoming completely foreign
to secular society. Next time you are at a sheva brachos or hear a dvar
Torah at a Shabbos table, note how concepts that have faded from the
secular discourse – honesty and introspection, caring and responsibility for
others, cultivating spiritual and moral goals in life – are threaded through
every drasha and dvar Torah. We may not always live up to our
ideals, but the ideals are definitely out there, celebrated in the public
arena.
Fatherhood as a Path to Greatness
Single men in the secular world may
feel anchorless, with no reason to get out of bed in the morning. Contrast that
with the experience of the young fathers in our communities, whose reasons for
getting out of bed might be bouncing on their bed at that very moment.
There is so much talk in the
secular world about whether someone “feels ready” to have children. But
maybe being ready for children is an oxymoron. If there is one absolute about
having children, it’s that it sets you on a one-way journey to
you-have-no-idea-where. As it turns out, having children is often a catalyst
for our most dramatic growth as human beings.
On
a recent Friday afternoon, I found myself at a local park with some of my
grandchildren, and I noticed that there were very few mothers at the park.
Mostly there were fathers
– tying shoes and handing out sandwiches but also running
through the sprinklers with their kids and organizing relay races. It occurred
to me how much big families (and small budgets) encourage participation and
cooperation on the part of fathers.
In
contrast to the vague desire for “our children to be happy,” which researchers
are discovering underlies most parenting decisions, Judaism’s emphasis on v’shinantam
l’vanecha, along with the halachos of honoring one’s parents, creates a
very different parenting dynamic.
A
friend shared that she saw a father walking with his child, who was wearing a T-shirt
proclaiming: “If you think this kid is bad, you should see his Dad.” How tragic
for that child to be parented by a man who takes pride in being “badder” than
his four-year-old. Indeed, there are probably few things that motivate a person
more to make something of himself than little eyes looking up at him.
Real Role Models, in Real Time
Richard Reeves, in his work on the
male crisis, notes that many boys today not only don’t live with their fathers;
they also attend schools where nearly all their teachers are women. Combine
that with a media diet of hyper-masculine influencers or apathetic gamers, and
it’s no wonder that many boys don’t know what kind of man to be.
In contrast, our boys are
surrounded by male role models – in school, in yeshivah, in shul, and at our
segregated family simchas. Rabbeinu Yonah (1180-1263), in an
insightful twist to the pasuk in Mishlei, tells us that a person’s true
nature is revealed not by how people praise him, but by whom he praises.
Imagine how different our world would look if on our dais sat sports figures,
movie stars, and secular influencers, instead of the refined, learned, wise,
caring, and compassionate people whom we look up to.
Self-Discipline
as a Virtue
It’s
fascinating how deeply we’re shaped by the culture around us. People steeped in
Western culture might, for example, see the entire Vayima’en project
(which encourages shemiras ha’einayim) as vaguely unhealthy. Self-restraint
is dismissed as being “inhibited,” one of the worst epithets in a society that
champions a “let it all hang out” mentality. The prevailing cultural narrative
doesn’t just normalize men giving in to their impulses; it glamorizes it.
And
since we, too, recognize both the importance of self-acceptance and the dangers
of shaming, we can sometimes feel defensive about the goals we set for our
youth. It is worthwhile contemplating, however, that in the not-so-distant
past, many Western thinkers, artists, and philosophers held views that were
much more compatible with halacha. They believed that lack of self-discipline was
a sure path to narcissism and emotional stunting. Interestingly, some of them
even saw clear parallels between physical self-control and intellectual and
artistic creativity. Is it possible that Western society’s devaluing of specifically
male-focused self-discipline might have some connection to the “male crisis”
they are so anxious about?
As
secular men flail around trying to give positive expression to their
masculinity, many find succor in the gym, the modern altar where identity is
shaped and (if he can stick to it) affirmed. The number of bench presses he can
do becomes a marker of his masculinity.
Strength
is indeed closely linked to masculinity. It is not for nothing that the Hebrew
word for man, gever, shares a root with the word for strength, gibbor.
But while being a power lifter, body builder, or gym bro may give him a macho
physique, it does not necessarily turn him into a man. “Who is strong? [i.e., who
is a man?]” the Mishnah asks – and answers, “He who conquers his
desires.”
How
tragic that the high ideals of “self-expression” and “radical autonomy” find
expression at the end of the day in treating adult men as if they were toddlers.
We can’t expect much from you, secular society says, because boys will be boys.
When I asked a student in one of my kiruv classes, whose boyfriend had
shattered her heart to smithereens, how on earth a supposedly normative young
man could behave so abysmally, she looked at me strangely. “Miriam, what do you
want from him? He’s a guy.”
* * *
Human
beings are not angels. We are physical, flawed, and constantly tested. The “living
your truth” bandied about in the secular world may seem more appealing – and
certainly more relaxing. But Torah offers us a different vision of man. “What
is man, that You should even remember him?” Dovid Hamelech asks in Tehillim.
And the answer? “Yet You have made him just a little lower than G-d.”
Miriam
Kosman is the author of Circle, Arrow, Spiral: Exploring Gender in
Judaism — now in its sixth printing and translated
into French and Hebrew, with a Russian edition forthcoming. She
is also a lecturer for Nefesh Yehudi, the Israeli branch of Olami. To read
more of her writing subscribe to her Substack column, “A Tale of Two
Voices,” or visit miriamkosman.com. This article first appeared
in Mishpacha magazine.
