With all of the entertainment news buzzing about the tragic and untimely death of 28 year old actor Heath Ledger, it got me thinking of a recent Shabbos lunch conversation I had with a group of adults regarding our own Jewish communities and how they deal with at-risk youth. It was reported that Ledger was found dead in his New York City apartment surrounded by prescription pills. It was also reported that he had suffered from substance abuse the previous year. Substance abuse, alcohol abuse – these things do not come as a shock to us “common folk” when we hear how many celebrities suffer from these corruptions. But what do we do when we hear that this is happening in our own backyard to our own brothers and sisters? How do we respond when we hear that a Jewish teenage boy is found dead for the same reason that Ledger was found dead? How do we react when we see the “off the derech” girls or group of “druggies” traipsing through our communities? In a way, we must give these groups credit: despite the fact that they are turned off and seeking an escape from the religious path, these at-risk teens still stick to their own kind. There is a sub-culture of these teenagers that stay together in their own tight-knit Jewish pack.
Unfortunately, many people think it best to sweep these issues under the rug and pretend that these problems don’t exist. Parents may not want to admit that their child has a problem, friends may not want to broach the topic lest the dirty laundry be aired in public. To these people who feel ashamed about these at-risk youth among us I say, let’s air the dirty laundry as much as we can. This is something that needs to be addressed. As someone who is a bit naive, I was told recently about a number of teenagers that are suffering from drug abuse in a neighboring city, yet nobody knows about it – that it is very “hush-hush.” Is anything being done for these poor children? Yes, they may be teenagers, but they are still our children. I understand that in major cities there are programs being started, and that yes, people do want to do something about this. Therefore it is up to us, as a community, to band together and brainstorm on ways that we can help our own people. While working in the high school this afternoon, I overheard one of the high school girls exclaim dramatically, “Oh I am so sad about Heath Ledger, I could cry, right now!” Before we shed a tear for an actor that we don’t even know on a personal level, let us first shed a tear- and TAKE ACTION – for the ones that we do know, that are still part of our culture, still part of our religion, still in our family, even if they have one too many piercings on their body or their hair falls far longer than it should.
