Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Live from Limmud Oz Melbourne with Rabbi Allison Conyer and Rabbi Ralph Genende
Does Judaism have a 'shame' problem? In their first-ever live recording of ATA, Tami and Dash joined the annual festival of Jewish ideas and culture at Limmud Oz. In their lively and packed session, Tami posed a question that's been nagging her recently about shame and Judaism. To get some answers, they were joined by Rabbi Allison Conyer of Temple Beth Israel and Rabbi Ralph Genende of Kehilat Kesher, two rabbis with different perspectives.
We ready, so let's start with the question Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? Yes, okay. Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? If you answered yes, then you've come to the right place, and if you answered no, it's too late. We're locking the doors now.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon everyone. I'm Dash Lawrence from the Jewish Independent and today your third cousin, Tammy Sussman, and I will be calling on experts and each other to address some of the ignorant questions about you guessed it Judaism's relationship with shame.
Speaker 1:Join us as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent podcast A shame to admit for the very first time being recorded live. Good afternoon Limwood Oz, melbourne. It is wonderful to be with you near the end of a very busy, fun, interesting, rich day. One of Limwood Oz.
Speaker 1:I'm Dash Lawrence, executive Director at the Jewish Independent, and I am TJI and Limwood Oz, melbourne's Chief Nudge Officer, tammy Sussman, does everyone here know what a nudge is? Someone just said they're ashamed to admit that they don't know what a nudge is, dash. Can you enlighten us?
Speaker 2:Well, I I'm looking at someone, Tammy, and I'm thinking of someone in particular someone who nags, someone who pesters have I got it right? Someone who won't stop bothering you about something? Okay, Right. Usually I think of this person as occasionally annoying, but you know, it's said in an affectionate manner.
Speaker 1:That's the key word there. It's affectionate. I would go so far as to say that nudges are a little bit adorable and necessary, and I'm a proud nudge. I will admit to that. I nudged hard, I promoted hard for the event today. It's what I do I nudge.
Speaker 2:You did, tammy. Yes, you generously offered to stand in front of Yumi's Seafoods in Riponlee. From memory I did A few weeks ago. You raised this idea of standing in front with a billboard for $100 an hour. Yeah, I couldn't approve that request, unfortunately, but it was a good effort, well done.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I would have done it for 18 kilograms of trout mousse. Just so that you know you could have negotiated a bit harder with that one.
Speaker 2:You even tempted our audience members, some of whom are here today. Those of you who've been listening over the past few weeks, you'll remember that Tammy promised to spill some tea regarding your foray into the world of dating apps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did. Okay. So I usually say raise your arms, but because this is an audio medium, so instead of raising your hands, give us a round of applause. If you're here because you're genuinely curious about issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large, how about a round of applause if you're here because you're nosy and you love knowing things about the personal lives of fellow Jews? Okay, that was a very honest response. I'm very impressed. I'm going to spill some tea. I did start app dating. I am a hinge dating app success story. Someone's coming in right in time right on time.
Speaker 1:That's fine. Are you ashamed that you're late?
Speaker 5:I don't need me to volunteer, so I'm proud. Thank you, okay Be proud.
Speaker 1:Come in, you've come in just at the time that I'm going to spill some tea about my foray into dating apps. I have a girlfriend now. Yeah, not only that, she's here in the audience today. Everyone's like looking around. I'm not going to point her out because she's quite shy, but yeah, how about another round of applause for that that bit of tea? Is that exciting?
Speaker 2:She did, I believe, inspire today's conversation, because we tossed up all sorts of different topics For what we wanted to focus on in this recording today, tammy, and in the end you had something in mind About something she said at one of your dates.
Speaker 1:So it was our first date. Our first date went for eight hours, which I'm told is classic lesbian first date. We covered so many topics and something that she picked up on. She noticed that I said I feel bad or I feel guilty quite a lot, and she didn't grow up with religion. She didn't grow up in a Jewish community. So she wondered if perhaps I had maybe a little bit of an unhealthy relationship with shame and with guilt and whether that's a Jewish thing. And I know that for some of you who are really into definitions, that shame and guilt are two very different things for you, for me and for a lot of the people that I hang out with, I feel like there's a Venn diagram and they overlap quite a bit. Perhaps we'll get to that later on today.
Speaker 2:So, folks, if you are a regular listener to the pod and I hope you are, and if you're not, you can get us on all your go-to podcasting sources. But if you are a regular listener, you'll know that the genesis of A Shame to Admit was an attempt to release Tammy, and perhaps some listeners as well, of the shame that they might be feeling for not having the prerequisite knowledge to hold their own at the Shabbat dinner conversations, and so what we wanted to do with the show was to help give Tammy, and me as well, some background and some context to you know better. Hold us on. So we didn't feel so much shame when you know we'd be sitting there at the table and not able to answer questions about Australia's anti-Semitism crisis or Jewish penis sizes. Thank you, marina Kamenev, for that episode.
Speaker 1:That was an excellent episode.
Speaker 2:It certainly took the series down an interesting direction, yeah it enhanced the series. It was a big episode, that one. It was very big. But today, as already foreshadowed, we wanted to tackle shame itself. What does Judaism have to say about shame? Does Judaism have a shame problem? So, to help us navigate this chewy and potentially dewy question, we have Rabbi Rauf Ganendi Put your hands together and Rabbi Alison Conyer Over to you, tammy.
Speaker 1:Rabbi Ralph Ganendi, oam is the Interfaith and Community Liaison at the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. He's also senior rabbi to Jewish Care Victoria.
Speaker 2:And Rabbi Alison Konya is a senior rabbi at Temple Beth Israel since March of 2024. Rabbi Alison brings extensive experience in Jewish education, interfaith dialogue, social action and a deep commitment to Israel and a community engagement and, of course, to answering questions such as the the ones we're about to ask ask you. Rabbi Allison so welcome. Thank you both for being with us here this afternoon perhaps we can start with you, rabbi Allison.
Speaker 1:Let's begin with any misconceptions that people might have about shame in Judaism.
Speaker 7:I thought you'd never ask. So I have to just start by saying that I'm also a psychologist and I work for a practice of a man who is also Jewish, and I said to him recently that I think that guilt and shame are the most useless emotions in the world. And he said to me, alison, they are the most important emotions and they're totally different. And I said huh. And so I listened to his interpretation. I thought about what, everything that I knew and thought and had this incredible, interesting awakening. So my understanding of guilt I'll start with guilt right Is you know, you feel guilty and it weighs you down and it consumes you and you don't do anything with it. And one of the things that he said is that he talked about how guilt is something that we feel about how we've treated another person or what we have or we haven't done. It's about our actions, so it's outward, focusing, whereas shame is something that's internal. It's about something that we feel internally but we don't actually do something about it.
Speaker 7:I'll add, jewishly, that shame is something that we often bestow upon others, like we shame someone or you're going to bring shame upon your family or upon your people if you do this.
Speaker 7:So these are things that I think is really interesting and I guess, looking at it Jewishly like where does it come Jewishly, because that's the rabbi part of me, so the Jewishly is, if you take a look back in the Torah, you see you have, like there's two different offerings. I know you probably don't want to hear it, it's not so exciting, but there's the Hashem offering and then there's a Chetat offering. There there's one that's a sin offering and one that's a guilt offering. So one is something that you do unintentionally, like you mess up, you hurt someone's feelings, you do something wrong but you didn't mean to. That's the chatat and the asham is. You know you did something wrong and you did it anyway, right. Both of them can lead to an internal feeling of shame, right, but Judaism focuses more on how we respond to that and what we do about it, not how we feel about it.
Speaker 1:OK, before I throw to you, ralph, I just have to say Rabbi Allison, you just said that shame and guilt are completely useless emotions. However, if Jews didn't experience that or people didn't experience that, you would be out of a job.
Speaker 7:A hundred percent. Yeah, I mean I could be a priest. Maybe, you know, I don't know. I think I changed my mind on that.
Speaker 1:By the way, Ralph, anything to add?
Speaker 8:Most certainly, and it's actually the very opposite of what you've just said. I'm going to give you my guilt-edged version of it and I think that we are predominantly we are a guilt culture. You know, the Catholics kind of compete with us for that appellation, but I think we would like to claim that we were the first there. But I think the Catholics kind of compete with us for that appellation, but I think we would like to claim that we were the first there. But I think we're more of a guilt culture than a shame culture. And I'll tell you why because the definition that I'm going to take is one that comes from Ruth Benedict. She was an anthropologist and she was talking about Japanese culture. There's something that Rabbi Jonathan Sachs later picked up on as well and she popularized. She said there are two kinds of society. She says there's a guilt culture, and then there's the shame culture, and ancient Greece, she said, like Japan, was a shame culture and Judaism and the religions influenced by it, most obviously Calvinism were guilt cultures. And so what's the difference between the two of them in this definition Is that in shame cultures what matters is the judgment of others.
Speaker 8:Acting morally means conforming to a public role, rules and expectations. You do what other people expect you to do. You follow society's conventions, and if you fail to do so, society is going to punish you by subjecting you to shame, ridicule, disapproval, humiliation, ostracism. But guilt cultures. And a guilt culture is what matters most is not what other people think, but what the voice of your conscience tells you. It's not what other people think, but what the voice of your conscience tells you. So living morally means living according to internalized moral imperatives. You shall and you shall not. So what matters is what you know to be right and wrong. So people in a shame culture are other-directed. They care about how they're going to look in the eyes of others or what they would say today. They care about their image. And people in guilt cultures are more inner directed. They care about what they know about themselves in moments of absolute honesty. So even if your public image is undamaged, if you know you've done wrong, it's going to make you feel pretty uneasy.
Speaker 2:Rabbi Allison, you mentioned before that, in addition to being senior rabbi, you're also a practicing psychologist as well, so interested in how shame arises in your therapeutic conversations with your Jewish clients, and also with your congregants as well.
Speaker 1:And can you give us their names and addresses?
Speaker 7:OK, that wasn't one of the questions you asked me, but it wasn't no tell me, that's okay I can I?
Speaker 1:can know that before you go on, just a peek behind the curtain is how dash and I work. He does this all the time. I have the questions out, the questions are ready to go and at the last minute he comes in there with a fresh.
Speaker 2:No one's going to report you for any disclosures of client details, but could you give us some sense of? We're particularly probably interested in your Jewish clients and your Jewish congregants, obviously.
Speaker 7:Yeah. So I'm not going to tell you that. But what I will say is that a lot of people come to me and say, oh Rabbi, I feel guilty about the fact that I haven't, you know, observed Shabbat, or I feel guilty about the fact that I swore, or I feel guilty about the fact that I actually don't believe in God. And I'm like, do you really feel guilty about it? Because I don't think you do. But you know, they feel like if they admit it and I do say you know wrong religion. But you know, because I think they're comfortable. And by saying it I feel like people feel like they appease their guilt, absolve themselves of their guilt. So you know, I think that that's actually not what people feel guilty about.
Speaker 7:But to me that's actually not about guilt or shame. It's about a lack of connection or an assumption that you're supposed to do something that you're not doing. And as a progressive Jew I said well, why do you feel that way? Does that really sit uncomfortably with you? Are you feeling something missing? Or how do you connect? So for me that's actually not even a conversation about guilt or shame. You know, for clients that come, whether they're Jewish or they're not Jewish, it. You know it manifests in in many different ways, but I do hope you ask me one of the questions that you want to do because I want to respond to one of your comments about how it?
Speaker 7:moves on.
Speaker 2:Sorry, Tammy, the nudge is clearly necessary today. Probably this actually goes back to one of the things that you said at the front, Rabbi Allison, about the wanting to understand. Are there any positive aspects to shame? Because the way that Tammy has framed this is that shame is inherently negative and a bad thing. But if we think about the Talmud or rabbinic commentary, where is shame used as a teaching moment, as an opportunity for some positive insight and learning? Let's start with you, Rabbi Ralph.
Speaker 8:I think that even though we've said, yes, we are more of a guilt culture, we still are going to let shame in, and shame is certainly. There are times, in fact, which I would say that even halachically, traditionally, that there is a place for shame. Maybe the example you know there are some sins, some things that people do that is wrong, that I think it is important that they acknowledge and articulate the sense of shame. So I think there are some things that some people should be ashamed of. You know, in cases of sexual abuse, or we had the Royal Commission into abuse, we've had Malka Leifa, and I think that is a place where shame is both necessary and maybe even imperative that it be expressed, and I think, halakhically as well, it would say that shame is sometimes necessary.
Speaker 8:You know, in some instances and another example of where there's a very kind of public shaming, if you like, from the Torah, is with the mitzorah, with the person becomes a leper, or it's called leper, but they got this horrible skin kind of condition. It was like wow, everyone could see that you have been doing something wrong because it's expressed. The Torah puts it expressed on your skin or, even worse, your house starts showing signs of this contamination, which was a moral contamination. So I think that was the Torah's acknowledgement that there is a necessity sometimes for shame. I think that it is terribly abused today and you may want to ask about that. I think the way that shame is being used in our cancel kind of culture I think is incredibly negative and abusive form of shame. But I do think that there is a legitimate and a positive source of shame.
Speaker 7:So I disagree with you. I think shame is horrific. I think that shame is look, just what we read in the Parshat yesterday. You know, when you talk about the sotai, you talk about the adulterous woman. It's this you know, the husband has this jealous fit and he subjects this woman, his wife, to this horrible public kind of procedure. Whether she's guilty or not of committing adultery is irrelevant. I mean it's irrelevant. There's a punishment and a consequence, but regardless, she's shamed. Whether she's proven innocent or not, she is shamed through the process and that is a stain on her being right.
Speaker 7:The fact that people feel so ashamed of what's happening in their home that they can't publicly go out and share what's happening. For the sake, Shlombayit, god forbid. We bring shame upon our house, our husband, our wife, our community, so we hold it in. I think it is a b'shayt. It's shameful that we use shame as an excuse and as an apologetic for terrible behavior, though I think that where I do agree with you, I just I would use it. You know, when you talk about Malka Laifa, you talk about people that do shameful acts, that do horrible acts. If people like bask in their shame, they don't move forward. Right, you have to feel bad. A chuvah process you have to. You know, you have to recognize you did something wrong. You feel bad. But if you just feel ashamed oh, I'm a bad person, woe is me, woe is me what do you do? Nothing. You just sit there and you just feel sorry for yourself. You're a terrible person. But if you transform that I did a wrong thing, I did something bad, now I'm going to turn this into action Then you feel guilty about how badly you did this. Now I have to change it right. That's where the chuvah process works.
Speaker 7:So I think that that's really important and I think that people often confuse. You know you talk about what are the key learnings? I wrote down key learnings, right. What are the things that that I think that people tend to place shame and this is where I agree with you earlier that people put shame upon others. Right, we place shame upon others, but the beautiful thing is that we don't have to accept it. Someone may think that something we do is shameful the way we dress or the way we act, the way things we say oh my God, you shouldn't do that. That's shameful, maybe. Maybe I think so, maybe not, you know. Maybe I recognize it and change it right. But it's important to be distinguished between shame and embarrassment, you know, and humiliation, and you know, and making excuses for the behaviors. So I have more, but I'm sure you have other things to say.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And for those of you watching or for those listening who aren't here, I keep doing an excited like yes motion every time Rabbi Ralph and Rabbi Allison disagree, and that's for two reasons One, because conflict is great for podcast ratings and two, because it's just in this day and age. It is so refreshing and amazing to see two people respectfully disagree and no one's storming out of the room. Isn't that so lovely? Yes, thank you. Thank you, rabbi Allison. I'm really glad that you brought up the example of the woman being shamed, which ties into gender roles and also sexuality, because my next question is as follows Do you think shame has historically been used to control behaviour around gender, sexuality or family roles in Judaism, and is that changing? And before you answer that, actually no, you answer first, and then I'll give an example from a core memory from high school at Moriah College. I am from Sydney. Did I mention that Conflict Good for the podcast?
Speaker 7:All right. Well, I have a bunch of things and a bunch of quotes to say which is interesting. Yes, I think absolutely. There's lots of things in our tradition and aspects that aren't designed to bring shame but, I think, inadvertently bring shame upon people. I think perhaps the initial intent wasn't shameful, but the impact is now shameful.
Speaker 7:So snewt, in general, right, it's designed to show respect for your body, respect for your relationship. What's snewt oh sorry, snewt is modesty. It's about the way that you dress and the way you cover yourself or how you carry yourself in different ways. So there's specific rules in our tradition for both men and women, but mostly for women. And you know, in terms of how you dress and how you behave. And if you do it in a non-sniwet type way, then people feel shameful. You know, like it's the modern day way of saying, oh well, she dressed like that, so she deserved to be raped. Not that our tradition goes that way, but for me as a progressive Jew, it feels some way. There's also so many laws about what a woman can and can't do and about how she has to go to her father or her husband to get permission to do things, which is really demeaning, as if a woman doesn't have a right on her own. And again, looking at where some of the rules were there, they were designed to protect the woman, but now, if they're kept in such a way, it inhibits and it traps the women.
Speaker 7:So these are just a few of my favorite quotes. Because of the talkative nature of women, the Torah gave bitter waters. So we're punished because we're talkative. There are three types of people whose talk is not to be believed those who play dice, people whose talk is not to be believed, those who play dice, those who lend with interest, and women. Women are light-minded. This is all from the Talmud.
Speaker 7:Right now, a woman is more prone to gossip than the man. Ten curses were given to Eve, including that she speaks much and keeps nothing in her heart. It is forbidden for a woman to raise her voice in song before men. A woman should not leave her house too frequently. Her husband may prevent her from doing so. And, of course, one of my favorite ones that you might say every day, but I certainly don't, is thank you, god, for not making me a woman. So my husband recognizes that every time I complain about womanly issues.
Speaker 7:But you know, that being said, there are a lot of things that I do think hold back women. I know you want me to stop, but I have to say one last thing. I don't want you to ever stop. All right, good, because I might not be aware of that, but just one thing that I just want.
Speaker 7:Just story in the Torah that I want to say that is just profoundly transformational for me is the story of Judah and Tamar, right? So the story of Judah and Tamar is a story where there's this weird biblical thing that if a husband dies, leaving his wife childless, she is to marry his nearest relative and the first child they have is in the name of the deceased husband. Slightly gross but slightly beautiful all at the same time, but you know, to try to keep the memory alive. That being said, tamar's husband died and there was no real living relative that was available. So she wanted to honor that tradition and honor her husband, but her father-in-law kept kind of keeping the youngest brother from her.
Speaker 7:Anyway, long story short, she, dressed up as a harlot, seduces her father-in-law, gets pregnant and then people shame her, say, oh, my goodness, look at her, she's such a slut. She went around. You know she's pregnant and she, you know she's dishonoring her husband blah blah blah. But she was a smart woman. What did she do? She dressed as a harlot.
Speaker 7:Her father-in-law didn't have anything Said here. I'll give you, you know, my cloak and my staff and you know, and I'll pay you back later. And he shame him publicly. What she said was whoever these belong to is the father of my child. And then Judah, who could have shamed her? He could have denied it, he could have lied, but he didn't. He actually instead said you know what? She is more righteous than I am and she did the right thing by the tradition, you know. And they all lived happily ever after. But from that story, despite all the weird layers of you know, we won't go there. What I find from this story is that something that could be considered shameful. If you take responsibility for the wrong you do or you keep your eye on your integrity of what's right, then, if you own it, you can take something that could be shameful and make it into a learning opportunity. So that's what I want to share.
Speaker 8:So first of all, I've got to disagree with some of the things you said. What I want to share.
Speaker 8:So, first of all, I've got to disagree with some of the things you said, and I'm certainly one of those who have spoken and written about the fact that women have been demeaned and excluded a lot in our tradition. But at the same time I think that the quotes I would say you're cherry picking them and that we can find that, but we can also find other quotes which do not subscribe to that Also. That's a kind of a Talmudic view. Eliezer Berkowitz, some of you may know a rabbi, philosopher, who lived here in Sydney for a while. He was a rabbi in Sydney at the central synagogue there, but he's written a book also speaking about how the attitudes, even biblically and Talmudically, change towards women and that we don't, yes, even biblically and Talmudically, change towards women and that we don't, yes, some of the Talmudic rabbis were classic great misogynists, but you know a lot of us. So that's why we agree, yes, but there was a change, has been a change in attitude and I think that, yes, you know it's also when you've got to look at which communities, sort of in the ultra-Orthodox communities, there is still that kind of perception not all of them, but in a lot of them, in the Haredi community of one particular guy. He's studying in the Satna Yeshiva but he got interested in the Chabad philosophy and those guys there they like to shame each other, by the way, they see each other as opponents and he was kicked out and shamed at the Satna Yeshiva because he was caught with a copy of the Tanya the Chabad handbook, as we know so well here in Australia. So there is certain within ultra-Orthodox communities more than kind of the community that I come from, which would be the more modern Orthodox kind of communities there is still that very strong shaming and I think particularly women are exposed to it. But I think things are hopefully changing because it's been exclusion within Orthodoxodoxy and in certain parts of orthodoxy, still very strong exclusionary things towards women, towards LGBT, towards anyone who maybe expresses views that are contrary to what is the conforming position. So that still exists. But I like to think that it is changing in certain circles and that there is, instead of looking at, you know the kind of orthodoxy had this, you know who can we leave out, you know it was very exclusionary and you can't come in and you're not allowed and I always, you know, sort of said you know, can we stop with who we're excluding and look for a change in who we can include, and that we are a very big tent as well.
Speaker 8:One of the things I wrote about in my book is the difference between the Ark of Noah, the Ark of Noah and the tent of Avraham. Because Noah is an insular, you close yourself up in the Ark. You don't want to see the waves out there, you don't want to see what's happening to people out there, whereas Avraham and Sarah open themselves. It's an open tent and saying who can we invite in? And let's invite everyone in, and that's why at a chuppah, by the way, that's one of the explanations why a chuppah is completely open. Let's be open to the world instead of closed off to it.
Speaker 1:Dash and I were discussing this question in the green room and I said perhaps a story where this came up in my own life was in high school. I went to Moriah College in Sydney Jewish modern orthodox school and one of my core memories and my friend's core memories is one night at this camp, which is a how do we describe Counterpoint? We had a volunteer here who what's your name? Danielle, and Danielle, can you explain what is counterpoint? Camp brainwashing and jewish indoctrination okay for students, students in year 9 to 11, at the range of jewish schools just past its 50th year since it was first brought out to australia in 1974 it came for the first time.
Speaker 1:okay, a generous reading would say that Counterpoint is a camp to encourage and inspire Jewish children to have a love of their faith or their culture. We can hold both those truths at once. And one of the evenings I was in year 11 and we were promised the girls were promised an evening with a woman who was going to teach us how to have good sex, and I was so excited. I was like, finally someone's going to talk to me about it. We went into a room with this woman and this woman sat us down and said in order to have good sex, it needs to be with your husband and you need to have not had sex with anyone else before that, because if you do, then into that bed you are not just bringing your husband, but you're bringing all the men that you've slept with before and all those experiences. So, to take a leaf out of your book, rabbi Allison, you said that we should turn these into learning experiences. What can we learn? I'm going to ask anyone in the audience. What can we learn? Anyone?
Speaker 3:Not everything you get told at school is correct.
Speaker 1:Good on you. Thank you for that good on you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. In a moment we're going to open it up to the floor and we're going to give you the opportunity to ask some further questions of rabbi allison and rabbi ralph about the question of shame in judaism, or we're gonna have a little bit of fun. We're gonna see how this goes. We're gonna play the wild card, and the wild card is what's something that you're deeply shamed of, or maybe just a little bit ashamed of, that you'd like to share with a rabbi and the rest of the ashamed to admit world and those in the room here today.
Speaker 1:Whoever's brave enough to share something that they're ashamed to admit will get some merch.
Speaker 2:We've got some TJI merch which we'll be happy to gift to you after we finish today. So just have a think about that, marinate on that question for a moment, and I think let's have some fun in the remaining time that we've got.
Speaker 1:It can be a big question, like a big something that you're deeply ashamed to admit, or something like small, like I didn't pay for a ticket to Limord and I snuck in here today. Okay, we won't tell anyone.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to go off script again, Tammy.
Speaker 1:I will allow it.
Speaker 2:Possibly not going to annoy Rabbi Ralph, because I consider Ralph a bit of a mentor and I've kind of. I think maybe I've granted the ability to ask this question. So, ralph, I'm aware that throughout your years as a rabbinical leader and someone who is, let's say, pushes the envelope a little bit within orthodoxy, you've been a strong advocate for the place of LGBTI plus congregants. You've also you have, I think for a long time pushed things with regard to the place of women within Orthodox congregations as well, although I'm sure there were some say you didn't push it far enough. But anyway, the point is that you have been someone that has pushed some of these questions. Am I right in thinking that you have experienced shame from your Orthodox colleagues and from the larger structure, of which I won't name, that oversees Orthodoxy in Australia?
Speaker 1:We want names and addresses.
Speaker 8:Well, I write about it in the book so it's out there. But yes, I think probably one of the most pointed images or reflections I have of that was when in the early days and I do think that in the early days when I was still rabbi at Mount Scopus in Beit Ha'aron, we introduced then which was seen and it seems almost ridiculous to think about it today, but we just introduced the fact that women could carry the Torah in an Orthodox congregation during the Shabbat service. You know, we passed the Torah to women and I was hauled. I was a young rabbi, I just arrived, hadn't been long in Melbourne and I was part of the Rabbinical Council Victoria, and they called me to the Inquisition and it really felt like the Inquisition because they just lined up there and I came into this room, daniel in the lion's den, kind of felt like it and it was. You know what you're doing and because it had been reported in the Jewish news, what you're doing, you know it's not right and it is shameful and how can you do it. And then it was carried on at a rabbinic conference where one leading rabbi at the time said this little rebeler, which was quite clever, but at the time it really felt like a public shaming there in front of all the other rabbis. You know this little rebel and a rebel you know what does he know? Anyway, it actually still gets to me. So I think part of it is as you say.
Speaker 8:You talk about the stain of shame and that it's really hard to rub that out. Would you say you grew from it, though? Oh, most definitely. Yeah, I think I just grew more bolshie and you know that kind of thing just brought it out, and we, you know, stood by it, and I had some good friends who certainly supported me in that. A lot of you would know them. It was both Mark and Johnny Baker. You know Mark loved this kind of thing, you know, come on, show them, ralph and really supported me and helped me find my voice and give me the courage to express my voice.
Speaker 1:Rabbi Ralph, in a lot of communities, taking words that are originally used to degrade or demean you and reclaiming them as your own can often help overcome that shame. So are you ready to have a t-shirt that just says Rebela on it? Because if so, I make merch and I would be happy to do that. Would you wear it?
Speaker 8:I think so. I mean I like your one. So as long as we can just merchandise, we can give a special price to those who are here.
Speaker 1:Whoever tells us the most the juiciest, chewiest, shameful thing this afternoon, we'll get a Rebella t-shirt. Okay. Rebella with a cause.
Speaker 8:Someone just said yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:So, look, we've got 15 minutes left to go. Don't be shy. Really keen to hear what your shames are. Or if anything that we've just been prodding Rabbi Ralph and Rabbi Alison about has provoked you into a question or a thought, share it with us.
Speaker 1:Hello Karen.
Speaker 6:Hello, I'd first like to say I like the way Rabbi Ralph is shamelessly plugging his book. You picked that up. I'd like to ask both for a bonium. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the techniques to get recalcitrant husbands to give their wife a get would be shame. Is that correct and does it?
Speaker 1:work. Can you also explain what the get is?
Speaker 7:Well, briefly, because it's more of an issue for you, but the get is a Jewish divorce and in our community if a woman is of childbearing age, then we actually send them all to the Orthodox. Because if she decides she doesn't want, if she doesn't get a get from her husband who has to give her this legal bill of divorce, then if she were ever to get married and have children, that child will have a status that cannot be actually undone. There's nothing we can do to undo that status. So it's a really, even though we think it's ridiculous, it actually can't be undone. And if the child grows up and decides they want to be orthodox, they want to marry someone and live an observant lifestyle, they'll have a hard time. So it is something that is a problem. But if they decide they don't want to do it, the husband doesn't want to do it and they don't care one way or another, we'll still marry them, like we still will.
Speaker 7:Not in the progressive movement won't require it. So again, is that shaming someone? And again, you can talk about some of the things. I know there's some pretty interesting things that people do, whether it's shaming, whether it's embarrassing or whether it's calling out. Again, I don't think that they're shaming the person. They're calling them out for various things, and whether or not that person chooses to feel shame for their actions is a different story. So I don't know that we can shame someone if someone doesn't accept that and see it as a shameful act.
Speaker 8:Thanks for that, alison.
Speaker 8:I think it is one of the elements of Jewish law and halakha that is a shameful one that we have not found a way of liberating women from that awful condition of where the man refuses to give the get and they therefore can never marry somebody in orthodox, or if they go and marry someone else, then their children are damned and all sorts of things.
Speaker 8:And I think it is something that I really agree with Blue Greenberg saying you know, where there's a rabbinic world, there's a halachic way, and I really believe that it is something that we failure of orthodoxy on all levels, and there have been people who have suggested solutions and options which have not been accepted.
Speaker 8:In this case, whether we call it shaming and it has been done, and it is done in orthodox communities, if there's a man known to be refusing, a recalcitrant husband, refusing to give his wife the gift, then I know that I say as well I don't think that person, that man, should be allowed to belong to this. She'll never mind have a position of honor or even called up to the Torah, because what he is doing is something which is so egregious it should not be allowed. And so I do think that there publicly, and even publishing his name, as is done in some places, whether it's in the local Jewish, the Jewish news you can put an advert in in the Jewish news or whether it's even in the community. I do think that that is a case where, hopefully, and it has worked on some occasions, whether it's through the embarrassment of Yom Kippur, or that it has been because very often those men present themselves in public as being these wonderful community figures, when what they're doing is so dastardly.
Speaker 1:I think forget about the Australian Jewish news. They should have a billboard outside Yumi's Kosher Seafood in Riponley, because that's where everyone's looking right. Any other questions?
Speaker 4:Tammy, big fan, thank you. My question sort of leads on from that and I guess is there a role for people who perhaps don't feel guilt and engage in like repeated problematic behaviour In the case of an adulterer maybe they're a serial adulterer Is there a role that shame plays in perhaps getting them to stop that behaviour?
Speaker 1:Good question.
Speaker 8:I can think of an example. There was a very well-known rabbi in South Africa who was a recidivist adulterer, serial adulterer, and his behaviour was only stopped when it was publicised and in a sense I think there it was the actual public shame which led to cessation, stopping that kind of activity. So I think it did work. I'm not sure if it will always work and you can probably comment from your experience, particularly in the psychology field.
Speaker 7:Yeah, so I feel like I have a more psychology answer to that, because it is something that I deal with on a regular basis. So, again, what? Again, you know what causes that behavior. You know what generates that behavior. Is it a disrespect for the partner? Is it a lack of psychology? Call it theory of mind, understanding something from someone else's perspective, like actually understanding. Is there an issue of lack of empathy? Is there a splitting in their mind between what they're doing and how it impacts somebody? Is it an OCD Like? Is it literally an obsession, you know, is it something that they actually can't control? Is there something you know compulsive nature to it? So you know, for me, someone that is a compulsive adulterer, there's something else going on beyond it, that it's not just a matter of sitting down and you know, and talking to your rabbi, or even shaming them. It might it temporarily, but if there's something else underneath it, that's something else underneath that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 1:What's amazing, Ralph, is that that community came together and believed whoever was saying that this person is committing these acts. I know that it's quite difficult sometimes to believe, particularly the women who are saying that this behaviour is Well.
Speaker 2:if he made his way around the entire Johannesburg community, then there's every chance everyone knew what he was up to. We had another question.
Speaker 1:And what is his name and address?
Speaker 2:And hello to our South African listeners. Great to have you with us.
Speaker 6:Mine's not a question, a much less juicy admission, but as a long-time listener and a big fan, I think you'll relate to this one, Tammy. Until earlier this year I'm ashamed to admit I couldn't ride a bicycle welcome to the club and I have now had lessons as an adult, with lots of five-year-olds having their own lessons wow you're doing better than Tammy, we might might add, because you still can't ride, can you?
Speaker 1:I can ride, just not well.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Just going back to the conversation we were having, is it the decent Jewish thing to do to shame somebody into behaving better?
Speaker 8:It's not the first response, no, and I think that shaming and embarrassing there's a whole set of rules about, and saying one of the worst things you can do is to embarrass the person in public it says yes, it's like actually killing them. So I would think it is something kind of those last resorts only when you have tried every other possible way perhaps to stop the behavior which is damaging and harmful to them and to others. I think then only, and, as I say, that's why we prefer guilt to shame.
Speaker 7:But I'm going to reframe and use neither of those words because I don't see it as guilt or shame, because I think we I think we should never just like you, should never hit a child, you should never shame another human, human being. There's no excuse for that. But by calling out somebody or saying and not letting them, that's a consequence for them. That's not shaming them. You're not allowed to be a member of the synagogue. We're not going to call you for an aliyah. We're not going to take your number. We're going to announce to people what you do.
Speaker 7:To me it's a consequence. Just be aware, because I'm thinking any other women out there if you know that this guy hasn't divorced his wife, you stay far away. I'm not shaming him. I'm just actually doing my. You know my civil duty, my public diligence, to be able to inform people what you do. So to me it's like are you purposely doing this to make them feel shame and awful and horrible, or are you doing it because you want them to change their behavior? So I just, to me it's a reframe in your mind, even though the impact may be the same or different.
Speaker 3:So I've always thought that there's two kinds of shame. There's shame and there's irrational shame. And the way I see it is that our community is changing and what would have been shameful in the 70s like I had divorced parents that was something that was shameful. Then, of course, when my children decided not to marry Jews, I felt a certain shame about it. These come under the heading of what I call irrational shame. Do you understand the difference? And now I've got something. It's happening in the community all the time and I'm going to tell you guys because it's irrational shame, but one of my children has decided she doesn't want anything to do with us anymore and it's been nine years of estrangement from her. So I'm telling you now because I'm not going to feel irrational shame about it Just a question.
Speaker 9:In the Catholic Church, I think there's this idea of confessional where you can go to an equivalent priest and ask for forgiveness for sins.
Speaker 8:Is there something equivalent in the Jewish religion? Oh, we love confession as well.
Speaker 8:Go to shul on Yom Kippur. Al-kheit, al-kheit, al-kheit. It is the Al-Kheit and the ashamnu bagadnu. It's a collective kind of confession, and it's felt that you know, if you're not specifying who, you don't go down the list and the soul and for the process of tshuva, which Alison mentioned before. And coming back to what you said is that we believe in tshuva and the persons. Most people have that capacity to change. I think, though, that I just want to mention I mean, we haven't spoken about that you know, there's the shaming culture of today, which so many people in our community, over the last 18 months, for example, have been exposed to, and that kind of canceling that kind of shame is something which I think is not acceptable in any Jewish forum, never mind a moral forum.
Speaker 7:Can I just also say there's also a caveat on Yom Kippur, but also every night you go to slate, there's a traditional like you know, forgive me for the wrongs that I've done during the day. So it's trying to go into bed with a clean conscious. But the other thing that our tradition says, which I think is brilliant, is that you can't do something wrong knowing that it's wrong and knowing that you're going to ask for forgiveness, that there is a constant. You don't have to wait for the end of the year, you don't have to go through somebody else to get forgiveness. It's something that you're supposed to be constantly, every day. Have I lived the way I wanted to do? Have I acted the way? It's just like? It's like a mirror to reflect, which I think is a beautiful thing. But I want to jump on what you've.
Speaker 7:We talk about it. We publicize the fact that it's happening to jews, yada, yada, yada. What we don't talk about and I think is shameful even though I said we should there's no such thing. But you know, what I think is a like is is really horrific is that when people disagree and they have different points of views, that they get shamed, that jews that don't feel, you know, know that if they want to criticize Israel or they do, or they think Israel is doing everything, that's great. Either way, I don't care, you know. But like they can't actually sit together without feeling ashamed that they don't feel safe in the space.
Speaker 7:And two things happened in the last few weeks. One is in Israel. There was a reformed congregation. They were showing a film that talked about Palestinian and Israeli suffering and reconciliation and their synagogue was stoned by Jewish people and people were hurt. That happened. And then recently there is a reformed rabbi in Paris who was getting death threats from the Jewish community because she criticized something that Israel is doing. Now I don't really care, and I've said this at my synagogue. Like what everyone's politics are, you know, you can be whatever, I don't care, right, left, whatever, it doesn't matter. Like, if you're going to disagree, disagree respectfully, don't cancel another Jew. There's enough people out there that are doing that to us. To me that is the biggest shame that that I have people coming to me saying I want to feel safe in the Jewish community, but I don't feel like I have a space to to give my voice. Whether I agree or disagree with them is irrelevant. There needs to be a space that we can safely and respectfully disagree.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I know that Rabbi Ralph has been a mentor of yours, dash, for quite some time. Rabbi Allison, we've just met, but you're my mentor now, so before you go, we need to read the outro. I need two volunteers Katia, come on down, and someone I haven't heard from today. Hello, katja Ariel is in the audience today. She released a book this week.
Speaker 5:The book is called. It's called Ferryman, the Life and Death Work of Ephraim Finch called.
Speaker 1:Ferryman, the Life and Death Work of Ephraim Finch, and Katja hasn't officially been invited on the podcast, but she will be.
Speaker 10:And PJ you have been listening to. A Shame to Admit, with Melbourne's favourite Jewish adjacent mensch, dash Lawrence, and Sydney's own state-of-the-art sprinter, Tammy Sussman. This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music by Jonathan Jenks.
Speaker 5:If you like the podcast, forward it to your therapist. Ask them if it counts as self care.
Speaker 10:If you need to move some money around before the end of financial year, consider me, consider sponsoring future episodes of this show or post cash to Tammy at.
Speaker 5:As always. Thanks for your support and look out for Dash and Tammy next week. Thank you.