A recent opinion piece in The Jewish Week by three doctors expressing alarm about so-called kiddush clubs, a phenomenon mostly found in Modern Orthodox shuls, was bound to generate some controversy.

Check next week’s letters page for some pro and con responses.

Whether or not rabbis should allow shul members to step out of services, usually during the Torah reading, to enjoy a private kiddush of mostly liquor and some snacks is a question that probably dates back through generations.

But it came to a head four years ago when the Orthodox Union’s board of directors adopted a resolution urging its member shuls to put an end to this practice. One concern is that it may contribute to alcohol abuse among adults or plant the seeds of it in the adolescents to whom those adults are role models.

Another is the disrespect such a practice shows to the congregation, arguably to the Torah itself, the person reading it and the rabbi, whose sermon will often go unheard by club members.

The definition of kiddush, after all, is the creation of holiness.

Some would argue that kiddush clubs are only one part of a general apathy toward health and good habits at shul. We ply our kids with candy to reward them for attendance. The typical shul kiddush or lunch is a textbook study of bad menu choices, laden with fatty beef, artery-blocking kugel, salty fish and processed sugar-rich cakes, all washed down by sugary soft-drinks and liquor. These meals are often followed by long afternoon naps rather than a brisk walk to burn some calories.

But the kiddush club is a particularly telling social phenomenon that deserves to be studied under its own microscope.

In doing so, any sociologist would see that their popularity is a result of the stress regularly endured by Orthodox men who, even with the increasing frequency of dual income homes, still bear primary responsibility for the costs associated with the religious life of large families. Those costs include yeshiva tuition, shul dues, the purchase of ritual items, charitable obligations and the cost of celebrating milestones.

Anyone who struggles with these burdens knows that middle class is lower class in this environment while upper class often means just staying afloat.

Most Orthodox Jews would not feel comfortable going to bars after hours to blow off steam. And so for many, the kiddush club becomes the place “where everyone knows your name,” to quote the theme of the popular 80s sitcom “Cheers.” The founders and key members of these clubs are often people who run businesses or work long hours at legal, medical or financial practices.

While everyone inside the shul sanctuary can identify with their burdens, disruptive talking is prohibited and so the prayer service for some becomes another formal, rigid environment that echoes the work week.

The environment at a kiddush club closely mirrors that of a tavern, with talk of sports or politics, the telling of jokes (often off-color) and laughter as abundant as the supply of single-malt Scotch.

But despite their attractive nature, it’s hard to argue with critics of kiddush clubs. Some overindulge (a bottle of Scotch rarely makes two appearances at a Kiddush club, unless it’s domestic). The majority of participants will not go back into services when the tap runs dry. Children come into shul looking to sit with their fathers, and know exactly where they’ve gone when the seat is empty.

While socializing with peers can be an acceptable answer to stress, drinking surely is not.

“People who react to stress by drinking are on their way to becoming alcoholics,” says Rabbi Abraham Twerski, who is also a doctor and addiction counselor. “Especially when they leave davening and have a few shots downstairs, then come up and finish davening, and have a few more shots afterward [at the main Kiddush].”

Rabbi Twerski is in favor of an all out ban on Kiddush clubs.

“First of all, Kiddush should not be made until after davening,” he says. “It’s an insult to the shul and a terrible example for kids, who have to be taught to have respect for the shul.”

Jewish alcoholism, he says, is on the rise.

“It is much more prevalent than when I was a kid,” he says. “In those years, a country club would not accept a Jewish wedding or a bar mitzvah because they couldn’t make money on the alcohol. These days, they are scrambling for our business. We’ve picked up drinking as a way of life and it is having a horrendous effect on kids.”

But prohibition is no simple matter. Rabbis know that if they seek a ban, and the club continues anyway, the rabbi’s authority is diminished, and often they would face a battle with prominent shul members, major donors or officers who can’t be threatened with expulsion. It takes a well-entrenched rabbi to put his foot down.

But even those who fit that bill should avoid looking at kiddush clubs as a problem unto itself, rather than a byproduct of a lifestyle that, while not without substantial rewards, has a potential toll.

“Sure, the financial burdens create stress,” said Rabbi Twerski. “But drinking or drugs is not a solution. There are hundreds of programs for stress management, but you have to want to do it.”

Post your thoughts about kiddush clubs below or email: Continuumblog@yahoo.com.

JTA has just posted a timely series on the settlers of the West Bank, exploring their potential extremism and the very real possibility of Jew-vs.-Jew violence should Israel eventually decide to evacuate them, as much of the world, including the President of the United States, would like.

Of course, we’ve been down this road, just a few years ago. The evacuation of Gush Katif was heartbreaking, but thankfully didn’t erupt into violence. The same goes for the evacuation of Sinai Jews in the early 80s. But those settlers were trying to hold onto the beautiful homes and life they had been encouraged to build, not defending land that is as biblically tied to their people as Jerusalem.

In 1992, Robert I. Friedman wrote a book, “The Zealots of Zion,” in which he sought out the most extreme settlers and depicted them as mainstream. I criticized the book then. But in the 17 years since, one has to wonder how those zealots have multiplied, especially when considering how real the possibility they will be displaced has become. It’s safe to say there are a significant number who would not be carried out kicking and screaming as they were in Gush Katif, and are indeed ready to die, or kill others, before that happens.

Binyamin Netanyahu, like any Israeli leader, knows that significantly evacuating the settlements would not only be politically unpalatable but a logistical nightmare. So should anyone else who wants to include that idea in a final status agreement.

But you don’t have to believe that God will punish the Jews for surrendering holy ground, as a large number of these settlers do, to believe it’s a bad idea to give up all or most of the West Bank. Any general worth his stars would assert that it would create a jigsaw Jewish land with indefensible borders, on the ground and in terms of missile and rocket range. Too often, people forget that the West Bank is not some external or satellite territory bordering Israel, like the Golan Heights or Alaska to the United States, but the very heart of Israel’s land mass. West Bank Jewish communities, roads and sites such as Rachel’s Tomb are already encased in concrete like prisons or fortresses. Further walling in both Jews and Palestinians will only increase tension and paranoia, not build harmony. The only realistic policy is for both Israelis and Palestinians to accept the map as it is now, and begin coping with the idea of each other’s permanence.

Numbering more than 500,000, it is impossible to paint the West Bank settlers with one brush. A great many were drawn by affordable, modern housing. But most are there for religion and the ideology that “facts on the ground” in that area are a buffer to protect the rest of Israel.

You don’t have to be delusional to believe it’s important to keep the West bank settlements. But you might have to be to believe something good will come out of giving them up.

I often think I should have jumped into the lake after him.

My son was 12 years old at the time, leaning a bit too far out when he cast his fishing rod. Maybe he did it on purpose.

When Zachary hit the lake he was only a foot from the boat dock, in water barely over his head, and easily within reach for me to pull him back up. There was no current, and with his swimming skills, he probably could have chosen to do a few laps to the floating dock and back, fully clothed, before he climbed out of the water.

Still, the thought of a missed opportunity nags at me. Even if it was an excess of caution, jumping in with him, with my wallet and phone in my pocket, would have been a chance for a symbolic gesture, a way to show him, “I’ve got your back.” The impression would have lasted forever.

Fatherhood, like life, is full of symbolic gestures. We tell our kids to “be careful” when they leave the house, knowing full well they either will or will not, regardless of the advice. We slip them “a few extra bucks” when they go out with friends or on a date, just to have a presence of some kind in the outing.

When we stop short in the car, our hand instinctively reaches out to shield the child next to us, even when we know he or she is protected by the seat belt harness and airbags.

There have been, and will be many more opportunities to show my love and support for the three precious souls God has entrusted to me. But as I watch them grow up I worry about giving them enough, or too much security.

An article in New York Magazine a couple of years ago posited that too much praising of your children can be detrimental to them in the long run. They’ll become overconfident, some child-shrinks warned,  and/or learn to do things just to please other people, rather than to fulfill themselves.

As if parents don’t have enough on their heads, now comes the need to obsess over just the right amount of positive reinforcement. I don’t buy into the idea that too many pats on the back will leave dents. Build them strong, and they will be able to distinguish between the security of home and what is expected of them in a competitive world.

Being a parent is arguably the toughest job on earth, and getting tougher all the time. When our kids are holed up in their rooms simultaneously instant messaging, video chatting, playing video games and watching TV, do we admire their ability to multitask, or worry about cultivated ADD?

In our busy lives, are we letting Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, Adam Sandler and Borat have as much cultural impact on their lives as the preferred role models in their lives: rabbis, teachers and family members?

How well do we really know the peers they surround themselves with, and is it enough to know they come from good families?

I became a parent almost 16 years ago, and often feel as clueless today as I was then. There are plenty of user manuals for kids, some worth reading, others hammered out by crackpots who probably spoiled their own offspring while doing research and signing book deals.

As I wrote in a Jewish Week column a few weeks into this adventure of fatherhood, it is the least defined, and often most underappreciated family role.

A man who works long hours to keep a solid roof overhead, but never hugs or praises his children, may or may not be a good dad (though he’s, evidently, a hero to New York Magazine.) Some would say  the emotional component is a mother’s territory. Others would place sentiment on equal footing with the material obligation.

In his recent memoir of life with his celebrity dad, Adam Nimoy writes that his father, Leonard, worked diligently, sometimes obsessively,  to provide for his family, but like the stoic but efficient Spock character he played on TV, didn’t put much stock in bonding. Our impression is Adam would have preferred a dad who swept floors and had time to go to  ballgames.

With so little expected of us, it’s easy to be a “good” dad. That’s why the extras can mean so much, and why missed opportunities can stand out in our memory. 

Because sometimes, being a great dad means jumping into a lake. 

As summer arrives, young people dream of adventure, thoughts of cruises and road trips and theme parks dancing in their heads.

For all too many these days, dreaming and thoughts are all they’re going to get.

Among the fondest memories of my childhood are driving down the East Coast to Florida in my father’s big Chevy Impala (the minivan of its time), stopping at almost every point of interest in between; driving up north to Toronto and Montreal, several trips to Israel and one out west to California, Arizona and Nevada.

By the time I was a teenager I had been to both Disneys, seen the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, the Baseball Hall of Fame and Niagara Falls, toured Washington DC and knew my way around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Ours was not a rich family. Both my parents were civil servants, and we lived in apartments. We had a comfortable middle class life, with all the conveniences of the time.

But to me, the vacations were the best perk of middle class life. Growing up in a loud, busy Brooklyn neighborhood, it was surreal to see America’s splendor unfold through the windows of the car, or to span the continent, or half the world, on a jet.

Those were the days.

In 2009, for thousands of middle-class families whose kids are in yeshiva, the amount of travel they’ve been able to enjoy is severely curtailed. For those who can pay the full tuition bill, there’s precious little disposable income left for a recreation budget. And if circumstances require you to ask for a scholarship, don’t even think about anything more than a night at the movies, and you are required to feel guilty about that.

After submitting your tax return, car registrations and credit report, tuition assistance applicants are routinely asked about their recent vacation activity.

This is a reasonable question. A family that spent Passover in the Bahamas and winter vacation at a ski resort and asks for a scholarship has its priorities wrong.

But it must be considered that some reasonable form of family vacation should not be held against such families, or viewed as a luxury rather than the important bonding experience that it is.

Despite the stereotypical back-seat bickering, whines of “are we there yet?” and parental threats to pull over or turn back home, what’s more important for a family’s functionality than sharing new experiences and building memories?

So far, my kids’ vacation experience has been limited to one trip to Florida, their first and only time on a plane, a few car trips, and our annual bungalow colony summers. I will never take for granted that this is more than many people have, but the fact that it’s far less than I had as a kid is sad.

My parents were no wealthier than my wife and I, but three factors gave them more discretionary income. They paid no mortgage during those early years. They had one less child. And although my brother and I went to yeshiva, they paid far less, even in dollars adjusted for inflation, than almost anyone today pays for the same tuition (about $45 a month per child.)

If tuition had risen about the same as the cost of living and the average increase in earnings, the current generation of middle class tuition-paying families would not be in the sad position of giving their kids less than they had.

But with an increase now estimated at 7 percent a year, and most families lucky to make the same this year as last, a large share of us will miss out on those cherished memories of experiencing new horizons together. And we will be poorer for it.