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From: rhendel@mcs.drexel.edu (Russell Hendel)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 21:03:05 -0400
Subject: The Wedding Tragedy--A possible start at a solution

I of course was shocked by the story of a Rabbi being beaten up at a
wedding for believing in Israel. I consider the shock reaction of his
neice (even 30 years later) to be normal.

It would be wrong to simply ignore such a posting (And I hope there are
other responses)

It is also wrong to just say "It is wrong"

We must try and find a solution.

I would like to try and suggest a solution from fire drills and rape
resistance classes.

Eveyone knows that fire can hurt and you must leave the building. But
unless you practice (ie.. the fire drill) you might leave in a hurry and
get hurt. You must practice responses---that is the lesson of fire
drills.

Similarly everyone knows that rape is wrong/bad. When I was teaching at
the University of Louisville they were giving sessions in Louisville to
deal with aggressive behavior on dates. They weren't just telling the
girls to state >>I don't want to>>. The girls practicied various simple
physical retaliation techniques at the onset of agression.  In a radio
interview one woman put it this way: >>The classes gave me the self
confidence to react properly in a difficult situation. Without this
practice I might not have had the courage to do these simple actions>>

So there we have it...practice is an antitode for things we know but are
not likely to do in charged situations.

This suggests augmenting the Yeshiva curriculum (across the board) with
How to classes dealing with people who really infuriate us. You see
the solution is not to tell people not to lose their temper...Baruch
Goldstein had little children dying in his hands...he had a right to be
angry...he just channeled that anger in the wrong way.

I believe it is wrong to oppose the state of Israel. But that is not how
you cure someone who believes the state is wrong. Rather you must
channel his anger in other ways.

As an extreme example suppose people still believe in anger..couldn't
these coureses at least teach them not to do it at a wedding. Think
about it. The story of a girl watching her Rabbinic uncle being beaten
up for his beliefs would be sufficient to suggest sympathy. Why mention
the wedding? The answer is simple...it shows the animal like spontaneity
of the people--they weren't just wrong..they weren't even thinking.

I think if we encourage classes like this across the board (and labeled
those sects who don't teach them) we could at least stop the severity of
the violence.  A fire drill can't prevent a fire from hurting you
anymore than a rape prevention class can prevent a rapist from hurting
you but it can stop certain cases and ameliorate the damage in others.

We speak all the time about classes/groups etc. Why not have sessions on
How to handle the people you really hate. We could even have a volley
of postings on mail-jewish for a while with sources and other
things. Allow me to conclude with one of my favorite stories about
losing your temper:

>>In the town of Rav Chaiim Brisker, The Rav Solveitchicks grandfather, there
>>was a custom by nonjews to throw bread crumbs into the water wells on Pesach.
>>Just think what JDL or Charedim would do in that town. What would you do?

>>Anyway, they came to Rav Chaiim and asked him what to do. "Simple" said
>>Rav Chaiim. "In every well with a bread crumb pour an inkwell (so the
>>non jews can't drink either)." And indeed, that was the last Pesach
>>that these non jews bothered this town.

Well do we say every day....(If only) We had Rebeeim (judges) like in
former days

Russell Jay Hendel; Phd;ASA; rhendel@ mcs drexel edu