Today a letter from one of Chaim Walder’s victims, a child sexual abuse survivor, was published. It’s emotional and heartfelt. There were specific parts that really struck me. This is one of them.
The obvious answer as to why our Tzibbur [community] is stricken with the halo effect is because the halo effect is part and parcel of every Bais Yaakov girl’s education. Some evil spirit did not fall from the Shomayim [heaven] and smitten [sic] us with “misguided thinking.” Indeed, embracing the “halo” effect and believing the misguided thinking that all that glitters is gold signifies a successful Bais Yaakov education.
Please forgive me, and cut me some slack. However, you hit a raw nerve in my Neshama. Thousands and thousands of Bais Yaakov girls are being programmed as we speak to believe rabbis are the correct address for proper counseling.
Emunas chachomim [belief in our sages] is a bedrock principle in Bais Yaakov. No Morah in any Bais Yaakov adds the caveat when she speaks about rabbonim, “But, girls, beware, even the good rabbis can be bad. Even good rabbis can be rapists, sexual predators, narcissists, mafia-chieftains, crooks, philanderers, debauched and depraved perverts who may attempt to rape you?”
Here’s a thing most ex or post-Bais Yaakov girls have in common: they are disillusioned.
And they never wanted to be.
The typical Bais Yaakov girl is excited to learn from her teachers. But something goes wrong. Maybe she’s too spirited. Too opinionated. Her family is problematic. Perhaps she reads too much. Or God forbid, something much worse is happening - whether molestation, incest or witnessing domestic violence.
What happens next?
She’s labeled as bad if she acts out. People whisper about her if her family takes measures to protect her. In a culture that values conformity, any difference is a form of defiance. Worst of all, too often the people who are supposed to protect her…simply fail her. And often, very often, those people are rabbis.
I know these girls. Some of them are my students. One of them likes to joke that there should be a Bais Yaakov survivors club. Several of them have chosen nontraditional paths when it comes to their Judaism. And many like God better than organized religion. Because God stayed with them when the rabbis would not. They are spiritual, these girls.
קָר֣וֹב יְ֭הֹוָה לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי־לֵ֑ב וְֽאֶת־דַּכְּאֵי־ר֥וּחַ יוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃ The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
those crushed in spirit He delivers.
But then there are those who feel like the author of this letter does. She writes:
Whenever his horrific hands touched my body, I cried and cried to Hashem to take away the pain. Yet, as I once heard my great-grandmother utter in a rare moment of complete candor, “Hashem forgot about us in Auschwitz.” So too, Hashem forgot about me in that warehouse in Bnei Brak, where a cot is sandwiched between the stacks of “inspirational books empowering children.”
I quickly dispelled that heretical thought from my mind and settled on a more acceptable explanation: “I am bad, and I am stained, and people like me are not worthy of Hashem’s kindness.”
She felt like God forgot her. But that was an unacceptable thought. She had been taught never to be angry with God, never to doubt God. So instead, she had to turn her anger on herself. She was bad and stained and dirty. She was unworthy. That’s why God let this happen to her.
This is not the way to raise our children.
This is not the way to teach them.
First, all humans are fallible. This is all over the texts. Teaching respect for rabbis is appropriate. Teaching worship is not.
Second, we should allow people to be angry with God. God can handle our emotions. God can handle the anger of a child being abused. God can handle the anger of people abandoned by their rabbis, their communities and sometimes even their families. He is strong enough for all of it.
I think about Chana a lot. This is unsurprising, because I’m named for her. How did she feel, barren and desperate? She tells us how.
וַתַּ֨עַן חַנָּ֤ה וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ לֹ֣א אֲדֹנִ֔י אִשָּׁ֤ה קְשַׁת־ר֙וּחַ֙ אָנֹ֔כִי וְיַ֥יִן וְשֵׁכָ֖ר לֹ֣א שָׁתִ֑יתִי וָאֶשְׁפֹּ֥ךְ אֶת־נַפְשִׁ֖י לִפְנֵ֥י יְהֹוָֽה׃ And Hannah replied, “Oh no, my lord! I am a very unhappy woman. I have drunk no wine or other strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to the LORD.
אַל־תִּתֵּן֙ אֶת־אֲמָ֣תְךָ֔ לִפְנֵ֖י בַּת־בְּלִיָּ֑עַל כִּֽי־מֵרֹ֥ב שִׂיחִ֛י וְכַעְסִ֖י דִּבַּ֥רְתִּי עַד־הֵֽנָּה׃ Do not take your maidservant for a worthless woman; I have only been speaking all this time out of my great anguish and anger.”
Chana was unhappy. She was angry and she was anguished. She prayed to God. She even plotted to use God’s words to her advantage-see this amazing passage from Brachot 31b:
אֵלֵךְ וְאֶסְתַּתֵּר בִּפְנֵי אֶלְקָנָה בַּעֲלִי, וְכֵיוָן דְּמִסְתַּתַּרְנָא מַשְׁקוּ לִי מֵי סוֹטָה, וְאִי אַתָּה עוֹשֶׂה תּוֹרָתְךָ פְּלַסְתֵּר, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר ״וְנִקְּתָה וְנִזְרְעָה זָרַע״. What was Hannah threatening? She said: I will go and seclude myself with another man before Elkana, my husband. Since I secluded myself, they will force me to drink the sota water to determine whether or not I have committed adultery. I will be found innocent, and since You will not make Your Torah false [pelaster], I will bear children. With regards to a woman who is falsely suspected of adultery and drank the sota water, the Torah says: “And if the woman was not defiled, but was pure, then she shall be acquitted and she shall conceive” (Numbers 5:28).
I love this about Chana. She suffers. God afflicts her. She’s angry. So she makes a plot- a plot against God, but using His very words to get her what she wants. Luckily, she doesn’t have to go that far- because a man, Eli the High Priest, misjudges her.
Eli was the Shofet [judge] of the generation, the Gadol HaDor, the equivalent to the rabbi of all rabbis. But Chana doesn’t kowtow to him. When he accuses her falsely and tells her she’s drunk, she sets him straight. She stands up for herself. And Eli, far from being upset, appreciates being corrected. He even blesses her for it!
That’s how Chana gets her child- by being straightforward and honest and refusing to simply bow to the great man’s judgement of her.
But that’s not what we teach our Bais Yaakov girls. We teach them obedience. We teach them aidelkeit. Refinement. We teach them to defer to authority- man’s, God’s- is there even a difference?
And this, in the words of one of Chaim Walder’s victims, is the result:
I knew a girl my age was not allowed to be alone with another man in a warehouse. But, a great rabbi was doing this, a person who I was taught to obey as he can do no wrong. It was drilled into me since I could walk that “we obediently listen to the rabbis’ without questioning. I knew from school, from home, from the streets of Bnei Brak, that we obediently listen to the rabbis’ without questioning. The great rabbis, and only they, possess this secret, mysterious, nebulous, amorphous power called Daas Torah.
I was raised with the dogmatic belief that women cannot decide important life-changing issues. Important issues are decided by those who have Daas Torah. If not considered the actual depository of Daas Torah, cw certainly had the backing and stamp of approval of Daas Torah. At the beginning of his books, there are glowing approbations and letters of validation from those who possess Daas Torah. Therefore, when cw told me we were taking a little trip to his warehouse, I obeyed; after all, obedience to those who represent Daas Torah is paramount.
This is not what Bais Yaakov has to be. This isn’t who the women in our texts were.
Sarah threw Hagar and Ishmael out.
Rebecca determined that Jacob would inherit, actively taking steps to make it so.
Rachel threatened her husband in hope of bearing a child.
Deborah judged the nation.
Jael slew Sisra.
Michal saved David’s life, defying her father to do it.
I could go on. But I don’t need to.
The women of the Tanakh are powerful. It’s because they are powerful that their choices matter. They did not sit back and wait for their husbands to command them. They took initiative, were bold, creative and daring. They weren’t always right, but they are certainly always compelling.
And this is why I love Tanakh. Because these are my women. And in their unfettered form, not cramped into the confines of later interpretations that strain the imagination (and fidelity to the text), they are wild and beautiful. Unconstrained by expectations. In fact, more often than not, they set the expectations.
What if we taught Bais Yaakov girls to be like these women?
It would be a world where women dazzled men.
(This is ‘Musings with Chana,’ my newsletter for items that don’t belong in ‘Parsha with Chana.’ ‘Parsha with Chana’ is a weekly publication, while ‘Musings with Chana’ will appear more frequently. If you would like to unsubscribe because you prefer to only receive the weekly newsletter, please feel free to do so by clicking the unsubscribe button below.)