The Unbearable Lightness of Charedi Emptiness

by Nathan Cohen

 I remember growing up and slowly noticing a pattern: the more yeshivish the kid was, the wilder they tended to be.

I don’t mean “wild” in a charming or adventurous sense. I mean impulsive, reckless, sometimes physically aggressive. Jumping off things. Jumping on people. Testing boundaries constantly. They were often nice kids, but they were not well-contained kids.

And the explanation that circulated, and that many adults genuinely believed, was that these kids were protected. That they were insulated. That because they didn’t watch television, because they didn’t read newspapers, because they didn’t engage with the outside world, they were somehow purer, more kosher, more spiritual.

That simply didn’t match reality. This matters, because it connects directly to the larger conversation about secular studies.

Over the past few decades, a new model has been celebrated in parts of the yeshivish world: the idea that you can eliminate secular studies entirely and still succeed.

Why waste time on math, science, history, or language skills when people are “successful anyway”? Amazon sales. Real estate. Business. Micro “lending.” Hustling.

But let’s be honest. That story applies to a small minority. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, if not on parental support and/or some other form of financial scaffolding. The success narrative is massively overstated. Even if we take it seriously, what we actually see on the ground is more problematic.

Talk to older teenagers or young adults from very insular communities. Yes, some are bright. Some are articulate, especially in a mobile-first generation that’s learned how to sound fluent without being deep.

But scratch the surface and the gaps are glaring. Many can’t write a coherent paragraph. Basic arithmetic is shaky. Independent thinking is rare. The ability to handle a thought based on premises they are not used to is scarce, if it exists at all. Sustained concentration is almost nonexistent.

And this isn’t about college. College may well be a scam in many ways. That’s not the issue. The issue is education, the ability to understand the world, process information, reason carefully, and distinguish substance from nonsense.Academics and secular studies are not the same thing as credentialism. Rejecting college does not require rejecting literacy, numeracy, or intellectual discipline.

But when everything “secular” is framed as fake, corrupt, or a con, something poisonous happens. Kids internalize the idea that most thinking itself is suspect. That learning outside a narrow framework is illegitimate. That effort can be replaced with hustle.

So what fills the vacuum when secular studies disappear? Is it all Torah? For a small, genuinely gifted and committed minority, maybe. For the average person? No.

What fills the space is noise. Emptiness. Low-grade distractions. Shallow content. Gossip. Stupid books. Shorter, dumber articles. Magazines stripped of real Torah ideas and intellectual seriousness. A persistent need to negate the humanity and value of those outside the community. The irony is rich but painful; communities that claim to value depth are producing less of it.

And let’s not pretend moral insulation has improved either. Anyone who grew up inside knows what actually went on, at least in their own hearts, and it’s not getting better. A small minority is up to who knows what. A larger group seems to pretend not to be fascinated by kol davar assur while constantly keeping their eyes open.

We didn’t eliminate exposure. We just eliminated tools, useful ones, like the ability to think critically, to contextualize, to process, to grapple. We built a fence around the Torah, not a wall. A fence keeps people in well, but a fence has large holes that let the world in.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the kids who had some real secular education and later became more religious often do better, intellectually, emotionally, and professionally. Even with guilt. Even with gaps in formal Torah learning. They often outperform those who were “protected” from everything.

American Jews who grew up with solid general education tend to do reasonably well. Those raised with almost none often struggle far more than we’re willing to admit. This isn’t an argument for college worship. It’s an argument against anti-intellectualism masquerading as piety.

Without education, real education, you don’t get holiness. You don’t get wisdom. You get people who are brilliant at doing nothing except the least beneficial forms of thinking. And that should worry anyone who actually cares about the future.