Being out of town for a Shabbos brings with it lots of benefits. Chief amongst these is anonymity. Usually a Rabbi’s Shabbos will be spent saying lots of Shiurim, a weekend away offers the perfect break, a chance to Daven, learn and recharge the batteries with a well earned Schlof.

Of course when you go along to Shul on Shabbos morning there is always the danger that the resident Rabbi will compliment you with an invitation to give the Drosho. Recently I found myself in exactly that position. The Rabbi honoured me with a seat at the front but on this occasion I wasn’t asked to speak. The reason was that there was no Drosho scheduled for that Shabbos. Instead the Shul had arranged a "Panel" for a question and answer session after a Kiddush. The subject was to be the "Family" and the panel was to be the Rabbi and someone who works for a Jewish organisation, which offers advice to couples with marriage difficulties.

This struck me as being perfect, a straightforward service and a chance to slip away quietly to where a Gefilte fish was waiting anxiously to make my acquaintance. Englishe Shuls put their Rabbis in a "Box" at Mizrach Vant. I have sat in many of these. Some are designed to accommodate an Og Melech HaBoshon and have the effect of leaving an average Rabbi revealing nothing more than a forehead to the Congregation. Others follow the opposite school, so that the sides press against the visitors shoulders and turning the page of the Siddur leaves one resembling a sardine attempting to break out of it’s tin. I found myself in a Rabbis box, which clearly demonstrated that it was constructed in an era of a national shortage of timber.

After Davening the Shul President approached me and asked for a special favour. The Rabbi was not feeling well, could I step in and take his place at the question and answer session. I replied that as long as he could find a reasonably muscular Congregant to lever me out of the box, I would be delighted.

The first question was from someone who wanted to know when the "Rabbis" were going to do something about Agunos. I noticed that the Shul’s Rabbi, although not feeling well enough to participate, did feel well enough to be sitting amongst his congregants wearing an enigmatic smile. The next question was from a lady who wanted to know why Yeshivas and Sems don’t run courses about marriage. I was surprised at the question particularly as few, if any people in the audience would have sons or daughters in Yeshiva or Sem. Having spent seven years in Gateshead Yeshiva and having taught in three Sems I thought I was able to respond when the Chairman offered me the question. "Both Yeshivas and Sems attempt to bring out the very best qualities (Middos) in their Talmidim. The Training in Mussar and Hashkofo develop sensitivity in all aspects of Bein Odom L’Chaveiro. At the same time, when a Bochur or Sem girl becomes engaged they will have a specific course of instruction not just in the Halachic obligations of marriage but Davka in how to interact with their spouse. If I contrast that with the basis that secular marriage is built on, I think the answer to the question is that making a marriage work and building a family is absolutely what both Yeshiva and Sem are all about."

The audience liked the answer; my fellow panellist did not. Before answering the next question he permitted himself to disagree publicly with what I had said.

" I feel that Yeshivas and Sems do not equip young Jews for marriage. Young people are taught that they must sit and learn as much as possible and that the wife’s role is to stay at home and support her husband and then everything will be OK, it simply does not work!"

Then he went on to explain his organisation's approach and his own qualifications. He had been trained by the non-Jewish Marriage Guidance Council (now called "Relate") he brought the skills he learnt there to the Jewish organisation he now works with. He had never been near a Yeshiva.

"In our organisation we try to help couples see what is wrong with their marriage and see if they want to solve it. We do not give advice we are non-judgmental."

Lastly he complained that so few Rabbonim have been trained like him in "Counselling." His most disturbing comment of all was when he claimed, "Our organisation is seeing increasing numbers of Hareidi couples who are coming to us with difficulties."

One of Manchester’s Mosdos employed an educational Psychologist to assess children who were not doing well at school. The children were given a standard I.Q. test and uniformly produced terrible results. The Psychologist could not understand why the results were so poor. The answer lay in the test itself. It had been designed for non-Jewish Children. The correct answer to the missing word in the phrase "Fish and -----?" should have been "Chips" little Jewish children wrote "Mayonnaise!" It was obvious that the test would have to be redesigned to take into account the different background and culture of the children.

Recently, a Jewish school was set up in Manchester to cater to the very special needs of Downs Syndrome Children. A year ago, I was asked to be the guest speaker at their first ever fund raising dinner. I went to visit the school first and was told that the audience at the dinner would include guests from the local authority. They realise that the existing facilities are not designed for Jewish children and certainly not religious Jewish children. They wanted to show their enthusiastic support for this new project where the educational techniques, which have been developed to help Downs Children, could be applied in a religious Jewish context.

Common sense would dictate that Haredi Jews having lives containing such extremely complex and sophisticated inputs ( Family, Community, Halocho, Hashkofo etc.) could only be well advised from someone sharing the same experiences and outlook.

There is no doubt that in secular society, "Counselling" is a growth industry. The selfsame Philosophies and Trends, "Weltschaft," that are leading to so much Societal suffering and marriage breakdown are also being applied to try and solve the self same problems. It is self evident that advice springing from such sources is totally inappropriate for Hareidi Jews.

A few Years ago I attended an intensive Counselling course together with several other Rabbonim. The Trainers were a well known husband and wife team who have written books of the subject, teach about it at University and run courses for Local Authorities. The "Sine Quo Non" of counselling is to be "Non Judgmental" no matter what the "client" is telling you he has done or plans to do, you must not indicate to them whether you approve or not. Amongst other rules Counsellors are told it is essential not to become "emotionally involved" with their clients.

We had to practice various possible scenarios with the experts pretending to be "Clients." All of the scenarios were real ones taken from the trainer’s extensive experience. On one occasion my trainer took the part of one of his clients who had been a Heroin addict. Although he had nearly died from his addiction and had eventually given up drugs, he was thinking of starting again. My role was to help him explore why he wanted to do this (non judgementally) if I found that he really honestly wanted to go back to drug addiction and was fully aware of the dangers, I was supposed to help him consider "safe" ways to go about it.

One of the Rabbis who was with me on the counselling course was finishing a University Degree in Counselling. He has now completed a Masters degree in the subject. In conversation we both concluded that what we had just been trained in was 100% the opposite of Judaism.

Being non-judgmental means you cannot offer advice. To quote my fellow panellist, "You try and get the couple to find the solution themselves."

That of course is what they have not been able to do perhaps over many years and is precisely why they have turned to someone else. The sad thing is that the person whose help has been sought may well have been trained not to offer the solution, even if it is patently obvious where it lies. Judaism does believe in offering advice. The Zohar refers to the 613 Mitzvos as 613 "Aitzos," pieces of advice!

The first essential in Jewish Counselling is that the adjective "Jewish" does not describe the ethnicity of the Counsellors but rather the Philosophy from where the counselling comes.

Ha Rav Shlomo Wolbe Shlito, writes in Aley Shor (Vol. 2 Page 295)

"And not just in Perushim on the Torah and Piskei Halochos do we rely on our Chachomim also in Shaalos HaChaim where there is no specific Sif in Shulchan Oruch we believe in the Chochmei HaTorah in every Generation"

Counselling has to have the full endorsement and participation of our Gedolim and Mesora.

The approach of Rabbonim to people in distress is certainly not, as taught by contemporary Counselling, to avoid becoming "emotionally involved." After the Petiro of the previous Gerer Rebbe the saintly Pnei Menachem Zt’l the following story amongst scores of others appeared in a Yiddishe Newspaper.

There is no doubt that the problems besetting our Kehillahs now include areas, which we simply have not had to deal with before. Gedolim have increasingly addressed this new reality in recent years. We may indeed find ourselves having to turn to professionals and experts as we attempt to deal with these issues. But their expertise will have to be applied through the filter of Halocho and the Judgement of Gedolim to ensure that they are compatible with who and what we are.

The recent arrival of Nefesh UK which attempts to bring exactly that sort of expertise and training and set it within a Torah framework is a very welcome development indeed. It is precisely organisations like Nefesh UK and others like it who proudly boast the Hechsher of Gedolim, that the Hareidi Kehillah can turn to with confidence. If you’ll take my advice organisations that fail this test should be avoided at all costs.