Traces of Child Sacrifice in Orthodox Judaism
The original article,
entitled הכוח להתמודד, להמשיך ולהתחזק, which
appeared in
גיליון מס' 1037
of שיחת
השבוע on November 17, 2006 can be found on the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/yh3mtw.
Yet more articles and
a video can be found on the following site: http://tinyurl.com/yffen4
.
As reported in the
article, eight-year-old Chiah-Muska Attiyah of blessed memory, daughter of Rabbi Victor Attiyah and his wife Devorah, was playing with matches in the back yard of their home.
Some dried סכך (the covering of the succah, which is usually highly flammable dried, thin
branches, leaves and the like) in the yard caught fire, as did the girl's
dress.
Her younger brother told her to take the dress off.
She refused to take the burning dress off even as she was engulfed in flames
because "it's not modest".
"It's not modest" is a formula that is drilled into the heads of Orthodox
girls from the time they are three years old. From that age they begin to wear
dresses that cover their knees by a few inches, with high necklines, long
sleeves and opaque stockings. They are taught to dress and undress under a
blanket. If their dress goes over their knee while sitting, running, playing - anything they are reprimanded: "It's not
modest!" Modesty for an Orthodox girl is everything.
She died.
She died because the lesson of being modest was drilled into her more than the
overriding principle that saving a life, including her own, precludes all else.
Her younger brother did know that either because as a boy he was better
schooled than she or because, still being so young, he was reacting with
natural common sense.
God only knows the effect the experience had on her brother.
The worst of it is that neither her father, the head of the Chaba"d
house in Kiryat Arba-Chevron,
nor his community and large circle of friends seem to have learned anything
from the terrible incident.
It is of no especial
import that the family is Chaba"d. It could have
happened in any ultra-Orthodox family. In fact, most of the Orthodox who have
heard this story seem to think that as regrettable and
tragic as it is, it was unavoidable and that the girl did the right thing.
Rather than asking himself if his understanding of Jewish Law and the way he
was promulgating it is incorrect; the Rabbi is digging in his heels and
building a large school in his daughter's honor wherein they will disseminate
the self-same teachings. There isn't the merest hint that the teachings of female
modesty in the school being built in her memory will be revised from the way in
which she was taught.
There
is no intimation in the incident, as reported, that either the family of the child,
Chiah-Mushka Attiyah, of
blessed memory, or any
of the thousands of people who attended the funeral and contacted the family
during the mourning period thereafter see this as anything other than a story
of the ultimate "self-sacrifice" for the sake of the grand principle
of female modesty. She is being hailed as a precocious paragon of female
Orthodox Jewish virtue.
It is
a perversion of our religion to think that it is in any ways right that a child
should die for the sake of modesty. There are only three mitzvot
that a Jew who is ben or bat mitzvah must die rather
than commit: They are: גלוי עריות
(incest), עבודה זרה
(idol worship) and שפיכות דמים
(the shedding of innocent blood) – known by the acronym גע"ש.
If there be among
you anyone who might think that an eight-year-old engulfed in flames taking off
her dress in front of her younger brother constitutes the sin of incest,
consider that in the time that she said: "It's not modest!", she
could have said: "Turn away!"
There
is an element of child sacrifice in this incident that is blood chilling and
wholly inimical to Judaism as I learned it.
There was
always a strain of this type of approach in Judaism, but it was a strain and
nothing more. The vast majority of Orthodox Jews were rational and common sensical. That was even true among those who learned the Kabbalah. I remember Jews as being very rational from my
childhood, speaking of "luftmenschkeit"
with utter disdain. This fanaticism is now the norm in the ultra-Orthodox
Jewish world.
This fanaticism is growing and becoming more dangerous, even fatal. We see the
execrable violence in Orthodox/non-Orthodox relations. We see it in factional
violence even within the same group of Orthodox Jews. We now see it in the
death of children who have not even attained the age of being b'nei and b'not mitzvah.
I recall two stories of extreme
modesty in women, two women who are held up as models of the modesty. The first
is that of a woman by the name of Kimchit, the story
of whom is related here: http://tinyurl.com/y4w23u
. Note that the site says of Kimchit: "She was
rewarded with seven sons, who served as High Priests. We see from this story
that a woman’s covering her hair in private is highly praiseworthy." Let's
examine these comments. Is having seven sons who were
High Priests a reward? The High Priesthood was an office for life from the time
it was assumed. In order for a High Priest to be replaced by another he had to
die or be otherwise incapacitated or found incapable or unworthy to continue
the function. It is not a natural state that in the space of the lifetime of
seven brothers they all serve as High Priests. Clearly, something is very wrong
in this story. Indeed, the Talmud relates an explanation of this story that
appears contrived and unconvincing, as we see here: http://tinyurl.com/yaoulz . Moreover, it
is said that other women likewise did not let the beams of their house
"see" their hair. Surely there was another reason why all seven of Kimchit's sons become High Priests. The text would have us
understand that she did something meritorious in addition to being very careful
about covering her hair. Perhaps the fact that those seven men grew up in a
home in which the wrong aspects of Torah were overly stressed contributed to
the fact that they did not serve as High Priests in a normal, natural way.
Perhaps a woman being so punctilious about covering her hair in private that
the "walls of her house do not "see" her hair is not so
"praiseworthy" after all. Perhaps it is unhealthy fanaticism, which
always comes at the expense of doing mitzvoth correctly and putting the
emphasis on serving humanity.
The second story of a
model of female modesty is that of a woman who pinned her dress to her legs so
that when she was dragged through the streets to her death by horses no one
would see her legs. The story, entitled "שלש מתנות",
part 3, by י"ל פרץ
can be found in Hebrew on the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/yn27u9 . This is a story that recounts a
grown woman, a woman who is bat mitzvah. She was designated for death in the
brutal way described immediately above by Gentile authorities. Rather than give
them the satisfaction of seeing her utterly humiliated, she pinned her dress to
the flesh of her legs so that they would not be seen. Obviously, that must have
been very painful. It was a brave and noble act of defiance and retaining her
dignity to the last.
Eight-year-old Chiah-Mushka Attiyah, of blessed
memory, was in no way in the same position. She could have and should have
taken off her dress. She would have in no way been compromising her self. She
made the ultimate compromise of herself for nothing, for absolutely nothing –
because she was incorrectly educated in Jewish Law.
This story haunts me for many reasons.
Looking at the
pictures of the lovely children Chiah Mushke, of blessed memory, and her siblings on the site (http://www.chabad-hebron.com/345.html) we see healthy, happy children.
They are immaculately clean. They are well dressed. There isn't a spot on their
clothes, not so much as a wrinkle. Not one hair is out of place. They are
obviously the recipients of great love and devotion. They also obviously love
one another profoundly. There isn't the merest hint of neglect.
There is no doubt in
my mind that the girls were educated to overweening צניעות (modesty) out
of the sincere desire to protect them. The problem is, צניעות (modesty)
seems to have been used as a kind of fetish and the *only* fence of protection.
They were obviously not taught the whole battery of survival skills that we all
need.
Chiah Mushke
was playing with matches, which there is every reason to assume that she knew
was forbidden. From this we learn that she had the spunk to be a bit naughty.
So, why was she not a
bit "naughty" enough to go against Torah to save her life, assuming
she did not know that פקוח נפש (saving a life) is a מצוה
(mitzvah, commandment, good deed), and not an עברה (sin,
transgression)?
Why was the will to
survive so attenuated in this child? Was it a function of her education as an
ultra-Orthodox female child, education geared toward creating women who will be
utterly devoted to others, never thinking of their own welfare.
I am apt to think that this occurred as a result of a wholly distorted concept
of בטול
(self-effacement, negation of the ego) and that is the reason why this story
haunts me so.
God protect us if this
is what "Ufaratztah" (the spreading of Jewish teaching and practice)
means. May God prevent the spreading of such "teaching" of such
"Chassidus" (piety; devotion; virtue;
Hassidism).
The Hebrew version of
this essay, entitled: ""אבק
זבח ילדים ביהדות חרדית
can be found on the
following URL: http://tinyurl.com/ssy5a.
Doreen
Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel