r/exjew

I spent Simchas Torah in an out of town shul that has a fairly strong yeshivish influence, and I was honestly taken aback by how much of the celebration among the bachurim and young adults seemed to revolve around drinking.

All the "yeshivish with it" bochurim and young guys came with bottles of whiskey, and I was surprised that even guys in their mid-20s and 30s seemed to treat getting drunk as just part of what Simchas Torah is. The younger kids were drinking too.

At one point there were kids lying flat on their backs on the steps right in front of the aron kodesh, with other kids sitting on top of them. Later I saw another kid lying face down in a back room across a couple of chairs, in full public view, totally knocked out and unaware of his surroundings apparently masturbating in his drunken stupor.

As I don't spend much time in shul, I'm just wondring: is this kind of thing becoming the norm in yeshivish communities?

I got guilted into going to siimchas beis this year, and regret it because i find everything triggering. And now that i'm fully clear eyed and clear headed, I see crown heights for what it is. Just another regular neighborhood in a regular city, dirty, just a dump really, and ain't nothing holy about it at all. Rebbe decided to move there out of convenience and nothing more. It isn't any more special than a random town in Nebraska or Texas, and his followers followed and mushroomed. But it's honestly insane that it's like a mecca pilgrimage site or that lubavs and lubav wanna-bes flock there just because of him. Of course I was one of them once. But like, once your out -- it's just a city like any other, and not even a nice one, and definitely not holy.