Q&A: On Critical Thinking in Light of the Group Rape in Eilat
On Critical Thinking in Light of the Group Rape in Eilat
Question
In light of the tragic case in Eilat, and in light of the demonstrations, support campaigns, and strikes that received backing from almost all citizens of Israel, including politicians from across the spectrum—except for the Haredim, of course… and after long columns about how harmful Haredi society is to society as a whole, I thought it would be worth raising here a point for reflection and criticism about what alternative Israeli society is offering…
And what the Rabbi’s opinion is on all this, since it seems contradictory and unclear.
I’ll begin by attaching quotations from the Rabbi’s column 227, from the previous case that stirred up the country for a few short days, for those who remember—the case in Cyprus.
As follows:
Our permissive society. It bears no small share of the blame for these cases.
People raise children in an atmosphere where sex is like buying a popsicle at a kiosk: if you feel like it, go buy one and do it with whomever you want (just don’t get involved in an unwanted pregnancy, and if that happens—please murder the fetus as early as possible: safe sex prevents murder, and unsafe sex justifies murder). Then they’re surprised that young people don’t respect a woman’s privacy and violate the most intimate dimensions of her personality and soul. If these really are such intimate dimensions, shouldn’t we educate boys and girls alike to reserve this specifically for spouses and not for anyone you happen to meet in a bar when I’m in a friendly mood? Is a chance meeting in a bar, even if no date-rape drug was slipped into the girl’s drink, actually okay? If sex is so banal, then we shouldn’t complain that people don’t see it as such a big deal. You can’t educate children that free sex is perfectly fine and there’s nothing special about it (and therefore you can do it at age 12 with whoever you want, as long as you make sure to murder the consequences in time), while at the same time viewing it as some very deep inner violation of the sexual autonomy and intimacy of the rape victim, male or female. In my blatantly non-professional opinion, that just doesn’t work. It’s a double and contradictory message.
To my mind, this is similar to a communist society that raises its children to think money is nothing and really belongs to everyone, and then cries out in horror about people who steal or rob money from others and show contempt for other people’s property. If money is not a big deal, then it’s not a big deal. You can’t dance at two weddings at once. And again, even under such an education, robbery is forbidden, but I object to the cries of anguish of the robbed Cossack.
And later there in your words:
Blaming the victim
I have already been accused in the past of blaming the victim (for example in column 225, about LGBT terror), when I said that women sometimes bear contributory blame for acts of rape, and LGBT people bear contributory blame for violence directed at them. Now I am compounding the offense and adding to the matter the contributory blame of the society in which we live. It too bears contributory blame. Just as you cannot let women walk around the street without clothes and then complain about acts of rape, you cannot educate children and teenagers in an atmosphere of complete sexual permissiveness and even turn it into an ideology (while mocking the benighted religious people who make a big deal out of it), and then when the results arrive, wail and complain. Again I say that in both of these arguments I do not intend to absolve the criminals of guilt, but to point to contributory blame on the part of additional factors (the victim and society).
What follows from your words is that, by and large, if not for the fear of getting caught, almost everyone would carry out acts of this kind; it is fear of exposure that prevents the barbarity, not any ethical or moral code.
After all that I want to ask whether:
A. Isn’t it preferable to have illiterate “dossim” as the lesser evil option (assuming it is evil)?
B. How is it that sane people who care so much about women still do not understand once and for all that permissiveness and mixing are what cause all these horrors?!
C. Is it your view that separation between the sexes is indeed the most effective solution for society in general and for women in particular, and that here we actually have the exact opposite of exclusion?
D. About the shorts protest you wrote https://mikyab.net/%d7%a9%d7%95%d7%aa?user=mikyab “If someone is bothered by an appearance even though it conforms to accepted norms, the duty to be careful is on him. He should go to a doctor or resign. This is not the student’s problem.” How is your view there different from what you wrote here (in the above column), that the victim bears responsibility?
E. Aren’t feminist women’s organizations of all kinds a significant factor in these miserable outcomes?
Thank you in advance.
(Thought challenge for anyone interested: if the rape had been carried out by Haredim… what would our tolerant society’s reaction have been? Spoiler: even the moderates among us would have brought proof from every possible source that it stems from closing off and excluding the sexes..)
Answer
Tam, your analogies and far-fetched difficulties, and the speculation about what would have happened had they been Haredim, are a bit exhausting to me. How many times have I already not answered these pilpulistic trivia questions, and after the break you came back to us again without much noticeable improvement.
This is classic Haredi apologetics, and I read it again and again and wonder what would happen if these guys’ Talmudic reasoning looked like the ridiculous analogies and difficulties they raise as part of their apologetics. Our/your situation would be quite bleak.
Where did you see a contradiction in my words? Is this how you also raise contradictions in Rashba or in Maimonides? I’m not sure I’d pay your kollel stipend (if you study in kollel).
My words do not imply that everyone would do this if not for fear. Where did you see that in what I wrote? Is this also how you draw conclusions in kollel? See above, stipend.
You are confusing a position I present with claims I make about secular society and its consistency. If you read it again I assume you’ll understand, and if not, then even after my explanation you won’t understand.
I won’t answer all your other questions, if only because I do not usually answer questions of the form “which is preferable, carrion or a mortally wounded animal?”
Discussion on Answer
Just to sharpen the point:
Separation between the sexes, as our forefathers practiced at the Celebration of the Water Drawing in the Temple, is carrion.
The shorts protest and women’s organizations are a mortally wounded animal. Or vice versa, of course.
And still there is no contradiction in the Rabbi’s views.
If this were Rashba, I’d blame the yeshiva guy who set the type, at best.
I don’t understand one thing in the wake of this cruel rape: why call it by every modern name except theater culture? Aren’t we to blame for being dragged after the secular team-up {I don’t care if this is also practiced in the world}, and the great tragedy is that they laugh at the girls of Beit Yaakov and refuse to recognize the fact that every parent, or most of them, would be happy if in their own home at least some of the prohibitions and the fine custom of Beit Yaakov girls remained. Why does no one blame the improper permission for relations before marriage? No one blames the philosopher who in every generation knows how to approve the practice.
Shlomo, apparently whenever it comes to Haredim, or to the “fifth Shulchan Arukh” as they call it, it triggers in the Rabbi a strong reactionary emotion that he cannot overcome with plain common sense. As Rabbi Michi once said, what can you do, I’m not autistic; nobody is perfect.
Is it really so far-fetched to infer from this sentence that quite a lot of people would indeed do this were it not for fear?!
I’m referring mainly to the parenthetical remark about murdering the fetus.
People raise children in an atmosphere where sex is like buying a popsicle at a kiosk: if you feel like it, go buy one and do it with whomever you want (just don’t get involved in an unwanted pregnancy, and if that happens—please murder the fetus as early as possible: safe sex prevents murder, and unsafe sex justifies murder). Then they’re surprised that young people don’t respect a woman’s privacy and violate the most intimate dimensions of her personality and soul.
As for the apologetics and the analogy about the Haredim, I absolutely agree with a large part of your criticism of them, but I still think that overall (aside from the religious “turn away from evil”) they are the least harmful to society, and therefore it pains me, as someone who appreciates the Rabbi’s wisdom, that the Rabbi ignores this, that’s all. Indeed it makes sense that the issue pains me because I dwell among my own people, and it may very well be that I too suffer from classic Haredi apologetics, but to the same extent I think the honorable Rabbi is also driven by a reaction that is unrelated to this or that criticism of that society.
And if there is no contradiction between the permissiveness that destroys girls in the shorts protest and that candid column, then indeed I don’t deserve my miserable kollel stipend of about 430 shekels.