Thread by @Doc_RPS

I have nothing smart to say about the rasha Walder, nothing smart to say about Shifra Horvitz, Doresh Damim otah yizkor.

I want to ask us to think about the context we create, however unwittingly, in which victims come forward, or don't, are listened to, or aren't. (1/n)

Not what we say about abuse, or abusers, or victims. I want to back it all the way up to the Torah we teach. (2/n)

So you can warm up your typing fingers, and get ready to tell me, again, that I'm a koferes and a horeses hadas. You can tell me that your wife and your daughters don't read these texts and teachings this way. Have at it. Bo-ring. (3/n)

What I am, actually, is a bought-in and committed member of our community. Whose ongoing bought-in-ness and committedness is an ongoing choice, born of conviction. But see James Baldwin: (4/n)

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

Precisely. Because I believe in Hashem's Torah, and the community that claims to be living it, I will ask us to think about this. (5/n)

Two introductory source materials:
a. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, after the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, gave an address to the beit midrash at Yeshivat Har Etzion. Everyone, everyone, everyone should read it:

etzion.org.il/en/halakha/stu…

(6/n)

He says, We cannot say that this is a wild weed, a bad seed, if a week ago we would have been holding him up as the best our community produces. Instead, we have to ask what in us and of us--in our values and of our values--could produce this. (7/n)

This is, of course, entirely applicable to Walder and Elon and Freundel and Weinberger and and and. You don't get to--we don't get to--disclaim them after they turned out to be criminals and abusers. We have to be willing to ask what in the system allowed them to happen. (8/n)

(I once taught this speech as a scholar in residence. A heckler stood up and bellowed: "So we're all murderers?! You're calling us all murderers?!" No, real-life-reply-guy, I'm reading what Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, ztz"l, taught us. If it strikes close to home, buddy...) (9/n)

Rav Aharon goes on to talk about the episode of eglah arufah, the calf whose neck is broken, which @AkivaMCohen raised in another thread, and you can find his discussion of it here:

https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1477428415489875968

(10/n)

The Torah demands a recognition of systemic failures that led to this person's death. It's not enough to find a single bad actor. Failures in the entire societal framework allowed this to happen, and the leaders of that framework have to account for it. (11/n)

b. @JenniferSHirsch and @shamuskhan did incredible, remarkable work in their book Sexual Citizens about the climate, environment, factors that contribute to campus sexual assault. Yes, of course, rapists are responsible for raping. (12/n)

But college students commit sexual assault against other students in a setting, a climate. And it turns out that we can identify--as Rav Aharon said, as eglah arufah tells us--the factors that make it more likely to happen in a given context. And can change them. (13/n)

(Another aside: an undergraduate from @YUNews reached out to me to talk about this issue as it relates to his campus. I told him that the biggest expert in the world on this issue works 60 blocks south of us. [I live on YU's campus.] (14/n)

That it's inconceivable, under the current circumstances, that she would be brought in, consulted, invited to address students illustrates the nature of the problem.) But that's not what I want to talk about right now. (15/n)

Instead, I want to back things up as much as possible. To the Torah we learn, and the Torah we teach. To ask what messages we are sending, however unwittingly and unintentionally, as we do. And to ask what and how we change that.

I have no answers. I have only questions. (16/n)

If the response is to say that asking these questions makes me a heretic, have at it. There are lives at stake.

More than we talk to kids about abuse and abusers, about victims and reporters, we talk to kids about David and Batsheva, about Esther and Achashveirosh, (17/n)

About Devarim 22, about (yes, again) Hoshea 2.

I understand how hard this is. We are talking about the words of Chazal, the text of the Torah. I don't know what we do about this. But we have to ask the questions. What are we conveying, what climate are we creating. (18/n)

"Eineinu lo ra'u" isn't going to cut it, when eineinu lo ra'u because our heads are firmly implanted in the sand. (19/n)

So: David and Batsheva. I was in a Bais-Yaakov aligned high school, and I graduated more than 25 years ago. Would welcome those in Centrist/MO high schools to tell me how it's taught. But here's how I learned it: (20/n)

My teacher began by saying, "Imagine that someone came and told you a story like this about your father. Of course you wouldn't believe it. Now imagine that you heard it about your rav. Of course not. Now imagine about the gadol hador..." (21/n)

I cannot think of a worse way to set kids up to disbelieve victims of people in positions of trust and power.

This to introduce the teachings of Chazal:

כׇּל הָאוֹמֵר דָּוִד חָטָא אֵינוֹ אֶלָּא טוֹעֶה

ראויה היתה לדוד בת שבע בת אליעם אלא שאכלה פגה

(22/n)

The second one states that Batsheva was designated for David--the problem was not that he took her--but that he took her "unripe," before Uriah died. (23/n)

When Nasan haNavi comes to David with the parable of the poor shepherd with only one sheep, the sinned-against here is the poor shepherd (Uriah) whose sheep is stolen.

There is no place to consider Batsheva and power and coercion and sex. (24/n)

No place to consider that, as we engage with Chazal's project of exculpating David from the sin of adultery, we bypass anything else going on here.

I know, I know, I'm a woke angry feminist blah blah. What are our daughters and sons hearing when we teach this? (25/n)

Here's how I learned Esther and Achashveirosh in school (based on statements of Chazal): Esther was Mordechai's wife. She was taken by Achashveirosh by force, and therefore would have been allowed to return to Mordechai at some point. (26/n)

When Mordechai asks her to go to Achashveirosh willingly, he is asking her to turn herself into an adulteress would not be permitted to return to her husband. When Mordechai insists vehemently, she goes--hence, k'asher avad'ti avad'ti. (27/n)

I was taught this--explicitly--as a lesson about the need to follow da'as Torah, even when we don't understand. I assume it goes without saying that all of the sexual assault and coercion and deployings of men's power over women went entirely unexamined, unexplored. (28/n)

I'm sure this isn't taught in MO schools as a lesson about da'as Torah. But does the sexual assault and coercion and deployings of men's power over women get examined and explored? (29/n)

Go read Devarim 22. Go now, I'll wait. I understand that this is Torah. That's what makes this so hard. Tell me, in your heart of hearts, are these messages you are comfortable giving your daughters? Your sons? That rape is a property crime against the virgin's father? (30/n)

That if a woman is raped in the city and doesn't scream, she should be put to death? We know a lot about trauma responses, about how many victims don't behave the way "we" think "they" should.

Do we address this when we teach these pesukim? (31/n)

I do not have answers for any of this. I do not know what to do. I know that if we teach these sources, and are silent about the hidden curriculum they transmit, we are leaving our daughters and sons with messages--about sex, men, women, power, righteousness, Torah--
(32/n)

That shape the environment in which all of the rest of it--the conversations about abuse, and abusers, and reporting; the conversations about who is trusted and who is mistrusted; what we are willing to talk about and what we are not; takes place. (33/33, fin.)

(Just realized I forgot to discuss Hoshea 2. This is more than long enough already. I'd send you back to my original thread for reference, but I somehow managed to delete it. Go read Hoshea 2, and consider its relationship paradigm, held up as a model of Hashem's love for us.)

(Would you be comfortable having a child of yours in a relationship like this, which begins with rage over [suspected?] strayings, punishment of the betrayal in a sexually-assaultive manner, and ends with "I'll love you forever"?

Would you find that "I'll love you forever" reassuring for your child, or terrifying?

That's the "I'll love you forever" recited daily by people who lay tefillin as they wrap them around their finger.

No, I don't know what to answer. I know that it's time to ask the questions.)