Opposing violence
Rabbi Zvi Kogan, of blessed memory, was murdered last week in the United Arab Emirates. He was a Chabad rabbi in Dubai. His killing feels far away and yet close. In recent years I have visited a number of Chabad houses in European cities and beyond. In many places, they are the only location to find kosher food and services on Shabbat. The Chabad-Lubavitch is a light to many of our Jewish movements of the work that is possible in outreach and provision for Jews all around the world.
A great passion of mine is outreach to Jewish people not communally connected. The Chabad movement does this work day in, day out, often in hard to reach, remote Jewish communities. The senseless murder of a Jewish person, simply for his religion and nationality, is devastating and is also one more notch, turning the dial on being Jewish and proud in Europe and beyond. I feel personally tasked to work without a sense of fear and at the same time take precaution for myself, my family and community as I do this. I strive to go about my day with pride for my religion and my people, to unflinchingly spread a message of Jewish unity, connection and learning.
What can each of us do today, in the honour of our murdered rabbi, to stand against violence and discrimination?To stand today for a more connected, kind, world that honours our different faiths and where we come from?
A second aspect of the week just past was that it was Jewish Women’s Aid Shabbat. JWA dedicated this weekend to a campaign on Myth vs Reality on domestic abuse. Unrelated to this shabbat, we watch a film this week: ‘It Ends with Us’, based on a book by Colleen Hoover. It starts, seemingly as another trashy romance film, but quickly cuts to a topic not often covered on TV. It presents some horrific (and yet sanitised) scenes of domestic violence and abuse by the main character Ryle, who initially presents as a hunky, successful neurosurgeon.
Having grown up in a house full of women and now raising a few very young ones in our home, the topic of domestic violence and abuse strikes deep. I think alongside my aversion to the theme, I am also connected to a fine line – between passion, strong feeling, disagreement and violence. I am a person of passion, pride and of physical strength - strength is on show in our home, playing with our kids, tossing them up in the air, playing rough and tumble – on repeat, on request. At the same time, at moments of strife, disagreement and anger, I have to manage seething and strong feelings to ensure that my strong words do not turn to a physical outlet against children or partner. I do not struggle with this boundary but I do think that this is something to which I have to take care and pay attention. In the movie, the physically strong male character does not assert control over his animal capacity to strike out and becomes an abuser. It is all too easy to imagine an inflated distance between our own behaviours and those who fall foul, placing ourselves on a pedestal ethically and emotionally above the abuser.
Perhaps an aspect of the Torah for this Shabbat is an emotional honesty which says, this capacity to hurt or to be violent sits in me too. By sharing in this stance we stand able to acknowledge that violence and emotional abuse can be found in homes close to ours, enabling us not to shy away from this problem.
SHABBAT SHALOM
Interested in the above?
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This week we will be discussing -
JUDAISM: RADICALLY OPPOSED OR ALIGNED WITH THE WORLD OUTSIDE?
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