The author of this post prefers to remain anonymous.
Content Warning: sexual assault, abuse
Birkat HaGomel for Survivors of Assault and Abuse
When I came to university here I started having what the counseling center identified as flashbacks of some kind. I’d come to Shabbat services and would have to step out in a panic. The funny thing was no one knew what I was flashing back to. Over the course of the next two years, I learned that I’d been sexually abused by someone in my childhood synagogue.
I have always grounded my Jewish identity in community. Both of the congregations I’d grown up in were like families to me. When I found out I had been assaulted, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be a part of this family anymore. A family that hadn’t protected me or hadn’t been able to protect me. And a family whose member had hurt me so deeply. I wasn’t sure how to feel safe as part of this family again. But I really wanted to.
I knew that I needed a way to reconnect with my Judaism and with my Jewish community. I searched for rituals, but found tradition lacking. While a few new rituals had sprung up in this void, none felt right to me. Many were geared towards situations irrelevant to me, like the menstrual cycle or Shabbat after being assaulted, or facing an abuser in court. And most of these rituals also lacked a halachic grounding.
I noticed, however, that many of these rituals were grounded in preexisting traditions like Shabbat evening candles, the tallis katan, or mikvahot. So, I began to scour Jewish tradition for rituals that might be relevant to assault. Which is how I came across Birkat HaGomel.
Birkat HaGomel is a blessing expressing gratitude. It's traditionally recited in the presence of a minyan after surviving something dangerous and scary. The blessing can be summed up as saying “I’m back, things are good now, thank you God and please keep it that way.” To which the congregation responds, “yeah, God, let’s keep it that way.”
Birkat HaGomel is much more popular in some communities than others. Although I’d never heard of it, in some communities it’s recited after illnesses, giving birth, journeys, and for many other reasons.
However, it was important to me to understand whether Birkat HaGomel was halachically relevant to recovery after sexual assault. I scoured the Talmud and its progenitures, looking for the origins of the bracha and its changes in application. While I found no evidence that Birkat HaGomel has been used by survivors of assault or abuse, the more I studied the blessing the more it seemed to apply to survivors.
One of the first texts I studied was Berakhot 54b which establishes Birkat HaGomel. In the passage, I found more stories than rules. In fact, the Talmud derives the need for the blessing from a story in Psalm 107. The story follows a group of men who start out as seafarers, then desert-travelers, before recovering from an illness and being released from prison. I think survivors of abuse can relate to each of these four experiences.
The seafarers are obligated to say Birkat HaGomel because G-d has saved them from storms. The psalm describes G-d calming storms as powerless sailors cry out to G-d for help.
Survivors who have felt powerless to stop their abuse might relate to these sailors. Survivors of domestic abuse or partner abuse might imagine the sailors frantically adjusting sails in the harsh wind and rain just as they may have tried to keep their family or relationship intact. Other survivors might wish for a life before the public shame rustled up by the strong winds and crashing waves. Still more survivors might compare their own distress to the storm.
Like the sailors, survivors can feel helpless in the face of abuse and the emotional turmoil that follows. And with Birkat HaGomel, they can thank G-d for comforting them in their time of distress and powerlessness. They can also thank G-d for giving them the strength they needed to survive the abuse or get out of the situation.
But for survivors, like for the sailors, their journey isn’t over. After the abuse, many survivors also have to trek through the desert. Desert travelers recite Birkat HaGomel because G-d helped them find a city when they were lost and dying of hunger and thirst. The travelers in the psalm don’t pray and their spirits have “failed,” but G-d still rescues them and helps them find a city. Similarly, survivors of abuse may struggle to find the support and resources they need. Along the way, they may even give up hope that help exists.
After enduring the desert, sailors become ill. Many survivors experience mental illness. 30-50% of all rape survivors experience PTSD, and more than 90% experience symptoms of trauma for at least a couple weeks. The sailors’ illness and our current knowledge of post-abuse PTSD teach us that trauma symptoms are part of the experience of surviving abuse or assault. Because Birkat HaGomel is also being recited over healing from the emotional aftermath of abuse or assault, survivors should wait to recite it until they’re experiencing less distress.
The Talmud section on illness, however, does cite one troubling passage. The psalm describes the sick sailors as “fools who suffered [from sickness] for their sinful ways, and for their iniquities,” (18). Despite this, when they call out to G-d, they are saved from “the gates of death.” Similar language is echoed in the blessing:
הַגּומֵל לְחַיָּבִים טובות. שֶׁגְּמָלַנִי כָּל טוב
ha-gomel t’chayavim tovim she-g’malani kol tuv
who rewards the undeserving with goodness, and who has rewarded me with goodness.
While the word “undeserving” is somewhat troubling, other translations actually use the word “culpable” or “guilty.” Unable to find commentary on this word choice, I asked a friend with extensive text study experience – and much better Hebrew than mine. She told me that the language in the Talmud passage of “fools” and “iniquities” is actually really common language around gratitude. And that troubling word in the blessing, “chayavim,” means “debtors.” "Debt" can recall the miraculous healing of the sick, the finding of the city in the desert, and the survival of the storm at sea. This passage reminds anyone who’s survived any kind of danger that they’ve just experienced a miracle and that they should be thankful.
Next the healed sailors are imprisoned and then freed. This portion of the story brings back up the problem of guilt. It contains similar language to the passage about illness. But unlike disease, isn’t imprisonment actually a result of bad behavior? Not always. I doubt Talmudic times were immune from today’s epidemic of excessive incarceration. It’s also important to remember that even someone innocent released from prison would recite Birkat HaGomel. So maybe a thanksgiving blessing for survival is more closely tied to the dangers of incarceration than a particular ex-prisoner’s actions.
And abuse has plenty in common with incarceration. For survivors of domestic abuse, imprisonment can be literal. Their abusive partner or relative may have limited their independence and even freedom of movement. But imprisonment could also be the control that sexual abusers take over their victims’ bodies, and their disregard of their victims’ right to consent. In the psalm, Sefaria translates the prisoners as sitting “in deepest darkness, bound in affliction.” The imagery of a G-d that “brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their shackles” becomes inspirational, if not a bit more abrupt than removing oneself from an abusive situation.
But similarities to these four categories isn’t what extends recitation of Birkat HaGomel to new situations. Through rabbinic debate two requirements for extension developed: dangerousness and distress.
One of the few responsa I found about Birkat HaGomel was by Rivash, Rabbi Isaac Ben Sheshet Perfet, a Talmudic authority in 14thcentury Spain. In his responsa 337, Rivash argued for an expansion of Birkat HaGomel. His particular expansion concerned the case of someone who survived an attack by a wild animal in the city. Citing the psalm, he argues that desert travelers recite Birkat HaGomel upon return because they survived the potential of being attacked by a lion or other wild beast. Shouldn’t someone who survived an actual attack recite Birkat HaGomel? He goes on to argue that the Germara mentioned the four categories as examples, not limiting factors. When the Talmud was written, those four categories were some of the most common dangers faced. Rivash and other commentators generally expanded the use of the blessing to be for anyone who survived potential mortal danger.
Those who experience assault or abuse have definitely experienced potential danger – from STDs in cases of sexual assault to the homicide rate among domestic violence victims to the high suicide rates among survivors. But these dangers do go away. With removal from the situation and sometimes psychiatric treatment, many victims return to safety.
What about the second requirement: distress? To recite Birkat HaGomel the person had to know they had a brush with danger and they need to have experienced some kind of distress as a result. I don’t think I need to make any further argument on this one.
But what originally drew me to Birkat HaGomel before studying it wasn’t the four original cases. It wasn’t any potential obligation either – I haven’t seen any reference to use by survivors. What stood out to me was Birkat HaGomel’s core concept of return to a community. Part of my recovery and new safety, I hoped, would be a return to my community. And, well, I’m here right now. For me, the presence and response of a minyan is about return to my Jewish family, now a place where I’m safe.
Even for other Jewish survivors whose abuser wasn’t part of their community, the response of a minyan required for Birkat HaGomel can be significant. Survivors need help to make abuse stop and require both professional and social resources for recovery. They often try to reach out to those closest to them, their community. But too many encounter doubt and blame. In some cases, their accusations fracture their community. Here, Birkat HaGomel doesn’t only represent a change that’s happened for the survivor, but a change that’s happened in the community. The communal response element welcomes the survivor to a now supportive and whole community. It can also serve as an affirmation by the community that they will take steps to prevent other members from being abused.
But is Birkat HaGomel too public for survivors? Abuse is a deeply personal experience, and no survivor should be pushed to disclose their experience. But there is no public declaration of “why” in Birkat HaGomel. I didn’t have to give this dvar. I could’ve just said the blessing and sat back down. And you might have assumed I recited the blessing after appendicitis or a car crash.
However, Birkat HaGomel doesn’t have to be the end of the conversation. I researched the culture of Birkat HaGomel in synagogues where it’s traditional. In many communities, members will reach out about whether the reciter is okay (a heart attack or bad flu?) or whether something exciting happened (like a faraway trip or a new baby!). Birkat HaGomel gives survivors an opening to discuss their experience while providing some flexibility in what they tell whom.
It’s okay if you’re listening to this dvar and aren’t on board with my idea of extending Birkat HaGomel. If you’re a survivor listening, Judaism has never had a uniform practice. No one’s pressuring you into reciting Birkat HaGomel anytime soon – and I would hope they never do.
However, I do think that Birkat HaGomel has the potential to be significant for survivors and their communities. It’s accessible – it doesn’t need a mikvah or a tallis katan. It provides communal acknowledgement without a survivor having to spill every detail. It reminds survivors that the abuse is over now, and they are safe. And the ritual’s broad past also allows survivors to step out of shame and into gratitude.
I hope that everyone who feels comfortable will join me as my community as I recite Birkat HaGomel today.
