Tuesday Morning Torah – October 17, 2017
Some are guilty, but all are responsible.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Like many of you, I have been dismayed and disturbed by the revelations and allegations surrounding the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Yesterday, my social media feeds lit up with a campaign intended to raise awareness about the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and misogynistic behavior in our society. Any woman who had ever been sexually harassed or assaulted was to write the words “me too” in her status to give others a sense of the magnitude of this problem in our society. All day long, almost every woman I know, friends, colleagues, family members, all posted these two simple words (“#me too”).
As a male, I will never be able to fully understand the scope and depth of this problem. But as a Jew, a rabbi, and a human being, this simple social media exercise jarred me into remembering my responsibility to continually work to build a society freed from this type of objectification, harassment, and abuse.
Ours is a tradition that was built around patriarchal norms that were, and in some circles continue to be, highly problematic. We just finished reading Genesis chapters 2 and 3, which are extremely challenging in this regard in describing the relationships between Adam and Eve. While I am glad that we have continued to evolve in egalitarianism sensibilities and treatment of all of God’s creatures as equal and sacred- it is abundantly clear that we as Jews, and as human beings, still have a long way to go. Because we do not treat all of the members of our society with kavod (honor), we do not value their souls as much as we objectify their bodies , and we fail to show all of God’s creatures the respect worthy of someone who is made betzelem elohim, in God’s image.
So what are we to do about this? How can we work to bring about awareness, change, and a sense of tikkun, healing, when it comes to this issue?
First, the males among us who are reading this need to stop, we need to listen and we need to see the terrible pain, harm, and damage that has been done, in large part, by our gender. None of us are innocent.
We must do more than simply be proud that we would never do such a thing. We must instead actively speak out against sexism and mysoginy in any form. We must remember that there is no such thing as an innocent “joke” or “comment” or “post” that objectifies women. We must stop making comments about a woman’s age, her body, her dress, her weight, her clothes. We must stand up when someone else engages in inappropriate behavior instead of simply excuse things as “locker room talk” or “dirty old men” talking. We must call each other out. We must educate ourselves. We must listen more. We must be more respectful, and we must teach our sons, our nephews, our grandsons, our co-workers and colleagues to do the same. Try this exercise today- find one woman that you are close to, ask her if she has ever been affected by sexual abuse of any type, and then just listen. I guarantee you that almost everyone will have a story.
Lastly, I came across the following guide for children (thanks to Dr. Kerri Weiss for bringing it to my attention). This a great tool for teaching kids about safe space and body safety.
