I had another sermon prepared for tonight. It talked about dreams, night and light, solstice and hope. But on Thursday morning, while I was having breakfast watching the news, it all went away. That was not my message anymore. My fierce feminist self, who is more dormant since I arrived in this country, was suddenly awaken.
According to a study from the Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre, published in 4 June 2024, across England and Wales, 1 in 4 women have been subjected to some form of sexual violence since the age of 16; 798,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted every year (that’s 1 in 30 women); 1 in 2 rapes against women are carried out by their partner or ex-partner; 5 in 6 rapes against women are carried out by someone they know. However, 5 in 6 women who are raped don’t report it to the police, because they are frightened and ashamed.
Gisèle Pelicot, 72 years old French woman, mother, grandmother, was drugged and abused and offered to other men for more than a decade - in her bed, at her home, while she was unconscious and unaware - by her husband. She only found out what was happening to her because he was arrested for skirt lifting at a local market, and investigators found the recordings of the horrible abuse in his computer. The 50 men sentenced of rape and assault, alongside her now ex-husband, are aged between 26 and 74. They include a nurse, a journalist, a prison warden, a councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers and farm workers. Gisèle decided to waive her anonymity and throw this trial into the open - in her words, making "shame swap sides" from the victim to the rapist.
As I tried to sink this horrible story in, this week’s parashah came to my mind. From there, the disconnected story of Tamar began to shine and intertwine to the daily news. In this small story inserted in the middle of Joseph’s dreams stories, we are told that Judah gets married and has three sons. Judah finds a wife to his first son – Tamar. However, her husband dies leaving her widowed and without children. Judah says to his second son: “Bo el eshet achicha veiabem otah” translated as “couple with your brother’s widow and unite with her” so that she would have a child. However, the second husband also dies, and Tamar is again left without children. Judah tells her to go back to her father’s house and wait until his third son is grown up, because it was his responsibility to marry her, but Judah was afraid of losing a third son – blaming Tamar for the deaths of his first two sons. Time passed, and Judah, already a widow himself, travels to Tamar’s city. She knows he does not intend to marry her with his third son, so she takes her destiny on her hands. She disguises herself and waits for Judah at the gates of the city. He believes that she is a prostitute and hires her, giving his signet seal, his cord and his staff as pledges for payment. “Vaiavoh eleha vatahar lo” and he coupled with her, and she became pregnant by him. When he receives the news that Tamar is pregnant, he gets furious, thinking that he betrayed his family honour, and brings her to be punished. However, by her arrival, she proves that Judah is the father, and he understands that she has the right one.
Two aspects connected those two stories in my mind. The first one is the Hebrew verb used in Torah to describe what the Women’s Torah translated as “coupled”. It is not the usual verb "yada" which literally translates to "to know", but the unusual “bo”. According to BDB biblical Hebrew dictionary, the verb “bo” means to go in, enter, come, go, come in; together with the preposition “al”, as it appears in the biblical text, it means to come upon, fall upon, attack (an enemy). There is power and violence implicit in the verb used to describe both the second husband and Judah coupling with Tamar.
On the other hand, Tamar, understanding her situation and the reality in which she lives, acts and changes her story. From the discarded and forgotten widow, she becomes the righteous mother of twins.
The connections between Tamar and Gisèle are the violence and objectification that both of them suffered. More than that, their connection lays in the decision of not staying ashamed but holding their heads up high and changing their stories. They are both examples of courage to face a patriarchal system that insists on staying alive from biblical times to our days.
Gisèle was included on the BBC's 2024 list of 100 women and was cited as one of the 25 most influential women of 2024 by the Financial Times because she decided to go public, be an example, and inspire sexual crimes victims that their abuser should be ashamed, not their victims.
Going back to my previous sermon, tomorrow is the darkest day of northern hemisphere, we approach Chanukkah, the festival of lights, and then, light begins to come back. After so much pain, I want us to leave this sanctuary looking for light and hope, believing in better days.
From Tamar to Gisèle a lot has changed for women in this world, for the better. However, there is still a lot of work to be done for women to live safely in this world. This work began with brave women who fought in the past for themselves and for other women. As a woman, lawyer, chef, almost a rabbi, I need to thank all women, who, like our own Rabbi Alex, made this path a better one for me to cross.
To all the women who fought and are still fighting, with all my heart, I thank each one of you. Merci Mesdames !
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