Responding to Abuse
How the Talmud would have us react to moral corruption
This isn't a topic I thought I'd be addressing here. It's something about which I'm certainly no expert, and it doesn't feel like a natural fit with the other articles on the site. But my recent reintroduction to a Gemara tripped a circuit in my mind and suggested some interesting connections.
Last I looked, 1990 was a very long time ago. At this point in history it's certainly no secret that sexual abuse is a problem endemic to all communities, ours being no exception. It's also obvious that victims continue to suffer in many ways long after their abusers have forgotten all about them.
Speaking publicly about the trauma they endured presents victims with layers of additional stress: Will people take them seriously? Will they and their families be stigmatized? Will their abusers strike back? What good can come out of talking about it?
In that context, the Gemara in Sanhedrin 21a sounds like it was torn from 2022 headlines. The Gemara refers to the tragic events related in II Shmuel 13, where David’s son Amnon raped his biological half-sister, Tamar.
While she was later advised to remain silent to minimize her humiliation, Tamar’s first instinct was to publicize her ordeal, loudly expressing her anguish as she roamed the streets.
The Navi itself doesn’t express an obvious opinion over whether she was correct. But the Gemara clearly does:
ותקח תמר אפר על ראשה (ואת כתונת) הפסים אשר עליה קרעה תנא משמיה דר' יהושע בן קרחה גדר גדול גדרה תמר באותה שעה אמרו לבנות מלכים כך לבנות הדיוטות על אחת כמה וכמה אם לצנועות כך לפרוצות על אחת כמה וכמה אמר רב יהודה אמר רב באותה שעה גזרו על על… ייחוד דפנויה
“And Tamar took ash for her head and her colorful garment she tore” (II Shmuel 13:19). It was taught in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karcha, a great protective fence Tamar built at that time. She said: “(if what happened to me can happen) to daughters of kings, how much more could happen to commoners? If this can happen to modest girls, how much more could happen to immodest girls?” Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: “At that time they forbade…yichud with an unmarried woman.”
In the Gemara’s telling, Tamar’s first thoughts were for the welfare of others. She was convinced - perhaps incorrectly - that her life was permanently ruined. Nothing she could imagine would fix that. But how could she nevertheless protect future victims from suffering this way?
Tamer knew that news of her sad progress through the streets would travel quickly and far because she was a royal princess. She decided to use her platform to emphatically drive home a critical point: girls - and especially those most vulnerable - need the protection of society and the law that, until that point, they’d been denied. Not enough was being done to safeguard their dignity.
And it worked. At the highest echelons of power (דוד ובית דינו) wheels sprang into motion and the prohibition of יחוד פנויה came into force. The change was late coming, but it did come. And the inspiration wasn’t from the nation’s leaders, but from a single broken victim.
This is not to suggest that all victims are expected to speak out this way. Tamar was, after all, a princess. But it does teach us, no matter how comfortable and influential we might be, to listen carefully whenever a quiet voice does make itself heard. And to stand ready to change where necessary.