Torah’s take on sexual abuse
demanded that society “hold up a mirror” to this behaviour and challenge it. According to Green, “girls and young women are growing up in the UK today being exposed to unwanted sexual attention, harassment and assault.” As a result, she argues that, “we need to really question any idea that this behaviour is trivial or in any way acceptable given what we can see about its impact.”
It is no secret that many struggle with reconciling the laws in the Torah and halachic literature which regulate sexual relationships with the modern world. Some see them as overly prudish and outdated in a world in which sexual liberty appears to be a most basic, elementary value.
Yet, in his acclaimed work on modern moral philosophy, (1981), Alasdair MacIntyre argues that modern society has consistently struggled to identify an alternative secular basis for morality to that of traditional sources. The “fragments of a conceptual [moral] scheme survive” in the modern world, writes MacIntyre, but “lack the contexts from which their significance derived”.
We may wish that basic morality, without the need for an external strict moral code, was automatically built into human nature. But the sad and overwhelming evidence of Kelly Oxford’s Twitter campaign reveals that the opposite may be true.
In listing the laws regulating forbidden sexual relationships — a passage read in shul on the afternoon of Yom Kippur — the Torah repeats several times the phrase “meaning, “you shall not draw near”. This is understood by the Talmud to imply a far wider prohibition than the illicit physical relationship itself. Any sem- blance of inappropriate sexual behaviour crosses clearly defined red lines.
And surely nowhere is this more the case than in the context of non-consensual abusive sexual advances or comments made by a stranger, something that occurs countless times on the streets every day and in every major city throughout the world.
I believe that these detailed restrictions exist in Jewish law for an essential reason. Through them, Jewish tradition teaches the importance of understanding that no behaviour in this area should ever be trivialised. As the YouGov survey demonstrates, it is often the seemingly small inappropriate comments or actions which have a potentially devastating long-lasting impact on the recipients of this unwanted attention.
Abusive actions stem from abusive attitudes, a perspective that it is “okay” to wolf whistle or make a suggestive sexual comment about a stranger. But, to borrow Ms Oxford’s hashtag, such actions are “not okay” at all. And they also happen to be in clear breach of the most ancient moral code of all, the Torah.
Campaigners to end violence against women agree that the first crucial step in attempting to remove this scourge from society is by placing the issue at the very centre of public discourse. Through criminalising and prosecuting even the most seemingly innocuous instances of so-called “street” or online harassment, perhaps there is a chance that new behaviours can eventually be learnt in generations to come.
And perhaps it might finally be time for society to respect and revisit those ancient traditional Jewish sources after all.
Detailed restrictions are in Jewish law for a reason
Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum is Rabbi of the Hadley Wood Jewish Community. @RabbiBirnbaum