BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

JUDAISM & ABUSE: EXPECTING BETTER This was written a few years back. Despite strides in educating leading rabbinic authorities it seems that nothing much has changed… not yet. Some are truly working on the problem and I beg them to keep working on it. Sometimes preserving a marriage AT ALL COSTS or allowing a manipulative man to make a woman an AGUNAH and then looking the other way - is NOT the way to go. Allowing the verbal & emotional abuse of children in the name of Torah and keeping it hush-hush for appearances is enabling the abuse! Loshen Hara can be a mitzvah if it stops an abuser from taking advantage of his family, his friends and the world at large. If You Beat Him He Will Not Die by Richard Silverstein A personal and theological meditation on child abuse As spiritual communities, it is enormously important that we provide grief work as part of the process of healing [from the effects of abuse]. At the same time, we have to take that lesson of choosing to...

A Ritual for Domestic Violence Awareness I ask my friends and fellow bloggers to remember abuse victims as Sukkot begins. Victims of mental, emotional & verbal abuse have "no safe place." While Domestic Violence Month officially begins in October - I would ask all of you to get and wear the Purple Ribbon during Sukkot and all of October - in support of people like myself. Victims & Survivors - who deserve peace & justice. Rebecca Schwartz remembers the first Sukkot observance that her organization, Shalom Bayit, initiated in 1994: A small group of women, survivors of domestic violence and volunteer staff, reclaimed the sukkah as a shelter of peace. "The sukkah was like a refuge," recalls Schwartz, associate director of the San Francisco Bay Area organization devoted to combating domestic violence. "For some, this was the first time they had felt safe in the Jewish community." Today, with more awareness and less denial in the Jewish co...

I re-read Alice Miller's latest groundbreaking book THE BODY NEVER LIES . I have come to the conclusion that forgiveness without the abuser or person who's hurt you's full acceptance and owning  of what they did and making amends - isn't possible for me.  Doesn't mean I stay hurt and angry or have no peace of mind - I am simply not able to forgive. I have come to understand that some things simply are not forgiveable. And that forgiving certain things negates my dignity and right to my own feelings. As my friend, the late Kathy Krajco said " you can't forgive a crime in progress ." That is to say, if the abuser hasn't even tried to communicate with me and sincerely & fully apologized -- the crime is STILL in progress. ~~~~ I remember once seeing a cartoon that showed a father examining his young son's report card, which was filled with Ds and Fs. As the father scowled, the boy asked: "What do you think it is, Dad, here...

An interesting article on good vs. bad, the value of pain and suffering and our constant need for the support and love of Hashem in our lives. Article is a good reminder to make meaning of pain, both emotional & physical, in our lives - B. by Rabbi Yitzchok Kirzner When "bad things happen to good people," by what standard does one define "bad"? J udaism begins with the belief in a Creator of the entire universe. The history of our people commences with Avraham's question, "Who created the world?" (cf. Bereishis Rabbah 39:1). That question led him to the recognition of God as the Creator. God existed prior to Creation, and that Creation remains dependent upon Him. Creation came into being as an expression of His will and is dependent on Him; it continues to exist only by virtue of a continued infusion of His creative energy. This is stated in the first of the Thirteen Principles of Faith based on Maimonides: "The Creator, Blessed is...

I get asked a lot why I have "suddenly" come out in the last few years as very Pro-Israel and Zionist leaning. My progressive friends know I lean their way on politics in the U.S. -- but can't understand why I lean so right on Middle East issues. They figure I must have some personal agenda. But I don't. Neither was my support "sudden." My reasons are multilayered and to express myself I must digress and seem to go off topic but its the only way I can explain. I was raised by a narcissistic parent. They've been dead 10 years this next September and only a year or so after they passed did I feel safe expressing, let alone feeling my rage at them for what they had done to me. I have no intention of forgiving the unforgivable but I do feel pity for them and hope that Hashem is giving them the healing and help they need now that they're in His care. However, that upbringing made me a magnet for people with personality disorders. I didn't know ...