Sermon—“The Last Shabbat of the Year”

Rabbi Jonathan Miller
Temple Emanu-El
Birmingham, AL


Believe me, there is no rabbi in the world today who is looking forward to preaching a sermon this Shabbat. Rosh Hashanah is soon upon us, and the big services and the big preaching and the big music and the whole hullabaloo make this Shabbat seem to dwarf in comparison. This is the last Shabbat of the year. All of us are focused on next year already. Our freezers are filled with yuntif food, the silverware is being polished, and we are preparing to go to the airport to travel to see loved ones or to pick up our loved ones. Every rabbi is saying, “Oy, not another sermon this Shabbat!”

But on this Shabbat, I am choosing to speak about something that is very significant and rarely talked about from the pulpit. My topic is exceedingly unpleasant and brings up all sorts of emotion, and if I cause you pain, I am so sorry. Tonight, I am going to talk about child abuse. This is a most unpleasant topic because undoubtedly, some in our congregation have been abused as children. And undoubtedly, some in our congregation have abused their own children. This topic can be very painful for some.

None of us have been perfect children. No one grows up without having at sometimes been naughty, mean, deceitful and disappointing to our parents. Even children with happy childhoods have had terrible moments—moments where they have let their parents down. And some children, sadly, have been made to feel that they are a constant disappointment to their parents. Perhaps some children don’t try very hard to be good, but I have yet to meet one. All children try hard to please, and some try very hard. But some parents have impossible expectations of their children, and they set their children up to see themselves as failures.

Children should know that it is not easy to be a parent. Children look at their parents as all-knowing and all-powerful, at least until they become teenagers. But parents are human and fallible. Nobody goes to school to get a degree in parenting. Many become parents, which is the most awesome responsibility a person can assume, before they are ready, or before they have nurtured their own abilities. Parents have pressures at work, pressures at home, and financial pressures. Their own sadnesses sometimes push them over the edge. None of us can claim to be perfect parents. All of us can think of times we would rather forget, times when we lost our temper, overreacted, spoke ugly words, and sometimes maybe even used our physical superiority over our children in ways that we are now ashamed. None of us were perfect parents and none of us were perfect children.

But child abuse is something quite different from blowing it now and then. Child abuse is a pattern of behavior. It is, more than anything an abuse of power. Children are defenseless against their parents. The specter of parents, who are the primary protectors of children, victimizing their children evokes outrage within us. As a society, it is our responsibility to protect the unprotected. As a society, we have given the government, acting in our name, the ability and the responsibility to invade families and separate children from parents to protect abused children. Preventing child abuse is a communal responsibility that we all share.

What is the definition of child abuse? Child abuse is different from poor parenting. According to Childhelp USA, active child abuse falls into four categories; physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional abuse.

From their website:

Physical Abuse

You are being abused if you are…hit (with a belt, hand, paddle, etc.) or pinched hard enough to leave a mark that doesn't go away right away; burned (for example with cigarettes, a lighter, an iron or the stovetop burner); bitten hard enough to leave a mark or break the skin; pushed into walls or knocked to the floor; choked, kicked or punched.

Sexual Abuse

I won’t elaborate tonight, but it includes inappropriate photographing or touching.

Neglect

You are neglected if you are…hungry a lot of the time and not given enough food or water, not given medicine or taken to the doctor when you are really sick or hurt,
not given warm enough clothes in winter, or cooler clothes in summer, left home alone when you are too young to take care of yourself safely, never given hugs, compliments or told that you matter, or locked in a room for hours or even days at a time.

Emotional Abuse

You are being emotionally abused if someone who takes care of you…calls you names that are really mean, tells you that you are worthless, stupid or "a mistake", makes fun of you until it hurts, tells you that you are never good enough or you can't do anything right or tells you they wish you had never been born.

And how pervasive is child abuse? According to Childhelp USA:

More than 2.9 million reports of possible maltreatment involving children were made to child protective service agencies in calendar year 2003.

The actual incidence of abuse and neglect is estimated to be three times greater than the number reported to authorities.

Child abuse is reported-on average-every 10 seconds.

Now, why did I choose to talk about child abuse on this Shabbat prior to Rosh Hashanah?

This past Wednesday, the Birmingham News quoted State Senator Hank Erwin as follows:

"New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast have always been known for gambling, sin and wickedness. It is the kind of behavior that ultimately brings the judgment of God."

After touring Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., and Bayou La Batre, Erwin said he was awed and humbled by the power of the storm. But he wasn't surprised.

"Warnings year after year by godly evangelists and preachers went unheeded. So why were we surprised when finally the hand of judgment fell? Sadly, innocents suffered along with the guilty. Sin always brings suffering to good people as well as the bad.

“If you are a believer and read the Bible, you know sin has judgment. New Orleans has always been known for sin. ... The wages of sin is death."

Erwin said hurricanes are part of a pattern that was also in evidence in the Sept. 11 attacks. The increase in abortion, pornography and prostitution has caused God to remove an umbrella of protection from America, he said.

"America has been moving away from God. We all need to embrace godliness and church going and good, godly living, and we can get divine protection for that point.

"The Lord is sending appeals to us," said Erwin, a member of Shades Mountain Independent Church. "As harsh as it may sound, those hurricanes do say that God is real, and we have to realize sin has consequences."

These remarks are exceedingly painful to us. Thinking backwards, it tells us that when bad things happen to us, it is entirely our fault. Nothing comes to us undeserved. God chooses to send hurricanes, floods, pestilence, war, disease, and famine because we deserve these things; we bring these things upon ourselves. Natural disasters are guided by God’s firm hand because we have fallen short in our relationship with the Divine.

In a certain sense, Senator Erwin is correct. We have fallen short in our relationship with the Divine. All of us have sinned. Some of us have committed major sins, but most of us have committed more the garden-variety type of sins. That is why we have the gifts of repentance and these Days of Awe soon to be upon us. But where he is incorrect is in his seeing the destruction on the Gulf Coast or any other natural calamity as the effect of a sin related cause.

Let me share with you some interesting points of fact. Most of the activities that Senator Erwin would identify as sin and vice in New Orleans and Mississippi (gambling, sex, inebriation) were done by tourists from around the world, and not citizens of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricane Katrina did not follow these tourists back to their homes in Birmingham, Des Moines or Philadelphia. The French Quarter of New Orleans emerged from the devastation relatively intact, while the homes of the poorest in the Ninth Ward were flooded repeatedly. The winds and the flooding damaged churches and casinos alike. If God were almighty and all just, He ought to have found a way to spare the churches and the poorest and most defenseless residents. And then Hurricane Rita followed soon after and attacked the homes and the shelters in Texas and Louisiana, which took in the evacuees from New Orleans and the Coast. Does God play games of cat and mouse with suffering people?

Let’s think more deeply about the Senator’s remarks. If God were in control of every single thing that happens to us, the world could tolerate no measure of injustice. The innocent and the guilty would not share the same fate. Righteous people would live to old age, and children would be protected from the cruelties of adults. Sickness would vanish. Nazis could not murder Jews, and men in Darfur, Sudan would not rape women and children. Berlin, Belgrade and Moscow would have been most surely obliterated, and all those who committed crimes would suffer measure for measure.

We know that there is Divine justice in the world, and we know that Divine justice is meted out imperfectly. So the Senator’s all powerful God, Who sends Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to afflict us, is a God Who is no better than a human abuser—a sadist who is compelled to make the guilty and the innocent suffer alike and to the same extent. And we human beings, imperfect as we are, must cower like children before this God in fear and trembling because we don’t know whom He is fixin’ to abuse next.

I believe that there is another way for us to see God and experience God, another more potent and more just metaphor—a more kind metaphor for God. God is a parent Who understands and Who cares. God is a parent Who punishes when punishment is due, but does not punish us more than we can stand. God is a parent Who does not abuse His power, but preserves it so human beings can have free will. God is a parent Who distinguishes between guilt and guilt, between sin and sin; and protects His children, as we would hope to protect our own. God is filled with understanding and compassion, and not vengeance and anger.

As Jews, when we pray to God, one of the images that we evoke is Avinu she’baShamayim, our Father in heaven. What kind of Father can we expect Him to be, an abuser or a comforter?, cruel or kind?, vindictive or understanding? What kind of father can we expect Him to be to us? The cornerstone of our prayers for the High Holydays is the Avinu, Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King. We beseech God to be our Father, not to punish, abuse or harm us, but to protect us, have compassion upon us, guide us and bestow blessings upon us, even though we have little merit of our own. This is what God does for us. This is what a father does for his children.

On this last Shabbat of the year, may our Father in Heaven, Avinu Malkeynu, our Father, our King, bestow us all with His blessings, His kindness, His comfort and His peace. Avinu Malkeynu, khaneinu v’aneinu, ki ayn banu ma’asim. Aseh imanu tsedakka v’chesed, v’hosheeaynu. Our Father, our King, be kind to us and answer us, for we have no deeds. Act towards us with favor and loving-kindness, and save us.

Amen


Rabbi Jonathan Miller
Temple Emanu-El
2100 Highland Avenue
Birmingham, AL 35205
205-933-8037 x.229
rabbimiller@ourtemple.org