Rabbi Mark
Strauss-Cohn
19 September 2014
~ 24 Elul 5774
Parashat Nitzavim
I really don’t know much about what is going on in the
news other than what is happening in Israel, Syria, Scotland suddenly, northern
Iraq and Egypt. I have stopped watching Jon Stewart so that has kind of taken
care of my reality and knowledge base. NPR is wonderful background in the car
and the rest of the media outlets seem untrustworthy as they lean left, right,
or enjoy talking too much about the weather in my mind.
But there are a few domestic stories that I have caught
headlines of and have overheard discussed of late. The story to which I turn is
of two NFL players who seem to have run into professional trouble on account of
their home lives and behaviors.
People are shocked when football players abuse their
children or wives. Why? Are football players any more or less violent than
other men? We see what we perceive as violence on the football field – but some
may just call it aggression, competition, or strength. I actually think a lot
of what goes on during a game is pretty cool: the fakes, hand offs, long
passes, running plays – these are highly orchestrated maneuvers that take a
massive amount of practice, agility, and skill.
But hitting your four year old son and breaking his arm? Nearly
anyone can do that.
Why are people surprised that a football player was
violent in elevators with his fiancé? Do they think that non-football players
are always calm with their fiances?
Domestic violence is everywhere. It. Is. Everywhere.
Men can be abusive. Men can attack. Men can be cruel. Men
have a history of using mental and physical force in ways that are painful,
powerful, and destructive. And if, where, and when we don’t admit and try to understand
and defuse that reality – more abuse will follow. And while women are capable
of abuse as well, it seems to be male abuse of women that is grabbing our
headlines and to which I turn for right now.
It is really a heavy topic to go into Shabbat with but I
have felt remiss in not addressing it and it would seem that before the High
Holy Days a good topic to raise as we have to look within our own hearts and
homes and find remorse, repair, resolution to our realities in which we find
ourselves.
The Jewish community is not safe from domestic abuse.
Without a showing of hands – or maybe there should be – there are cases of
domestic abuse right in our own ranks. Physical and/or mental abuse that has
rocked homes, shaken lives, and injured bodies and souls.
It is a taboo subject in many ways. We think that if we
don’t talk about it, it will go away. Or maybe didn’t happen at all. But it did
happen. It does happen. It really, really, really should not happen.
But it does.
In the Torah tonight, we just read about there being
blessings and curses in our lives depending on how we behave in light of the
mitzvot, the commandments given to us by God. Blessing will most assuredly be
ours if we follow the commandments and curse is for us to receive as punishment
for transgressing the commandments. Moses says outright that blessing and curse
is for us to choose. We determine the nature of our lives. To choose abuse is
to choose curse.
Relationships are holy, sacred spaces in which tremendous
trust is created through safety and vulnerability. When one partner – male or
female – desecrates that sanctity through mental or physical abuse, it is like
walking into this sanctuary and defiling the beauty of this space.
But with this space, it may be far easier to clean
carpets, restain wood, paint walls, restitch fabrics…in other words: repair the
physical damage. With our soul-space, trust must be restored, faith healed, and
understanding harvested.
There are resources for us: friends, family, clergy. A
multitude of organizations locally and on-line who can support, provide, and
assist men and women, children to remind us all that abuse is present. It is
not right. And it can be dealt with. Appropriately. And not only on youtube, on
television, or in newspapers.
As this is the season of turning and returning to our
past deeds – those things which we hold onto with pride and those things which
need, at times significant, repair – let us turn and know that we are not
alone. We are in company with others who hold us and who need our holding. For
there is very little from which we cannot heal. But we must all give ourselves
the most priceless gifts of acceptance, acknowledgement, repair, understanding,
compassion, and care. And change.
May we find ways to provide support, safety, sanctuary to
the many who are in need: including ourselves.
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