Every now and again, I feel the urge to write something really controversial. I mean the sort of thing that is bound to bring an avalanche of outrage to The Jewish Press letters page with demands for me to be shipped back to the UK.
To give you an example; were I to write that I consider Joe Biden to be suffering from advanced dementia or Donald Trump to be the worst Republican candidate for the 2024 election, I think the reaction would make Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 CE sound like a baby’s hiccup.
Fortunately, I am not going to write either of those things.
The controversial thing I do want to write about is much, much more heated than any of those topics. I want to write about psychology and psychologists.
I am prompted to this act of rashness by something that happened at a program for Orthodox Jews I was speaking at. In my experience, the highlight of these events is the “Ask the Rabbi Panel.” This one was no exception. People who had not attended any of the rabbonim’s lectures or talks joined an audience of over a thousand attendees.
This Q&A session got off to a slow start with questions that were quite unoriginal. These events really take off when the rabbonim/rebbetzins are able to show their “human” side and provoke smiles and laughter.
Suddenly a question was asked that offered exactly such an opportunity. “What does the panel think about parents spanking kids?”
I was invited to answer first and decided to inject a touch of humor.
“King Solomon said, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’…yet… Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe wrote that times have changed and that model no longer works.” I paused then added, “However; I would like to change time back again!”
This provoked much laughter especially when I elaborated on my point.
“Hashem has created two hemispherical areas of the anatomy at the top of the legs towards the back of the body that are perfectly designed for this purpose.” The laughter reached new heights. “An infrequent spank on that area when the child’s behavior has been very bad, will do no harm at all and probably do a lot of good.”
The audience burst into applause.
An unusual feature of those clapping was how many were young parents with little children. Their reaction to what I said, both afterwards and throughout the next day, left my wife and I amazed. One said, “Thank you so much for what you said. We so needed to hear that. Many of us are really conflicted about how to discipline our kids.” We started to count the number of parents who expressed such sentiments. The number was an astonishing sixty-four with not one word of criticism! Not one word of criticism? I began to wonder if (despite the kippot, black hats and streimels), the folk were Jewish after all.
Later the next day someone did come to complain (Phew! It was a Jewish crowd).
This lady was not a young mother, she was a psychologist of about my own age who practices in California (well where else?).
Her rather docile husband stood beside her as she began probing with one eyebrow raised higher than the other, “Tell me, did you get any flak for what you said at last night’s panel?” I explained that the answer was quite the opposite.
“Well,” she continued unimpressed, “I think you have to realize that in your position, as a rabbi, you have to be careful what you say.”
Her husband looked on with a blank expression as she continued, “What people would have actually heard you say, was that it is alright to hit your child with a belt!”
This moment became one of the proudest of my entire year. I kept totally silent.
I almost pointed out that her argument was a total non sequitur and her logic was puerile. I nearly asked, “If a rabbi gives someone permission to drink one “l’chaim” at a simcha, will the person “hear” that he has been permitted to become an alcoholic?”
Instead, I simply smiled.
I think it was seeing her husband listening placidly and looking more docile than ever, that helped me overcome the urge to respond. It was also the fact that she had heard that I had received sixty-four expressions of gratitude from couples struggling to bring up their children, without that shaking her certainty that only she possessed the truth. There would have been no point.
I am friendly with a brilliant young man who has just received his PhD in psychology from England’s Cambridge University. He astonished me by stating that, “The claim that psychology is a science, is not without controversy.” He continued by adding, “It is very hard to locate or identify any novel fact or discovery that psychology has found that would not have been known without it.”
I expressed my skepticism at that statement and the next day he emailed me an article from one of the UK’s leading psychologists, Tom Stafford in the British Psychological Society’s magazine entitled, “Isn’t it all just obvious?”
My own year studying psychology at college and 23 years as a Campus Rabbi, counseling psychology students who felt they were wasting their time and wanted to give up their degree, showed support for this argument.
But I am still unwilling to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
To my mind, authentically qualified and licensed psychologists who have a good reputation and know the difference between a logical argument and non sequitur, fulfill a critical role. It is actually one of the most ancient of all, practiced by the first Jew, Avraham Avinu, who sought the advice and help of others.
There is though one critical condition for Jews like you, I and the thousand Jews laughing at that ” Ask the Rabbi Panel.” The advice and guidance must come from authentic Jewish sources that fit religious Jewish people in order to offer successful Jewish solutions.
