So over the next few days will come the final push to get the house clean from that last particle of bread, that hidden Cheerio, that elusive broken cracker.
Pressure on families, but most especially on women can be come intense.
Menus get planned, shopping is done, and we get ready for hopefully a hopefully meaningful observance.
For some families, there is the chametz that goes uncleaned. It’s the chametz of abuse, be it sexual, physical, insulting or humiliating.
Your house might be the cleanest one on the block come Passover, but if you are hitting your wife or child, if you are placing your family or the children of other families in danger, you are missing the entire point of Passover.
This holiday is about freedom. Leaving Egypt is a universal concept. We all have an “Egypt” we’re trying to leave. For some of us, “Egypt,” is to lose weight. For others, freedom, means not being dependent on drugs or alcohol.
If you are a survivor of abuse, may you find strength in the Haggadah of change this Passover season. May true “seder” or order come to your life. May you get help that will end your suffering immediately.
And if you are an abuser and have the courage enough to read these lines, then stop your hitting, stop your language, stop your molestation. May your journey out of “Egypt” include therapy.
There is nothing weak about getting therapy. It’s the strong among us who can admit there is a challenge to overcome.
But if you are hitting, molesting or humiliating, you are not “kosher for Passover.” Fact is, you are treif when it comes to what is really important in life.
Hug your wife.
Tell your children that you love them.
And make everyone in your life feel that they can be safe around you.
That is true freedom.

If another person approaches me and asks me when am I going to write a story about sexual molestation in the Reform and Conservative communities, I think I’m going to scream.
Instead of fixing what is broken, facing up to the transgressions breeding in this current system, there’s always someone else to blame.
For the record, do some research and read what this reporter wrote about a leader in the community several years ago. Oh, by the way, the perp was a member of a Reform temple. I know that doesn’t count now for some.
But here’s my favorite story of life’s hypocrisy.
I chair a once-a-year shul function. I am directed each year by my rabbi to call an individual of his choosing. That individual receives an $800-$1,000 honoraria from the Pearlstone Foundation through the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. The scholar-in-residence comes to shul, usually speaks on a Friday night and a Shabbat afternoon.
Years ago when this program was in its infancy I invited a respected yeshiva rabbi to be our speaker.
When he got up to speak, instead of first addressing the issue of the day, he went off on a tangent, attacking me by name and my rabbi by name. Why? Because on the Associated’s Pearlstone brochure publicizing the various scholar-in-residence programs, his name was listed along side a noted lesbian feminist, who was performing at a nearby synagogue.
The rabbi absolutely attacked us, insisting that had known he would be on the same list as the woman, he never would have accepted the gig at our shul.
About a year ago, that rabbi’s career came took an interesting turn when molestation victims outed him as a sexual predator.
The lesbian feminist singer, by the way, never molested anyone.
So please, something is broken in this system. It needs to be turned inside out, dissected and examined.
We are having little difficulty finding more and more victims of sexual molestation. We aren’t looking for them, they are searching for us.
So are we “Orthodox Bashing?”
No, but are we sexual predator bashing?
Stay tuned.

Oh, how painful it is when the prey becomes the predator.
And oh, how many missed the point of the February 23rd cover story on sexual abuse.
The story wasn’t about the predators, it was about the victims.
Why is that we are so embarrassed for the families of predators?
Is it like they don’t know their children?
Is it like they turned their children in to the authorities for incarceration? Hardly the fact.
Perhaps if more predators knew that they would be humiliating their parents by name and their brothers and sisters by name, then maybe that would be a deterrent.
For the people who criticized the story because a convicted predator’s name was used, there were thwo who come to mind.
One is the woman who attacked me verbally at the grocery store. Brave, I must say. Very brave. Not once did she ask me how “Steve,” the victim was doing with his life. Not once did she want to know the extent of the pain he has had to live through.
Not once.
Instead, it was all about embarrassing the predator’s family.
Please.
Steve should only hope that one day he can walk down the aisle for his wedding pain free.
By the way, nobody in the perpetrator’s family acted heroically here. Indeed, their predator son is only in jail because he got busted soliciting sex from 11 and 13 year old boys on the Internet. If he didn’t go for an FBI sting, he’d still be out there in the world of the predator, no thanks to family members or those who knew him.
The second “brave” example was the lady who said she was related to one of my heroes in this community. How that deceased community leader, would absolutely disapprove of the brazen, cowardly, hardly Orthodox way she handled herself via voicemail.
It’s all very sickening to me. Protect the predator. Go ahead, until one day G-d forbid, the prey is in your very own family.
Finally, there was a piece to the February 23 article that was omitted, to not distract the readers from the sexual abuse theme. It was a portion of the story covering a common factor of many sexual abuse victims, substance abusers and people in recovery. Of several people interviewed, all told a story of how a rebbe slapped or punched them or a son while in yeshiva.
One mother told of how her son, an ADHD child, had a piece of duct tape placed over his mouth and ripped off.
Another told of how her child was told to pick up garbage in the classroom while the other students learned. His offense, he couldn’t sit still.
Yet another told of coming home from school some days with black and blue marks all over his body. This was from his “teacher.” And that victim is having nothing of religious Judaism anymore.
The excuse: “oh, that’s the old European style of teaching.”
Beating, humiliation, that’s the style?
Maybe we should ask more of our sexual molestation survivors, more of our friends in substance abuse recover if they were hit by their rabbis in yeshiva?
Or is that a question that will once again result in well-thought, “courageous” anonymity on the blogosphere or the weak voicemails left at two in the morning.
Come on community, be stronger. Be Jewish. Face this issue. Admit that we have survivors of sexual abuse. Let’s find them and help them begin a journey of true healing.
But never forget – it’s about the victim now.
Predators, you’ve had your demented way.
It’s over. We will find you out. And your relatives who share a similar last name won’t be happy with us, with me. But it’s the predators you should be angry about, whether they molested, humiliated, hit or abused in some other way.
Enough.

My husband & I have eaten at the Sunday brunch a few times with my husband’s large family. We were treated well, the food was good & plentyful. We are very satisfied with this restaurant.