From Boys to Men, by Tzvi Sinensky

Five decades ago, when the Sexual Revolution was at its peak, there was increasing anxiety among religious leaders that too many young men seemed incapable of escaping adolescence. Fast forward fifty years, and many of the same concerns about boys’ arrested development remain. “The boy problem” has long been the subject of hand-wringing in the United States. Young men in the West fare poorly in comparison with their female peers in numerous areas, including academic achievement, ADHD diagnosis, sexual abuse and harrassment, violent criminal behavior, and imprisonment. There is a clear pattern of decreased male engagement with traditional religious community life. And now, during the pandemic, research shows that on the whole, young men in particular have found it difficult to cope.

In thinking about how we can best care for our young men, it is worth turning to a religious leader who lived and led through Woodstock and Kent State: Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, who died earlier this year at age 92. In 1976, Rabbi Lamm assumed the presidency of Yeshiva University, the landmark institution of American Modern Orthodoxy, where he served as president until 2003 and chancellor until his retirement in 2013.  …