Nowadays we need sane asylums

By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.

SAN DIEGO — It used to be that psychiatrists put insane people into insane asylums.  However, today, everyone is seemingly insane. Sort of.  Just look at the pathology of our youth, the dysfunction of our families, the violence in our day to day lives, the poisonous popular culture to which we expose our children in their computer games, television, movies and music, and there can only be one logical and unequivocally compelling conclusion.  We need sane asylums!

That’s right.  Sane asylums.  Places where we can teach sanity in an otherwise insane world.  Tragically, we already have those sane asylums, however family after family simply turn their backs on them.

Oh, they don’t just simply ignore them.  Instead, they bring in all kinds of utterly illogical, preposterous, irrational and unsound justifications and twisted rationalizations for doing so.  Some of these excuses are so fantastic they are almost believable.  Almost.  As soon as you shake your head, breathe in a whiff of reality and clear your thinking however, you readily see the lengths some need to go to avoid…the sane asylum.

We have experienced substantial social regression in our society over the past four decades.  None other than William J. Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues and other books on morality and ethics, said the following: “Today, forces of social decomposition are challenging—and in some instances, over taking—the forces of social composition.  And when decomposition takes hold, it exacts an enormous human cost.  Unless these exploding social pathologies are reversed, they will lead to the decline and perhaps even to the fall of the American republic.”

Bennett adds, “Many of the most serious behavioral problems we now face (particularly among our young) are remarkably resistant to government cures.  How intelligently and honestly we address these problems is the critical social policy question…”

James Q. Wilson, the renowned social scientist, writes that “the powers exercised by the institutions of social control have been constrained and people, especially young people, have embraced an ethos that values self-expression over self-control.”

The American polster, Daniel Yankelovich, found that:“Our society now places less value than before on what we owe others as a matter of moral obligation; less value on sacrifice as a moral good; less value on social conformity, respectability, and observing the rules;  and less value on correctness and restraint in matters of physical pleasure and sexuality.  Higher value is now placed on things like self-expression, individualism, self-realization and personal choice.”

Nobel Prize-winning author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, once said, “The West…has been undergoing an erosion and obscuring of high moral and ethical ideas.  The spiritual axis of life has grown dim.”

Novelist John Updike observed, “The fact that, compared to the inhabitants of Africa and Russia, we still live well, cannot ease the pain of feeling we no longer live nobly.”

Read these words carefully.  Are we not going insane?  Yet, thousands of years ago, in an empty desert, we were chosen to receive a sane asylum from all of these social psychopathologies.  Our sane asylum has truly outlived most man-made systems of social justice, laws and religions.  Our sane asylum, about 4,000 years old, remains current, up-to-date and quite modern.  Yet, too many of us seem to prefer the steady declining course of insanity and just turn away.  Worse yet, too many are turning their captive children away as well.

In the sane asylum I am referring to, we teach our children that work is not everything in life.   We teach them that one-day a week, we don’t respond to the the cell phone or even carry it, we don’t bring home work from the office, we don’t turn on the computer or the TV, we don’t cook, and in fact we don’t do any creative work of any kind.

San Diego just experienced the most historic Shabbat in American history. We participated with 340 cities in dozens upon dozens of countries around the world in the most unity-binding Shabbat experience yet. Project Shabbat, called by several other names, was nothing short of unrivaled in creating spiritual, communal, personal and institutional elevation. Jews from every denomination, speaking with different languages and accents came together “…Grey suits that said Versace, a shirt that said the Jets, Chassidim wearing felt hats, their long coats and their vests…black yarmulkes of velvet, and knitted ones in white, a coat of many colors shining bright…” as Yehuda sings in his famed, “Kol Yisrael Chaverim.” We indeed were “a coat of many colors shining bright.”

Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Diego is building on it’s inspirational full Shabbat programming, including a rare or first time Seudah Shlisheet and Shabbat Mincha service, learner’s Shabbat service, lunch programming, Women’s Rosh Chodesh Program, Cholent Shabbat, and host of other spiritually uplifting and engaging educational and socially connecting events.

In this sane asylum, we teach our children through pennies, nickels and dimes about ethics and responsibility. We teach them the value of visiting the sick, respecting parents and teachers, and how to accept the sacredness of life and the discipline of law.  We help them learn an appreciation for greatness and majesty in the world.

In this sane asylum, we give our children a values based anchor and compass in the art of interpretive reading, questioning, and creative, critical and tightly logical thinking.  We pass along an inheritance of learning that encourages children to read texts carefully, to learn how to pore over every word and translate its every shade, nuance and meaning – its connotations and denotations.

In this sane asylum, we teach pride in being an American, an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States, and gratitude for the nation that allows us to thrive.  We teach a deep appreciation for language, literature and good writing, as well as science, mathematics, music, art and drama and an appreciation for the diversity of all people and the egalitarian notion that men and women are equal and play important roles in every step of life.

In this sane asylum, we teach our children to be close to G-d, close to each other and close to family.  In this sane asylum, we teach our children how to pray.  We teach our children to recognize that the best way to pay back parents who enrolled them in this sane asylum is by giving them back grandchildren who stay sane.

San Diego is blessed with a number of such sane asylums.  They are called by varying names.  The one name that unifies them all is Jewish education.

Stop the madness.  Open your eyes and see – really see – the sanity that comes from these asylums.  We’ll all be better off.

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Dr Michael Mantell, based in San Diego, provides coaching to business leaders, athletes, individuals and families to reach breakthrough levels of success and significance in their professional and personal lives. Mantell may be reached via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com