Breaking Into the Heart, Mind, And Soul of Jewish Youth
By Rachel Berman
Nov. 10, 2006 --This is the problem generation; rabbis and psychologists assure us daily. Forget about the rebels of Generation X; Generation Y, so they say, is depressed, repressed, hostile, lame-brained, and as insecure a generation as the Western World has ever seen. Family values? Never heard of them. Self-confidence? Um, I can't hear you through my iPod.
What a revelation then to enter a room and watch 20 or so full-blooded members of Generation Y facing head on some of the toughest issues people of any age will face throughout their lives--things like grief and shame, divorce and abandonment, sibling rivalry and homesickness, and facing them with grace, courage, and that oh-so-original teenaged mind.
And, what's more intriguing, they're all Jewish.
Four weekends a year you'll find them in random cities in Connecticut--two instructors, one rabbi, 30 assistants, and 15 students, working to create an environment and a weekend like no other to be found in Jewish life today.
The Heart, Mind and Soul weekend began when a Connecticut NCSY rabbi named Shimmy Trencher was harangued by his parents into going with his wife on a self-discovery and growth course down in Atlanta called "Understanding Yourself and Others."
To his surprise, he found himself reevaluating his life and working on himself and his marriage in a way he'd never done before. "At the time that we went," he says, "there were a lot of pressures in my life, and the workshop really helped me personally, and us as a family, to refocus on what was most important to us."
So, in true NCSY style, he decided he had to bring the same powerful experience to his population strata of choice--Jewish teenagers.
"A lot of kids who came to NCSY under the guise of having issues with religion, well, it had nothing to do with religion," he says. "It had to do with personal issues, family issues. And I looked around and saw that there was nothing in the entire Jewish world, frum or not frum, for these kids."
With help from the Atlanta course's leaders, he twiddled the UYO format, adding Shabbos, shomer negiah, and kosher food to the package, and went back to school to get a masters of social work, in order make Heart, Mind and Soul a formal, solidly-founded program.
Today, though, three years since the first Heart, Mind and Soul weekend, it's still hard to get a grip on what exactly the program is.
HMS is not group therapy, Rabbi Trencher is quick to tell you. On the website (www.heartmindandsoul.org) he describes it as an extended weekend with "fun, safe, and powerful group activities" that focus on "raising self-esteem and motivation for our youth, increasing hope, and encouraging individuals to develop a greater willingness to accept personal and communal responsibility."
In short, self-growth and motivation in the deepest, most Jewish way.
The weekends offer role-playing to work through different relationships, says Rabbi Trencher, as well as group activities to conquer shyness, anger, inferiority or whatever the given problem is. The two instructions, usually not Jewish, craft the activities and the weekend to fit the different bunch of individuals that come each time.
Well, is the program effective?
According to many of the students, definitely. "What HMS did for me..." muses Esti, a 21-year-old in Brooklyn College, "I think I'm a different person since I went--a happier, more aware person... I also feel like I have more in common with people, after hearing other people speak about their issues and talking about mine."
Tyler, an 18-year-old from West Hartford, Connecticut, said that the program radicalized his communication skills, "I [learned to] give people the extra couple moments to understand where they're coming from," he said. "My general opinion of HMS? It's awesome. It's fun. It's intellectually and emotionally stimulating."
As of today about 180 students have gone through the program and returned again and again as assistants; but that number isn't nearly where Rabbi Trencher would like it. Currently, he runs about four HMS weekends a year in Connecticut, his home base, but he says he envisions HMS programs running at least every other week in different places through the country.
"I'd like to be doing them in the New York area, on the West Coast, in Florida, and in Israel," he says. "Especially in Israel, for yeshiva and seminary students."
But many question how much difference one small weekend can really make in a person's life. Perhaps a person is confident and happy for a week, or even a month after the weekend, but who's to say the newly found spirit will last?
To that, Rabbi Trencher replies, it's all up to the individual. "HMS is not therapy and it doesn't solve people's problems in one weekend," he says. "The real test of a workshop, any workshop, is when a person gets back into the real world--to where the person gets angry, or to where the person has a problem with a relationship, and to see if they can implement what they learned. I always say, [HMS] is a push in the right direction, but the follow up is the key. People have to take responsibility to do that."
Not everyone has found his or her life radicalized by the experience, though. "It's not for everyone," said Chaya, another 21-year-old from Brooklyn. "Like, it doesn't work for people who aren't looking to change, and some people are too private--they might feel too uncomfortable talking about things." She stops and thinks for a moment. "I don't mean closed--some people are closed, and it's not always so healthy--they probably should go on the program. But there are some people that are just very private, and maybe they should talk privately to a rav or a therapist or something."
"They could make better food, and it gets a little boring sometimes, but overall it was cool," says Daniel, a ninth grader at Torah Academy of Bergen County, New Jersey. "I wouldn't have gone on this thing, but my sister really wanted me to, and yeah, I had a good time." His sister injects: "He had a great time--he really changed from it! I could tell!" This November they'll both be going back as assistants.
But as intense as the weekend gets, students report making great friendships and having plain teenage fun, and even, according to one, learning how to break-dance.
"It's not all hard work and mussar," says Esti from Brooklyn. "You have loads of fun, and meet rockin' people. It's the warmth and spirituality of a Shabbaton, combined with the life-changing inspiration of the HMS seminar."
And like a true HMS poster child, she finishes, "You can pass through life without HMS, but with it, life won't pass you."
© 2006, The Jewish Press.