Thread by @MalkaSvei

I read some good Torah over shabbos. And I needed it, especially after this awful week. And I realized that one of the things that makes me so angry about all of this is the abuse of Torah (1/)

As @Doc_RPS discusses at length, yes, sometimes Torah is part of the problem. And that’s complicated and uncomfortable and a thing the Jewish community needs to deal with. But Torah is vast! it contains multitudes! (2/)

My Torah is wise!
My Torah is poetic!
My Torah is cutting!
My Torah condemns religious extremism and self absorbed “piety” in the harshest terms (3/)

ראשיה  בשחד ישפטו וכהניה במחיר יורו ונביאה בכסף יקסמו ועל־ה ישענו לאמר הלוא ה׳ בקרבינו..( מיכה ג:יא)
(4/)

[Zion’s] rulers judge for bribes; priests teach for a price; and prophets divine for money. Yet they rely upon the Lord, saying “are we not Godly?” ( Micah 3:11) (5/)

My Torah contains stories that are rich, and challenging, and complex. That, to take this past week’s Torah portion as just one example, raise questions about the enduring consequences of trauma, about who has the right & responsibility to lead, about justice and retribution (6/)

And yet I see communities of people who claim to love Torah - who even profess ownership of Torah - who go so far as to say Torah is the thing they value most highly- but are so morally bankrupt they can’t even full throatedly condemn a serial rapist (7/)

And I want to scream- what are you even doing with this Torah you have??? I imagine God looking down at them and saying- I gave you a Rodin, and you use it as a doorstop??? Or worse, a cudgel to beat the defenseless??(8/)

I don’t really know what to do with this. I guess I’ll end off with by riffing on something my grandfather (a complicated person in his own right) used to say - the only answer to Chillul HaTorah - desecration of Torah - is Kiddush HaTorah - sanctifying Torah (9/)

Torah can be beautiful, & powerful. But it is a text, and like any text, it can be read well or poorly. It can be a source of strength and vision, or a mental exercise in legal minutae. Let us not leave it to those who would use it as a doorstop. (end)