Lech-L’cha: The Journey Away From Abuse
Rabbi Lizz is with IfNotNow DC.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. All month we have been hearing about abuse of power, of toxic masculinity and sexist oppression, and though the particular acts we see in the news right now were not committed in a shared home or by an intimate and trusted partner, there is far too much overlap in the cause and effects of this kind of violence for us to continue to ignore these issues in our communities. The man in the spotlight this month happens to have been Jewish. The problem of violence and exploitation against women and femmes is most definitely not specific to the Jewish community, but Jews, if we want to see change in this world, we have to start by creating it in our own communities.
About a year ago, I attended a weekend-long workshop on the Intersections of Racism and Antisemitism, organized by a fellow member of IfNotNow. There were many wonderful, difficult, eye-opening, community-building moments in that weekend, but one of the things I came away with most strongly was a new perspective on how toxic masculinity and sexism play out in Jewish communities. It’s a long and necessary discussion to be had, and while I cannot delve completely into it in this brief d’var Torah, I have since seen more conversations on this topic in the last year. Some of the approaches to this have been Bad, like that Tablet article we won’t ever speak of again. Some approaches have been more thoughtful, loving approaches, such as the IfNotNow call about deconstructing toxic masculinity, which happened earlier this week.
In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Lech-L’cha, our patriarch, Avram leaves his father’s home, the place where he has lived and known and been known his whole life. The Hebrew of “lech-l’cha”, doubles the verb for going and loosely translates to “go to yourself,” or and emphatic, “GO, you go!” The Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Violence (JCADA) reminds that this reflects an inner and outer journey. When Avram heard the call to go forth, he had to physically leave all he knew, but he also had to trust a previously unknown God and take on a spiritual journey. Similarly, the JCADA says, when a survivor of abuse is able to break free of the home that has brought such pain, they must not only physically leave the home, but they must take on a new spiritual journey to heal. Often, they must relearn to go to themselves, to trust themselves and others anew.
Meanwhile, while our honored father Avram’s journey reflects that of the domestic abuse survivor, he himself perpetuates similar abuse. When Avram and his wife, Sarai, arrive to the land that God has shown them, it is barren, and they must continue on their journey to Egypt in search of food. Avram is worried that because his wife is so beautiful, Pharaoh will kill him to take his wife, so Avram asks Sarai to play along with a lie to Pharaoh that they are brother and sister. Pharaoh then attempts to claim Sarai as his own, and God sends a plague to prevent Pharaoh from assaulting the woman, revealing the truth to Pharaoh, who immediately returns Sarai to Avram and asks them both to please get the heck out of his house, like, yesterday. Avram failed Sarai as a partner, enacting emotional abuse of denying their union and treating her like a pretty trinket instead of as a human, and he orchestrated a situation in which the Pharaoh could exert power and entitlement to exploit and sexually harass Sarai.
Sarai’s journey through this parasha is certainly also one of inner and outer new beginnings. She is following her husband’s physical journey and learning so much more about the men of the world. She is having her own inner process, so private and intimate that we as the readers can only imagine what she is thinking and feeling through all this. But as so many of us can tell you, even without having to travel the world as Sarai did, violence and harassment are not traits particular to any singular population. Pharaoh is not unique in his assumption of ownership over another person’s body, and Avram is not unique in his.
We all must start calling out these behaviors when we see them. We must start calling in the people in our lives who are still capable of change, and start acknowledging when it is time to ex-communicate serial abusers. We can start small, with the people closest to us, with workshops and phone calls within groups of friends and local community to educate those most likely to perpetuate these behaviors and to deconstruct the underlying issues. I have faith that we can be the generation that ends our community’s support for toxic masculinity. Let’s get to work.
