[COMMUNICATED]
Amudim has been answering crisis calls since 2014. In that time, more than 321,000 calls have come in across more than 23,000 cases. People reach out for help with sexual abuse, addiction, mental health, and domestic violence. And the need has not slowed down. In an average week, about 70 new cases begin.
What stands out to us is how often the same questions come up. Different people, in different communities and at different points in their lives, often find themselves asking nearly the exact same things. Most of those questions aren’t about the law. They’re about someone they love, trust, or are afraid to lose.
These are the questions we hear again and again: “What do I do now that I know my father abused my daughter.” , “My brother told me what happened to him years ago. My other siblings do not know. What am I supposed to say to him.” “My son said his rebbi touches him.” “Everyone respects him. Who is going to believe me?”
There is another reason many of these calls reach Amudim. Often, it’s not because we were the first place someone thought to call. It is because asking someone closer felt like it could come with a cost.
You see it most clearly in the questions that do not fit neatly into one category. Someone may need a halachic answer, but the situation also involves mental health. A choson or kallah may be trying to understand what needs to be disclosed before a wedding, and to whom. A mother may be weighing whether to go to the police while also wondering what that decision could mean for her family.
Those questions do not always have an obvious place to go. A rav may understand the halachic side but not have experience with the clinical piece. A therapist may understand the emotional and mental health side but cannot answer a shaila.
So sometimes the question goes unanswered for months or even years, and the person carrying it starts to assume that no answer means there is no way forward. That is not the case.
Rabbi Yisroel Grossberg serves as Amudim’s rav for these kinds of questions, and many of them are ones he hears again and again. Different people, in different years, often come believing they are the only one who has ever had to ask. In reality, there is often more room in halacha than people realize, and some of the questions that feel hardest to say out loud are the ones we hear most often..
There is another part of this that is important to say carefully. Many of these calls involve someone who is trusted or well regarded in the community. That is not unique to our community. It is part of what can make abuse so difficult to recognize and respond to in any community.
Access is often given to people because they are trusted, and that same trust can make a disclosure harder to believe or act on. The person being described may already have a reputation, a role, or relationships that carry weight, while the person speaking up is left wondering whether anyone will believe them.
Some of the hardest calls come from people who have been carrying these questions for years. They may have spent decades in therapy, raised children, built full lives, and still find themselves wondering: Is it too late?
What Comes Next is a chance to bring those questions into the open, and to answer them in a room where many people may be carrying the same ones without realizing they are not alone.
The panel will include Rabbi Zvi Gluck and Rabbi Avi Landa, LCPC, of Amudim; Dr. Myriam E. Lankry, DSW, LCSW, Amudim’s clinical director; and Zeldy Broyde, founder of Ray of Hope. Nachi Gordon of the Meaningful People podcast will moderate.
This event will take place Thursday night, September 3, at 8:00 PM at 153 Grandview Avenue in Monsey. Separate seating and family seating will both be available. The event is free, seating is limited, and registration is required .
A recording will be released a few days later for anyone who cannot attend in person, or who would feel more comfortable watching privately.
The panel will also answer questions submitted through the registration form. Those questions can be submitted confidentially, without a name.
And if what you are carrying cannot wait until Thursday, Amudim is available confidentially at 646-517-0222.
