and another one. on abusive gods

[hatam_soferet]

These Jewish Thought classes are causing a lot of crochet, but I'm getting a surprising amount of blog mileage out of them as well. Hmmm.

So we were talking about Heschel being cheesed off with God because of the Holocaust, more or less, and about how nonetheless Heschel wants his God to be terribly human(e) and generally fluffy (a multivalent term), and the subject of David Blumenthal's book Facing the Abusing God: a theology of protest arose.

Consensus seemed to be, on the whole, that at some point the proper thing to do with an abusive relationship is leave, not build a theology round it, and that Blumenthal was being a bit of an idiot writing a book grouching about living with an abusive God when he could have just left.

Blumenthal and abusive gods were absolutely not the subject of the class, so I didn't say, but thought: it's not that easy.

I mean, if your whole identity is Jewish, and you say "bugger this God business," and you rip the God out of Judaism, that's ripping out a pretty fundamental part of your identity. Non-theistic Judaism isn't inconceivable, but not just like that.

Sometimes your abusive relationship is near enough to your surface that you can leave, with greater or less pain, but sometimes it's so wrapped around your core that to separate you and it is well-nigh impossible. We know that some people stay in abusive relationships forever: they would rather the low-level trauma of constant abuse than the major trauma of having one's identity ripped away and having to rebuild.

So give Blumenthal a break, and give people in abusive relationships a break as well. They have it hard enough without other people being judgemental and saying "Why don't you just leave?".

Comments

[lethargic_man]

I think the issue is nicely wrapped up by the story of the rabbis who, during the Holocaust, put G-d on trial. After much discussion and debate they found G-d guilty, and were about to pronounce sentence when, realising what time it was, they broke off to daven mincha.

[hatam_soferet]

I don't think so. It's a good story, but it doesn't solve anything; they talk a lot and then they keep going exactly as they did before. Lovely illustration of piety, good window into relationship between love and hate, but not a good conclusion.

You're right, Blumenthal deserves more discussion

[(Anonymous)]

What Blumenthal pointed out is that the same apologetics used to rationalize God's actions to the Jewish people, from the Hurban to the Shoah -- "we deserved it for our sins," "He has our best interests in mind," "It's for our own good," "We're not smart enough to understand Him," "We need what He gives us" -- are also at work when justifying why one stays in an abusive relationship.

It there a difference between believing that God chooses each individual's fate with individual love and care -- including the myriads slaughtered en masse in Auschwitz -- and believing your husband beats you for your own good? As a society, in the late 20th century, we stopped believing the second story. Should we continue to accept the first?

I'm with Blumenthal here, and am in the process of rejecting a manuscript for describing God as a God of personalized love and care.

-- Reb Yudel

Re: You're right, Blumenthal deserves more discussion

[hatam_soferet]

Thanks for expressing eloquently what I didn't quite manage to get over :)

God of personalized love and care

How repellently narcissistic.

[lavendersparkle]

Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick, but surely if G@d exists it's not as if you've really got the option to leave the relationship. You can say "That's it G@d. You've goon to far this time. I'm not going to believe in you any more" but a) that's not going to stop an omnipotent G@d being able to continue to screw around with your life and b) if you're saying this to G@d then you clearly still believe in G@d. You'd just end up being like Richard Smythe in The End of the Affair. Leaving an abusive marriage might be a good idea; trying to convince yourself that your husband doesn't exist whilst he continues to regularly beat you isn't.

In the absence of the option of leaving, you'd have to develop coping strategies. Maybe becoming a bit masochistic, maybe trying to work out ways to influence the abusers behaviour, maybe trying to fool yourself into thinking that you have some control.