"I think we owe our teens to be comfortable with the 'L' word, to let them know that marriage is a full partnership, that there’s love and connection"
I am not a person who becomes emotional very often. But after reading the first letter in Inbox last week, I cried.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be abused. I also cannot imagine what it is like to feel like nobody feels for you or cares for you when you are in such pain, and that your community instead just wants you to keep quiet.
I hesitated before putting these thoughts to paper. What do I really have to add to this discussion? I am not one of the giants of our generation, like Rav Aaron Lopiansky. I not a victim of abuse, nor are any of my immediate circle of family and friends victims of abuse (at least, as far as I know).
But after further reflection, perhaps that is precisely the voice that I can add to this ongoing and long overdue conversation. As one of the peshutei am, just a regular Jew, I want to say: We as a community cannot fathom the depths of the pain that the victims of abuse must carry for the rest of their lives. But we can, and we must, at least acknowledge that it exists. And in doing so, perhaps we can spare the victims the additional pain of feeling that their community has abandoned them.
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