June 2, 2025 • 45 mins
Sara Sherbill's powerful memoir "There Was Night and There Was Morning" takes its title from the book of Genesis, establishing a profound metaphor for her life's journey from darkness to light. As the daughter of a respected rabbi who terrorized his family behind closed doors, Sarah lived a "split-screen reality" - presenting the perfect religious family image to the community while enduring horrific abuse at home.
The weight of this duality crushed Sara for decades. As the eldest of five children, she felt responsible for maintaining the facade of a wholesome religious lifestyle while privately suffering at the hands of her father. This burden of secrecy and performance dominated her childhood until she finally reached a breaking point in high school when concerns for her mother's safety led her to alert authorities.
What makes Sara's story particularly compelling is her unflinching examination of the complex relationship between religion and abuse. Her father specifically sought the rabbinate hoping it would "keep him in check," suggesting he possessed some awareness of his darker impulses. This revelation illuminates how religious structures can simultaneously provide cover for abusers while offering victims a framework for understanding their experiences. Sarah doesn't condemn religion itself but shows how it can be weaponized by those seeking control.
The redemption in Sara's story comes not through forgiveness or reconciliation with her abuser, but through finding her voice. After discovering her father's abuse had expanded beyond family to include young women in his Florida congregation, she began publishing essays about her experiences, eventually culminating in this memoir. Through writing, Sarah transformed shame into strength and silence into power, freeing herself from carrying the burden of her father's actions with the profound realization: "I was not the man who did this... I'm just his daughter."
Ready to break your own silence? Sara's journey from trauma to redemption shows how naming our pain can be the first step toward healing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we meet Sarah Sherbel, survivor and author of
the memoir there Was Night andthere Was Mourning, a memoir of
trauma and redemption.
She joins us to discuss thebook and her story of decades of
abuse at the hands of herfather.
I'm Maria McMullin and this isGenesis, the podcast.
Sarah Sherbel is the author ofthere Was Night and there Was
(00:24):
Morning, a memoir of trauma andredemption, which tells the
story of growing up in afiercely loving yet abusive
rabbinical family and heryears-long journey to tell the
truth about what was happeningbehind closed doors.
Appropriately, the title of hermemoir there Was Night and
there Was Morning is a biblicalreference taken from the book of
Genesis, in a verse thatestablishes the creation of
(00:47):
light from the darkness.
By most accounts, the idea oflight is good and darkness
unwelcome or less than best.
This verse Genesis 1, verse 5,also reveals the creation of a
cycle, one where alternatingperiods of light and shadow
occur, inferring one cannotexist without the other, or
perhaps that, with time, eachwill be revealed.
(01:09):
It is here that Sarah's story,as written in her memoir, begins
.
Living in the shadow of hersecrets for decades, sarah uses
her talent for craftingcompelling prose to reach into
the void of darkness and revealthe truth of her lived
experience, an experience thatis encapsulated by abuse of many
forms and would define her lifewell into adulthood.
(01:29):
Her memoir, which details bothher trauma and ultimate
redemption, releases her fromthe darkness of her past and
allows her to walk in the light,perhaps for the first time in
her life.
Trapped within a cycle of abuseat the hands of her own father,
a rabbi, who, by such a titleand training, should stand for
all things holy or all that iscontained within the light,
(01:51):
sarah was, by her own accountquote beset by depression, a
broken marriage and a lifetimeof secret keeping, still living
in the shadow of my father'sabuse, even as I navigated a new
relationship and motherhood.
And despite so much abuse anddarkness, there was a spark in
Sarah and it grew into the light, would be contained no longer
(02:11):
and demanded its release.
Sarah defines the publicationof her story as liberating,
redemptive and life-affirming.
From her strength and resolve.
We learn about rising from theabyss of abuse to live the life
she was meant to live.
Listen to the end of thisepisode for a reading by the
author from her memoir thatexpands on these concepts of
(02:31):
light, darkness, love and life.
This episode discussesexperiences of child abuse,
domestic violence, spiritualabuse, substance abuse, child
sexual abuse and suicide.
Spiritual abuse, substanceabuse, child sexual abuse and
suicide.
Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Thank you so much, Maria.
I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I'm excited to talk with you.
I want to let you know I readyour book and I thought it was
amazing and insightful and justso courageous of you to tell
your story in a memoir.
That was incredibly.
I know it was a painfulexperience, but just so
compellingly done andinspirational really for
(03:10):
survivors and others, becauseyou grew up in a family with
strict religious traditions.
Your father was a rabbi and theJewish faith became central to
every aspect of your lives.
So before we get into the storythat's in the book and what is
really your story, can you giveus the backdrop of the story you
(03:31):
tell in your memoir?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Absolutely Well.
First I just want to thank youfor your kind words that you
said about the book.
This is kind of just like adream come true for me to be
able to share my story and haveit resonate, especially with
survivors.
That just kind of fills me withhappiness.
(03:53):
The backdrop to the story is Igrew up in Chicago, as you said,
the daughter of a rabbi.
I am the eldest of five.
My father was a pulpit rabbi ofa thriving congregation and, as
you say, maria, religion reallydid kind of dictate all our
behaviors from, you know,keeping kosher so that's what we
(04:15):
ate to observing the Sabbathonce a week, which you know
meant no use of electricity orphones or television for that 25
hour period.
As I grew up, as I got older,my family actually became
increasingly religious over theyears, so that by the time I was
in high school, you know, wasalso about dressing very
(04:37):
modestly and wearing only longskirts and that kind of thing.
So I was in a very, veryreligious environment growing up
and at the same time, you know,I was kind of keeping this
secret.
My siblings and my mother and Iwere all keeping this secret,
which was that behind closeddoors, when my father was not
(04:57):
being a pulpit rabbi.
He was an abusive man.
He was physically andemotionally abusive to my mother
and to me and to my siblings.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, and that comes through in the memoir.
You go into a lot of detail butcan you help our listeners
understand kind of that part ofthe book and what happened to
you?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Sure.
So you know, growing up itreally I felt that I had a job.
Especially as the eldest offive, I really felt that it was
my meant to kind of almostadvertise the benefits of living
this kind of very wholesome,all-encompassing religious
(05:51):
lifestyle.
So you know, if you have fivechildren who are all walking
around, you know, smiling andhappy and very polite and very
well-dressed and verydeferential to any authority,
and you know good nature, dowell in school, have a lot of
friends, all these things, itwasn't just the pressure that I
think you know maybe all kidsfeel, but there was this extra
(06:14):
layer that we were really meantto be, kind of the forward
facing picture of, you know,almost the embodiment of my
father's belief system, andreally almost advertised the
wholesomeness of that, whichreally was in direct
contradiction to what we wereactually experiencing when we
(06:35):
were at home.
So that kind of split screenreality, that kind of duality,
as you can imagine, is very hardto navigate when, know, when
you're young, you don't questionit because that's just the only
reality that you know.
But as I got older I started tothink, wow, something is so not
okay here.
And if you read the book youwill see by the time I am a
(07:00):
senior in high school I reach abreaking point because I become
concerned for my mother's lifein terms of my father's abuse
toward her escalating, and Iinform the police and that kind
of just sets in motion a wholecascade of events.
That's kind of what I talkabout in the first half of the
(07:21):
book, and then the second halfof the book is kind of more me
navigating the aftermath ofabuse.
So as an adult, you know how doyou live with and negotiate and
metabolize kind of all yourexperience while still trying to
be, you know, functioning,human and adult.
And in my case you know wife,mother, writer, etc.
(07:43):
In my case you know wife,mother, writer, etc.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, so there was significant abuse happening for
decades.
You can say within your family.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yes, it was decades.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And it wasn't as you explained.
It wasn't just you, it was yourbrothers and sister and your
mother as well.
And it's really interesting ifyou read the book and then to
hear what you're saying nowabout being the face of a
wholesome Jewish life family atyour youngest age and when your
(08:13):
father was younger, and then theway that he ends up in the end,
which is the pendulum swung.
I mean completely the other way, and we're going to get into
that a little later, but it wasso interesting to me to hear you
say that because nothing couldhave been further from the truth
.
Now, keeping on the idea ofreligion for a minute and how
(08:36):
that played a role in yourexperience, you chose a book
title that is a biblicalreference, in particular, the
Creation of Light Out ofDarkness.
And this, the creation of lightout of darkness and this
conjures up a lot of ideas, forexample, darkness as being bad
or evil, or living in theshadows, or perhaps that things
are always black and white.
(08:56):
You know there's no gray area.
Did any of these concepts playa role in either your decision
for the book's title or the lensthrough which you viewed your
experience with abuse?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Absolutely.
So I really appreciate yourquestion because I think it's
very insightful.
You know, there was a fewelements to choosing the title.
One was that because my lifegrowing up, as I write about,
was so steeped in religion, andnot just the rituals of religion
but also the texts of religion.
(09:29):
So, you know, I went to schoolswhere we were always, you know,
studying the Bible, and youknow other commentators.
So it was really important tome to have in a title something
that was not just beautiful andevocative but that also, you
know, really kind of captured myattachment and involvement in
(09:50):
the Jewish text.
I mean, the Bible really was.
you know, the Old Testament wasreally our guide, I mean you
know we studied it and we readit every Saturday in synagogue
and that was really theframework for our life.
So that was kind of how we gotto the title In terms of the
actual substance of it, thisidea of the titles.
(10:12):
There was night and there wasmorning.
So, as you point out, I'mintroducing kind of this idea of
darkness versus light, nightversus day, goodness versus evil
versus light night versus day,goodness versus evil, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So maybe that wholesome look versus what the
reality was.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah.
And so what I like about thetitle is it kind of sets up
those, you know, almost thatdichotomy, but in a way it's
maybe misleading, because what Ireally wanted to do was write a
book that was not black andwhite, that was not.
You know, my father is all bador religion is all bad or I'm
(10:53):
all good even.
You know, as I grow older, youknow I made mistakes.
I did things that you know I'mnot necessarily proud of also.
So one thing that was soimportant to me in working on
this book was really not towrite a book that was simplistic
.
I really wanted to get at thenuance and the complexity and,
(11:13):
as you say, the gray areabecause, let's be honest, you
know, 90% of life is a gray area.
I mean, I think it's very rarewhen things are all bad or all
good.
Now you could say, well, childabuse is certainly all bad, it's
true, obviously.
But my father, as a human being, I don't feel is all bad, even
(11:34):
though, as you say, as his lifewent on, he certainly did
deteriorate and become involvedin some very destructive
behaviors.
And yet it was a priority forme not to write a hit piece and
not to write something that justportrays him as a monster,
because I don't think any humanbeing is a monster.
(11:55):
I think we're all born pure,we're born innocent, and some of
us either experience a kind oftraumas when we're growing up
that take us down a differentpath, or we're enacting traumas
and causing traumas which set uson a different path.
But I really wanted to write abook that showed full scope of
(12:16):
my father's humanity and alsothe full scope of my own
humanity humanity.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I think you accomplished that and I wasn't
trying to insinuate that thebook was black and white,
because it isn't.
There's a lot.
There's so much going on in thestory that you know you can
really get lost in the detailsof it all.
Going back to something elseyou said, because you mentioned
there was a couple of points intime where you said, well, this
is not right, what's happeningin this household is just not
normal.
Was there a point in time whenyou recall that you realized
(12:49):
what was happening was abuse andit was not normal or acceptable
?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, so there was actually a moment I was in
middle school I actuallyremember it quite vividly my
parents had a subscription to amagazine and the cover story I
mean, this is, you know, thelate 80s.
The cover story was about childabuse and I was always, you
know, just like a kind of avidreader and always a curious,
even as a kid, I was just verycurious and I was always reading
(13:16):
not just books but magazines,newspapers.
I was just kind of voraciousand wanting to understand the
world.
And I remember reading thiscover story in a magazine about
child abuse.
I was, you know, maybe 12 or 13.
And I remember thinking, wait aminute, wait a minute, wait a
minute, there's a name forwhat's going on in my house.
Hold on a second.
(13:37):
And that was kind of.
I don't know if it was a turningpoint, but it was kind of an
epiphany for me that this has aname.
You know before that, you know,as children we really we
construct our own language andwe're fumbling around trying to
find the right words to matchour experience.
You know.
So as a little girl, I wouldwrite in my diary, you know,
like oh, dad had a blowout today.
(13:58):
Or, you know, dad went crazytoday, you know, and I just
thought, well, that's my dad,he's crazy.
But I didn't understand until Iread this article when I was in
middle school.
Wait a minute, this is childabuse.
It has a name.
Other people experience it.
It's a phenomenon, it's a crime.
It's a crime.
Right, it's a crime.
It's a crime, it's a crime.
(14:19):
And it's interesting, Evenafter years of thinking about
this and writing this, it'sstill not foremost on my mind to
it's.
It's interesting I, even afteryears of thinking about this and
writing this, it's still notforemost on my mind to say it's
a crime.
I still think of it as like,well, it's just a private family
matter, you know, which, ofcourse it isn't.
So that was a moment and Iremember I got very excited in a
strange way that I had thisname for it now, and I remember
(14:42):
telling my mom because I wasvery like, wait a minute mom I
figured it out.
You know I figured out what'sgoing in our home, what's going
on, and I told her and you knowit didn't have any material
effect on our lives in any way,it was just kind of like, well,
that's interesting.
But I think in my brain itplanted a seed that language is
(15:05):
the way out.
It almost told me, if we canname something, if we can put a
word to match our experience,that's the gift of language.
And in a way you could say thatwas almost the tiniest seed for
me becoming a writer who wantedto write about my experience.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, that's incredible becoming a writer who
wanted to write about myexperience.
Yeah, that's incredible.
That's so insightful into yourown becoming and coming to terms
with what was happening to you,and it's just unfortunate that
your mother could not really bethere for you in that moment
when you were naming that youbelieved you were an abused
(15:43):
child and in fact, were.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, as long as you bring up my mother.
I'll just mention, as I'vegotten older, I've.
I was very angry at her formany years, as you can well
imagine, and I write about it inthe book quite extensively.
Certainly as a teenager, butalso through my 20s and even
parts of my 30s, I was reallyharboring a lot of anger and
(16:07):
resentment.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I think for good reason.
I'm not saying that that'snecessarily wrong.
I think it's a natural outcome.
But I will say that in recentyears, and especially through
the writing of the book, I wasable to kind of gain a lot more
compassion for my mom and I didkind of it shifted a little bit
the way I saw her.
I used to see her more assomeone who enabled abuse to
(16:32):
happen to us, and I'd say now,in middle age, I see it
differently.
I see it more she was a motherwho was trying her hardest to
keep some semblance of normalcyalive, while she herself was
being very badly abused.
So that's just a whole, youknow, kind of dance that's been
(16:55):
going on my whole life.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, and in fact, just because I've read the book
and I kind of understand thebackstory of all of this, most
women who are victims ofdomestic violence will not leave
because, number one, they don'thave a place to go and they're
not leaving without theirchildren.
So what would have reallyhappened to your mother and all
(17:17):
of you had she just picked upand left and I know there were
times when she tried and it just?
You know it can be a longjourney when you're trying to
keep everyone safe and yet youyourself are a lethal risk at
the hands of this abuse.
(17:37):
I just want to mention a coupleof little things related to
domestic violence that occurs toboth women and children,
because the rate of co-occurringdomestic violence and child
maltreatment or abuse are reallyworthy of more study, as the
rates are not well quantified orknown, but are estimated to be
(17:58):
between 40 and 60% of childrenwhose mother is being abused are
abused themselves.
Now, these statistics are basedon some older studies and not
all that much information isavailable, and we can assume
that the actual rate ofexperience is much higher,
because not all occurrences arereported and, like yourself, I I
(18:19):
mean this went unreported fordecades.
Yes, so going back then to justyour your story once again and
the idea that this was a veryreligious household, it was a
Jewish household and there werecertain roles and rules that
everyone had to follow inaccordance with the Jewish
(18:40):
tradition.
How much do you believereligion played a role in the
abuse?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Such a great question and it's really kind of an
endlessly fascinating subject tome right, like I think I've
gone through so many differentyou know hypothetical scenarios
in my life.
Like I think, well, what if,when my because my parents
actually neither of them grew upreligious.
They both grew up in almostcompletely secular households,
(19:10):
so it wasn't like this was alifestyle that they had grown up
with.
They actually sought it out asyoung adults, when they were in
their 20s.
So sometimes, as a you knowkind of macabre exercise, I
would go in my mind and think,well, what if, you know, when my
father, you know, was 22,instead of going to Jerusalem
(19:30):
and ending up in a you knowstudying in a rabbinical
seminary, what if he had gone tolaw school in New Hampshire?
You know, just like you know thesliding doors of what would
have happened, you know, and Ithink, would I have had a
different life Would he not havebeen an abusive father.
Was there something about theconfluence of religion and abuse
(19:52):
that facilitated or enabled theabuse?
You know, facilitated orenabled the abuse.
You know, it's such afascinating thing for me to
think about and of course, I'llnever know the answer, and I
don't really.
Even now that I've beenthinking about this and writing
about it, you know, for manyyears, I still, even now, don't
(20:14):
have a totally clear sense ofwhat the relationship was
between the relationship betweenthe abuse and the religious
belief.
So, for example, my mom oncetold me in confidence something
that my father had shared withher in confidence, and she
shared this with me when I wasan adult I mean, I think I was
(20:34):
40 when she told me this and itshocked me.
She told me that my father onceconfided in her, that he
specifically became a rabbi.
He sought out the rabbinate asa profession because he hoped it
would keep him in check.
He hoped that by adhering tothis not just religious
(20:54):
lifestyle but a public religiouslifestyle, that it would
somehow curb some of his darkertendencies, which apparently he
had a little bit ofself-awareness about.
Now again, my mom didn't tellme this until I was in my 40s,
so you know too late then.
But it's very fascinating to meto think about how religion is
(21:19):
used, not only in my family, ofcourse, but in many families and
in many religions obviously notjust Judaism Every religion.
You will have people who takethe religion and are either
using it as a cover for theirown bad behavior or maybe
(21:45):
they're using it to, almost in aperverse way, help keep them on
the straight and narrow.
It's not clear to me exactly.
I think some people seek outGod and religion from a very
sincere, authentic place.
There's, of course, manyreligious people who are
(22:06):
authentically good people.
I'm not here to pass judgment onreligion as a whole Right but I
think that it can also be a bitof a mask for many of us.
It can also be a bit of a maskfor many of us, and you know, it
sounds funny to say that I'vedone a lot of research for this
book, because it's a memoir andit's my own life.
So you would think, well, whatdo you have to research?
(22:27):
You just write about your ownlife.
But I actually did quite a bitof research into clergy abuse in
general and I read, you knowsome definitive histories, let's
say, of like abuse in theCatholic Church and you see,
sometimes with you know, manyyears later, the priests who you
(22:47):
know have been found guilty ofabuse and later maybe share some
of their experiences.
You see, it's a very convoluted, complicated, almost dangerous
relationship between religionand abuse, because as human
beings we have this ability tocontort religion to suit our own
(23:10):
purposes.
So you can almost twistreligion, and many religious
leaders do twist religion, sothat they don't necessarily have
to look at their actualbehavior.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Spiritual abuse, abuse in the name of religion,
and so on.
All the things that you'redescribing are.
There's episodes in their ownright for a podcast.
We could talk about that weprobably don't talk about it
enough on the show.
I'd love to learn more aboutthat and talk with experts about
that.
But I think to your point, allof it played a role and that
(23:48):
moment of self-awareness that hehad actually, I think, is very
telling, and how he was usingreligion to keep himself under
control, but also, when thatdidn't work, it was a
justification for his influenceand power and control over the
family.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
A hundred percent.
You know, and that's where,like I said, I am I'm not
anti-religion in any way and Ithink if you read the book
you'll see I, you know, sharedin the book my own very real
struggle to you know, try toreclaim pieces of the religious
tradition and hold on to piecesthat are meaningful for me,
because I'm not a person whosays, you know well, all
(24:27):
religious belief is I don'tthink that but at the same time
I do think, you know, embeddedin our religious traditions, and
not only in Judaism and otherreligions also is, you know,
unfortunately often a verypatriarchal structure that
favors the male head of thefamily, or the male head of the
(24:50):
church, or the male head of thesynagogue, or the male head of
the religious school, or thechoir leader, or whoever it is,
and it's often a man.
And I think in our culture wehave traditionally been very
deferential to that authorityfigure, whether it's the priest,
it's the rabbi, it's the imam,whoever it is, they are the
(25:11):
authority figure.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I think anytime whether it's religion or it's
something else anytime you'regiving away your authority to
somebody else, you run the riskof losing yourself, and I think
it's a very dangerous thingactually.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Now, just keeping on thereligion theme for a minute and
going back to that very powerfultitle for the book, you noted
in the tagline of the title thatthis is a story of both trauma
and redemption, that being yourtrauma and your redemption.
But there were brothers andsisters, and your mother who
also endured abuse, alongsideyou.
(25:51):
I'm curious how they respondedto you telling your story in
this memoir.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah.
So I will say, you know,there's definitely been an
evolution over the years,because I didn't, you know,
start writing this book one dayand publish it the next day.
It's been a years long project.
So I would say my siblings andmy mom were always, you know,
kind of aware that I was workingon this book in some fashion or
another over really decades.
(26:18):
So there was a journey there,you know.
I would say initially, forexample, my mom was a bit
skeptical about this.
You know, I think she you knowrightly so was concerned about
herself being exposed, exposingour family, and I think she was
also concerned about me and mymental well-being, and is
(26:42):
spending hours and hours andhours a day, every day,
excavating this material reallythe best thing for my mental
health, especially because Ihave fought so hard to be in an
okay space mentally?
Is this really the best way tospend my time and is this
ultimately going to be a goodthing?
(27:02):
So I think initially there wasskepticism, there was
apprehension, there washesitation, like sometimes I
would call my mom on the phoneand tell her I was working on my
book and she would say in aconcerned way you know, are you
sure that that's really the bestthing for you to be doing?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
do you?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
think this is a good thing for you to be doing, and I
and I explained to her.
You know what, mom?
The thing that was hard aboutmy life is not the writing of it
.
The thing that was hard waswhen it happened.
Writing about it is not thehard part, that's actually
healing part.
So I assured her that I actuallydid think this was a good thing
(27:41):
for me and I'm very gratifiedto say that over the years there
really was, like I said, anevolution, so that by the time I
had a complete manuscript andthe book was ready to be
published, I sent an early copyof the manuscript to my mother
and to my siblings and I thinkby that time they were just 100%
(28:03):
supportive.
And I would say, since the bookhas come out, I mean, my mom
flew in for my book launch inWashington DC.
She's recommending the book toall of her friends and you know.
So there's there's been a shiftand I'm I'm really really
grateful for that shift, becausethe abuse that our family
experience went from beingsomething so shameful, so
(28:25):
secretive, to being somethingthat we've all kind of not just
accepted but almost like embrace, like yeah, this is our family
story And're going to put it out.
And here it is in a beautifulbook and you can read about it,
you know.
So I it's.
It's been a really meaningfuland gratifying experience.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
That's so interesting .
Now we touched on this, but Ineed to come back to it, because
your father's abuse seemed tolast his entire lifetime.
Yeah, it did not end when youbecame an adult and a mother,
and, in some ways, it wasintensified due to his substance
use.
When did you realize that yourfather's situation was worse
than you had even thought ormaybe experienced, and how did
(29:07):
you respond to it?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah.
So I had kind of distancedmyself from my father.
I would say by the time I wasin my late 30s I had really like
kind of taken a step back.
I wasn't you know, I was a bitestranged from him.
And then I got a call from mybrother, my youngest brother who
was living down in Miami wheremy father was living at the time
(29:30):
.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
And now, at this point, your parents are not
together.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
At this point.
So my mother had left him.
My mother left him.
She left him after 40 years ofmarriage.
(29:53):
Yes, so she had left him a fewyears earlier and, of course,
let's just acknowledge how muchcourage it actually takes to
leave an abusive marriage.
In my mother's case, it you'recorrect, my mother had already
left.
My brother was down in Miamiwhere my father was living, and
I got a call from my brotherdescribing some of the most
horrific things I've ever heardin my entire life in terms of my
father's escalating drug use,which I had really not been
aware of.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, that was really shocking to read about.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
And it was shocking to me as well.
I didn't know my father was adrug user, I mean certainly not
a hard drug user.
That was shock, absolutelyshocking to me.
And even more shocking, ofcourse, was this revelation that
he was abusing young women inhis new congregation in Florida.
This, it really cannot beunderestimated, the huge shock
(30:38):
that this was to me, because Ialways thought, you know, well,
my father abused us, but youknow we're his family, so in a
way it's okay, you know, but howcan you abuse strangers?
And that just goes to show, Imean, just the twistedness.
You know that I had been kindof raised to believe, well, okay
(31:00):
, well, if you abuse your family, you know, well, you know, I
guess that's okay.
But it's the real problem whenyou abuse other people.
I mean, it was like I couldn'tbelieve it that it was both.
And I have a line in the bookwhere I say I thought my father
was sane enough and discreetenough to know that it's one
thing to hurt your family,something else to hurt strangers
(31:21):
.
And once I found out that hisabuse was not only continuing
but actually escalating, that'swhen I said no more and that's
when I decided I am going tostart writing about this in any
way, shape or form that I can,and so, as soon as I found out
that this was happening, Istarted publishing essays about
(31:44):
my father's abuse, because thatwas a breaking point for me.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, I can't imagine that it wouldn't be a breaking
point for you, because that'ssome pretty serious stuff that
was going on and it goes into alot of detail, some pretty
serious stuff that was going onand it goes into a lot of detail
in the book.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
My youngest brother was the first person who kind of
alerted me to this fact that myfather was abusing young women
in his congregation.
To make a long story short,this woman young woman she was
22 at the time she did end upcontacting me directly over text
and we did develop arelationship of sorts in the
sense that I was texting withher on and off for several years
(32:25):
, trying to help her and tryingto get her.
Number one just to stay awayfrom my father who was still
actively abusing her, and numbertwo to try to really encourage
her to seek out psychologicalhelp.
And number three to try toreally encourage her to seek out
psychological help.
And number three to also try toget her legal help.
In the end I failed at all ofthose three objectives and she
(32:50):
was completely dependent on myfather financially and for drugs
and I think also, if you canbelieve it, for spiritual
guidance.
And that's really the shockingthing was that she didn't
consider him her friend or hermentor or her confidant.
She considered him her rabbiand she spoke about him that way
(33:14):
.
This is someone who's givingher drugs and also abusing her
sexually and physically andemotionally.
So when you think about that,within that she was still able
to consider him, her rabbi goesto show you how deeply entwined
and complicated trauma can be.
You're weaving these threadstogether where on one hand,
(33:37):
here's a man who's being abusiveto her, supplying her with
drugs, but at the same time shewould tell me that she could
talk to my father about thingsshe couldn't talk about with
anyone else.
She would go to him forspiritual guidance and religious
counsel.
So, as you can imagine, maria,that just kind of blew my brain
wide open.
Imagine, maria, that just kindof blew my brain wide open and I
(34:02):
became really committed totrying to get her help.
But in the end realized and Iwrite about this process in the
book in the end I realized Ijust have to help myself Because
if I try to be a savior to thisyoung woman, it was taking me
down with her.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, that's really profound.
Was your father ever prosecutedfor any of the offenses?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
No, not at all, and I talk about this in the book as
well.
There was a network of supportaround him, so extended family
members, friends, people veryestablished in the community who
protected him, and I've had alot of anger at those people and
(34:45):
writing this book, if you canbelieve it, has helped me to
release a lot of that anger,because I feel that you know, I
can't control anyone else'sbehavior and everybody is going
to have to make peace with theiractions at some point in their
lives, and it's not for me todictate, so I just felt that
(35:07):
writing about it was probablythe best chance that I had at
getting any sense of justice,and by sense of justice I mean a
scrap of justice.
Obviously, in his lifetime myfather did not face the kind of
consequences that he perhapsshould have, so for me, in a way
(35:30):
, writing this book was my wayof trying to see justice done.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
And I respect that, and it comes through in the
writing.
Let's also talk about the ideaof redemption, because there's
an aspect to it as the writingbeing redemptive for you.
How do you identify that?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So I think there were many years where I felt so
ashamed, and certainly as achild.
Without question, it was ashameful subject and the whole
idea was to keep things onlockdown and for nobody to find
out.
But, even as an adult woman,even once I was married and had
a child of my own, I felt verymuch like I don't want this to
(36:17):
be part of my life.
I'm trying to live a new life,I'm trying to form my own family
, I'm trying to get out fromunder this.
And that had been kind of myposition for years.
And then, you know, like I said, I was galvanized by all the
events that transpired and bythe time I decided to work on
(36:39):
the book, I felt that I was at apoint where I was saying I'm
not going to be ashamed anymore,I'm not going to live feeling
that I need to protect anyone,that it is my job to keep
anyone's secrets or that I haveto feel bad for even one minute,
that this is my family history.
(37:00):
I've done nothing wrong.
And I have a line in the bookwhere I write you know, I was
not the man who did this to thisyoung woman, I'm not the man
who did it, I'm just hisdaughter.
So you know, I was not the manwho did this to this young woman
, I'm not the man who did it,I'm just his daughter.
So you know, I think for yearsI had kind of taken this yoke on
my shoulders of you know I needto, you know almost do penance
(37:24):
in a way for my father's sinsand then coming to a place,
through writing and throughinvestigating the story, of
saying I free myself of this, Ifree myself of this.
In giving words to this story, Ialmost was trying to make it
something separate from myself.
(37:46):
It's its own entity, but I'mnot going to carry it around
anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, and that took a lot.
It took a lot of courage, ittook a lot of time to put this
in writing and to get itpublished.
And I can see it.
I mean, I can see it in youthat and I can see why you would
, you know, want to expose thefact that this wasn't your crime
.
It's hard, because I know a lotof survivors have this carry
(38:16):
the shame of the crime that wascommitted to them, but you very
eloquently pointed out thatyou're not the one that should
have the shame.
He should be ashamed of hisactions and what he had done.
All abusers should be ashamedof their actions and the pain
they've caused.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, and so a hundred percent.
And so I just reached a pointwhere I just felt like it was
becoming very heavy for me as Iwas getting older and as I was
mothering my own child.
It was becoming quite heavy onme and I felt, why should I have
to bear this alone?
My father was the head of acommunity.
(38:55):
Both of my parents gave and gaveand gave to their community in
terms of helping people whenthey were ill, helping people
who lost parents or children orsiblings.
I mean, my parents were ofservice to their community, and
so I reached a point where Isaid to myself my parents lived
(39:16):
such a community-based life andyet here I am suffering with
this secret in isolation, and Ireached a place where I thought,
why should I have to carry italone?
Let me put it out there, andperhaps we can all carry this
burden.
It should not have to be minealone to carry.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, absolutely Now, while this memoir is your first
book, it's not your onlypublished writing.
You've published essays onmotherhood, mental health and
domestic violence that haveappeared in the New York Times,
slate, the Forward and elsewhere.
Tell us a little bit about thatwork.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Sure, well, as I told you, when I found out that my
father had been abusing otherpeople, namely young women in
his congregation, as I mentioned, that really galvanized me and
I thought well, I've beenworking on this memoir for so
many years, but in the meantime,let me start just writing about
it.
And so I wrote an essay.
(40:14):
The first essay I wrote aboutmy father was almost 10 years
ago, and it was about findingout that he was dying.
He had an advanced form ofcancer, and it was about my
struggle, my conflict withinmyself.
Do I go visit my dying father,who at that point, I'd been
estranged from for a number ofyears?
(40:36):
Do I go say goodbye?
Do I try to have some kind ofyou know, final closure?
You know?
So that that was the firstessay I wrote.
I wrote another essay about whenmy father died and the question
of how do you mourn an abusiveparent.
This is something.
I really looked for resources.
(40:57):
I looked for other books,articles that have been written
about it.
I couldn't find that much, andso instead I wrote about it
myself, which was you know, howdo you grapple with the idea,
when a parent dies, they'restill your parent, no matter
what they did or didn't do?
You only have one parent and or, you know, you only have one
(41:19):
mother and one father.
And so I wanted to really writeabout that kind of very deep
internal conflict of, on onehand, wanting to kind of
acknowledge and mark my father'spassing but at the same time,
feeling that the traditionalways of doing that, like
attending a funeral or giving aeulogy, or saying the Jewish
(41:42):
prayer, the Jewish mourner'sprayer, I felt that I didn't
want to do those things, youknow.
So then the question becomeshow can you mark the death of a
parent who's been abusive, youknow?
And how, how do you navigatethat?
Because it's it's it's adifficult, it's a difficult
thing to navigate.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah, To say the least.
Before I let you go, will youshare with us your website and
how people can follow you onsocial media share with us your
website and how people canfollow you on social media?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Oh sure, so please follow me on social media.
I'm on Instagram more than Ishould be.
It's my name, Sarah Sherbaugh.
S-a-r-a is my first name.
S-h-e-r-b-i-l-l is my last name.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
You can find me on Instagram and my website is also
just my name.
So, yeah, please find me thereNow.
We have something special forpeople who've listened all the
way through this episode.
You have a passage from yourmemoir that you are going to
share with us.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yes, I am, and before I share it, I just I want to
say one thing, which is that,you know, in this conversation
we've been talking a lot about,you know kind of the nefarious
uses of religion and howreligion can be a destructive
force, or how it can be, let'ssay, used as a destructive force
.
But I also just want to saythat, even though I'm not
(43:03):
formally religious anymore, Istill consider myself a
religious person, even thoughI'm not following the laws and
the traditions in the same waythat I used to.
And so, before I read thispassage, I just want to say it's
really important to me in thisbook to show that religion can
(43:24):
be wielded like a weapon, but itcan also be a source of meaning
and even a source of healing.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I'm going to read a passage from the book.
It's toward the very, very endof the book and it's about a
realization that I had when Iwas on a walk one morning.
Now that I am no longer a child, I have learned some things
about God.
God is not the voice insideyour head that tells you you are
(43:53):
bad.
God does not care about thelength of your hem or the length
of your sleeve.
God is bigger than that.
God is the voice you can callupon from across a deep chasm.
God is the thing you draw onwhen you have nothing left to
draw on.
God is the force that tells youyou will be okay.
(44:18):
God is the power above you,around you, inside you, Wherever
you feel God.
That is where God is.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to
give women in abusive situationsa way out.
We are committed to our missionof providing safety, shelter
and support for women andchildren who have experienced
domestic violence and to raiseawareness regarding its cause,
prevalence and impact.
Join us in creating a societalshift on how people think about
(44:48):
domestic violence.
You can learn more atgenesisshelterorg and when you
follow us on social media onFacebook and Instagram at
Genesis Women's Shelter, and onX at Genesis Shelter.
The Genesis Helpline isavailable 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, by call or text at214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.
Today we meet Sarah Sherbel, survivor and author of
the memoir there Was Night andthere Was Mourning, a memoir of
trauma and redemption.
She joins us to discuss thebook and her story of decades of
abuse at the hands of herfather.
I'm Maria McMullin and this isGenesis, the podcast.
Sarah Sherbel is the author ofthere Was Night and there Was
(00:24):
Morning, a memoir of trauma andredemption, which tells the
story of growing up in afiercely loving yet abusive
rabbinical family and heryears-long journey to tell the
truth about what was happeningbehind closed doors.
Appropriately, the title of hermemoir there Was Night and
there Was Morning is a biblicalreference taken from the book of
Genesis, in a verse thatestablishes the creation of
(00:47):
light from the darkness.
By most accounts, the idea oflight is good and darkness
unwelcome or less than best.
This verse Genesis 1, verse 5,also reveals the creation of a
cycle, one where alternatingperiods of light and shadow
occur, inferring one cannotexist without the other, or
perhaps that, with time, eachwill be revealed.
(01:09):
It is here that Sarah's story,as written in her memoir, begins
.
Living in the shadow of hersecrets for decades, sarah uses
her talent for craftingcompelling prose to reach into
the void of darkness and revealthe truth of her lived
experience, an experience thatis encapsulated by abuse of many
forms and would define her lifewell into adulthood.
(01:29):
Her memoir, which details bothher trauma and ultimate
redemption, releases her fromthe darkness of her past and
allows her to walk in the light,perhaps for the first time in
her life.
Trapped within a cycle of abuseat the hands of her own father,
a rabbi, who, by such a titleand training, should stand for
all things holy or all that iscontained within the light,
(01:51):
sarah was, by her own accountquote beset by depression, a
broken marriage and a lifetimeof secret keeping, still living
in the shadow of my father'sabuse, even as I navigated a new
relationship and motherhood.
And despite so much abuse anddarkness, there was a spark in
Sarah and it grew into the light, would be contained no longer
(02:11):
and demanded its release.
Sarah defines the publicationof her story as liberating,
redemptive and life-affirming.
From her strength and resolve.
We learn about rising from theabyss of abuse to live the life
she was meant to live.
Listen to the end of thisepisode for a reading by the
author from her memoir thatexpands on these concepts of
(02:31):
light, darkness, love and life.
This episode discussesexperiences of child abuse,
domestic violence, spiritualabuse, substance abuse, child
sexual abuse and suicide.
Spiritual abuse, substanceabuse, child sexual abuse and
suicide.
Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Thank you so much, Maria.
I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I'm excited to talk with you.
I want to let you know I readyour book and I thought it was
amazing and insightful and justso courageous of you to tell
your story in a memoir.
That was incredibly.
I know it was a painfulexperience, but just so
compellingly done andinspirational really for
(03:10):
survivors and others, becauseyou grew up in a family with
strict religious traditions.
Your father was a rabbi and theJewish faith became central to
every aspect of your lives.
So before we get into the storythat's in the book and what is
really your story, can you giveus the backdrop of the story you
(03:31):
tell in your memoir?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Absolutely Well.
First I just want to thank youfor your kind words that you
said about the book.
This is kind of just like adream come true for me to be
able to share my story and haveit resonate, especially with
survivors.
That just kind of fills me withhappiness.
(03:53):
The backdrop to the story is Igrew up in Chicago, as you said,
the daughter of a rabbi.
I am the eldest of five.
My father was a pulpit rabbi ofa thriving congregation and, as
you say, maria, religion reallydid kind of dictate all our
behaviors from, you know,keeping kosher so that's what we
(04:15):
ate to observing the Sabbathonce a week, which you know
meant no use of electricity orphones or television for that 25
hour period.
As I grew up, as I got older,my family actually became
increasingly religious over theyears, so that by the time I was
in high school, you know, wasalso about dressing very
(04:37):
modestly and wearing only longskirts and that kind of thing.
So I was in a very, veryreligious environment growing up
and at the same time, you know,I was kind of keeping this
secret.
My siblings and my mother and Iwere all keeping this secret,
which was that behind closeddoors, when my father was not
(04:57):
being a pulpit rabbi.
He was an abusive man.
He was physically andemotionally abusive to my mother
and to me and to my siblings.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, and that comes through in the memoir.
You go into a lot of detail butcan you help our listeners
understand kind of that part ofthe book and what happened to
you?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Sure.
So you know, growing up itreally I felt that I had a job.
Especially as the eldest offive, I really felt that it was
my meant to kind of almostadvertise the benefits of living
this kind of very wholesome,all-encompassing religious
(05:51):
lifestyle.
So you know, if you have fivechildren who are all walking
around, you know, smiling andhappy and very polite and very
well-dressed and verydeferential to any authority,
and you know good nature, dowell in school, have a lot of
friends, all these things, itwasn't just the pressure that I
think you know maybe all kidsfeel, but there was this extra
(06:14):
layer that we were really meantto be, kind of the forward
facing picture of, you know,almost the embodiment of my
father's belief system, andreally almost advertised the
wholesomeness of that, whichreally was in direct
contradiction to what we wereactually experiencing when we
(06:35):
were at home.
So that kind of split screenreality, that kind of duality,
as you can imagine, is very hardto navigate when, know, when
you're young, you don't questionit because that's just the only
reality that you know.
But as I got older I started tothink, wow, something is so not
okay here.
And if you read the book youwill see by the time I am a
(07:00):
senior in high school I reach abreaking point because I become
concerned for my mother's lifein terms of my father's abuse
toward her escalating, and Iinform the police and that kind
of just sets in motion a wholecascade of events.
That's kind of what I talkabout in the first half of the
(07:21):
book, and then the second halfof the book is kind of more me
navigating the aftermath ofabuse.
So as an adult, you know how doyou live with and negotiate and
metabolize kind of all yourexperience while still trying to
be, you know, functioning,human and adult.
And in my case you know wife,mother, writer, etc.
(07:43):
In my case you know wife,mother, writer, etc.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, so there was significant abuse happening for
decades.
You can say within your family.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yes, it was decades.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And it wasn't as you explained.
It wasn't just you, it was yourbrothers and sister and your
mother as well.
And it's really interesting ifyou read the book and then to
hear what you're saying nowabout being the face of a
wholesome Jewish life family atyour youngest age and when your
(08:13):
father was younger, and then theway that he ends up in the end,
which is the pendulum swung.
I mean completely the other way, and we're going to get into
that a little later, but it wasso interesting to me to hear you
say that because nothing couldhave been further from the truth
.
Now, keeping on the idea ofreligion for a minute and how
(08:36):
that played a role in yourexperience, you chose a book
title that is a biblicalreference, in particular, the
Creation of Light Out ofDarkness.
And this, the creation of lightout of darkness and this
conjures up a lot of ideas, forexample, darkness as being bad
or evil, or living in theshadows, or perhaps that things
are always black and white.
(08:56):
You know there's no gray area.
Did any of these concepts playa role in either your decision
for the book's title or the lensthrough which you viewed your
experience with abuse?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Absolutely.
So I really appreciate yourquestion because I think it's
very insightful.
You know, there was a fewelements to choosing the title.
One was that because my lifegrowing up, as I write about,
was so steeped in religion, andnot just the rituals of religion
but also the texts of religion.
(09:29):
So, you know, I went to schoolswhere we were always, you know,
studying the Bible, and youknow other commentators.
So it was really important tome to have in a title something
that was not just beautiful andevocative but that also, you
know, really kind of captured myattachment and involvement in
(09:50):
the Jewish text.
I mean, the Bible really was.
you know, the Old Testament wasreally our guide, I mean you
know we studied it and we readit every Saturday in synagogue
and that was really theframework for our life.
So that was kind of how we gotto the title In terms of the
actual substance of it, thisidea of the titles.
(10:12):
There was night and there wasmorning.
So, as you point out, I'mintroducing kind of this idea of
darkness versus light, nightversus day, goodness versus evil
versus light night versus day,goodness versus evil, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So maybe that wholesome look versus what the
reality was.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah.
And so what I like about thetitle is it kind of sets up
those, you know, almost thatdichotomy, but in a way it's
maybe misleading, because what Ireally wanted to do was write a
book that was not black andwhite, that was not.
You know, my father is all bador religion is all bad or I'm
(10:53):
all good even.
You know, as I grow older, youknow I made mistakes.
I did things that you know I'mnot necessarily proud of also.
So one thing that was soimportant to me in working on
this book was really not towrite a book that was simplistic
.
I really wanted to get at thenuance and the complexity and,
(11:13):
as you say, the gray areabecause, let's be honest, you
know, 90% of life is a gray area.
I mean, I think it's very rarewhen things are all bad or all
good.
Now you could say, well, childabuse is certainly all bad, it's
true, obviously.
But my father, as a human being, I don't feel is all bad, even
(11:34):
though, as you say, as his lifewent on, he certainly did
deteriorate and become involvedin some very destructive
behaviors.
And yet it was a priority forme not to write a hit piece and
not to write something that justportrays him as a monster,
because I don't think any humanbeing is a monster.
(11:55):
I think we're all born pure,we're born innocent, and some of
us either experience a kind oftraumas when we're growing up
that take us down a differentpath, or we're enacting traumas
and causing traumas which set uson a different path.
But I really wanted to write abook that showed full scope of
(12:16):
my father's humanity and alsothe full scope of my own
humanity humanity.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I think you accomplished that and I wasn't
trying to insinuate that thebook was black and white,
because it isn't.
There's a lot.
There's so much going on in thestory that you know you can
really get lost in the detailsof it all.
Going back to something elseyou said, because you mentioned
there was a couple of points intime where you said, well, this
is not right, what's happeningin this household is just not
normal.
Was there a point in time whenyou recall that you realized
(12:49):
what was happening was abuse andit was not normal or acceptable
?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, so there was actually a moment I was in
middle school I actuallyremember it quite vividly my
parents had a subscription to amagazine and the cover story I
mean, this is, you know, thelate 80s.
The cover story was about childabuse and I was always, you
know, just like a kind of avidreader and always a curious,
even as a kid, I was just verycurious and I was always reading
(13:16):
not just books but magazines,newspapers.
I was just kind of voraciousand wanting to understand the
world.
And I remember reading thiscover story in a magazine about
child abuse.
I was, you know, maybe 12 or 13.
And I remember thinking, wait aminute, wait a minute, wait a
minute, there's a name forwhat's going on in my house.
Hold on a second.
(13:37):
And that was kind of.
I don't know if it was a turningpoint, but it was kind of an
epiphany for me that this has aname.
You know before that, you know,as children we really we
construct our own language andwe're fumbling around trying to
find the right words to matchour experience.
You know.
So as a little girl, I wouldwrite in my diary, you know,
like oh, dad had a blowout today.
(13:58):
Or, you know, dad went crazytoday, you know, and I just
thought, well, that's my dad,he's crazy.
But I didn't understand until Iread this article when I was in
middle school.
Wait a minute, this is childabuse.
It has a name.
Other people experience it.
It's a phenomenon, it's a crime.
It's a crime.
Right, it's a crime.
It's a crime, it's a crime.
(14:19):
And it's interesting, Evenafter years of thinking about
this and writing this, it'sstill not foremost on my mind to
it's.
It's interesting I, even afteryears of thinking about this and
writing this, it's still notforemost on my mind to say it's
a crime.
I still think of it as like,well, it's just a private family
matter, you know, which, ofcourse it isn't.
So that was a moment and Iremember I got very excited in a
strange way that I had thisname for it now, and I remember
(14:42):
telling my mom because I wasvery like, wait a minute mom I
figured it out.
You know I figured out what'sgoing in our home, what's going
on, and I told her and you knowit didn't have any material
effect on our lives in any way,it was just kind of like, well,
that's interesting.
But I think in my brain itplanted a seed that language is
(15:05):
the way out.
It almost told me, if we canname something, if we can put a
word to match our experience,that's the gift of language.
And in a way you could say thatwas almost the tiniest seed for
me becoming a writer who wantedto write about my experience.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, that's incredible becoming a writer who
wanted to write about myexperience.
Yeah, that's incredible.
That's so insightful into yourown becoming and coming to terms
with what was happening to you,and it's just unfortunate that
your mother could not really bethere for you in that moment
when you were naming that youbelieved you were an abused
(15:43):
child and in fact, were.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, as long as you bring up my mother.
I'll just mention, as I'vegotten older, I've.
I was very angry at her formany years, as you can well
imagine, and I write about it inthe book quite extensively.
Certainly as a teenager, butalso through my 20s and even
parts of my 30s, I was reallyharboring a lot of anger and
(16:07):
resentment.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I think for good reason.
I'm not saying that that'snecessarily wrong.
I think it's a natural outcome.
But I will say that in recentyears, and especially through
the writing of the book, I wasable to kind of gain a lot more
compassion for my mom and I didkind of it shifted a little bit
the way I saw her.
I used to see her more assomeone who enabled abuse to
(16:32):
happen to us, and I'd say now,in middle age, I see it
differently.
I see it more she was a motherwho was trying her hardest to
keep some semblance of normalcyalive, while she herself was
being very badly abused.
So that's just a whole, youknow, kind of dance that's been
(16:55):
going on my whole life.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, and in fact, just because I've read the book
and I kind of understand thebackstory of all of this, most
women who are victims ofdomestic violence will not leave
because, number one, they don'thave a place to go and they're
not leaving without theirchildren.
So what would have reallyhappened to your mother and all
(17:17):
of you had she just picked upand left and I know there were
times when she tried and it just?
You know it can be a longjourney when you're trying to
keep everyone safe and yet youyourself are a lethal risk at
the hands of this abuse.
(17:37):
I just want to mention a coupleof little things related to
domestic violence that occurs toboth women and children,
because the rate of co-occurringdomestic violence and child
maltreatment or abuse are reallyworthy of more study, as the
rates are not well quantified orknown, but are estimated to be
(17:58):
between 40 and 60% of childrenwhose mother is being abused are
abused themselves.
Now, these statistics are basedon some older studies and not
all that much information isavailable, and we can assume
that the actual rate ofexperience is much higher,
because not all occurrences arereported and, like yourself, I I
(18:19):
mean this went unreported fordecades.
Yes, so going back then to justyour your story once again and
the idea that this was a veryreligious household, it was a
Jewish household and there werecertain roles and rules that
everyone had to follow inaccordance with the Jewish
(18:40):
tradition.
How much do you believereligion played a role in the
abuse?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Such a great question and it's really kind of an
endlessly fascinating subject tome right, like I think I've
gone through so many differentyou know hypothetical scenarios
in my life.
Like I think, well, what if,when my because my parents
actually neither of them grew upreligious.
They both grew up in almostcompletely secular households,
(19:10):
so it wasn't like this was alifestyle that they had grown up
with.
They actually sought it out asyoung adults, when they were in
their 20s.
So sometimes, as a you knowkind of macabre exercise, I
would go in my mind and think,well, what if, you know, when my
father, you know, was 22,instead of going to Jerusalem
(19:30):
and ending up in a you knowstudying in a rabbinical
seminary, what if he had gone tolaw school in New Hampshire?
You know, just like you know thesliding doors of what would
have happened, you know, and Ithink, would I have had a
different life Would he not havebeen an abusive father.
Was there something about theconfluence of religion and abuse
(19:52):
that facilitated or enabled theabuse?
You know, facilitated orenabled the abuse.
You know, it's such afascinating thing for me to
think about and of course, I'llnever know the answer, and I
don't really.
Even now that I've beenthinking about this and writing
about it, you know, for manyyears, I still, even now, don't
(20:14):
have a totally clear sense ofwhat the relationship was
between the relationship betweenthe abuse and the religious
belief.
So, for example, my mom oncetold me in confidence something
that my father had shared withher in confidence, and she
shared this with me when I wasan adult I mean, I think I was
(20:34):
40 when she told me this and itshocked me.
She told me that my father onceconfided in her, that he
specifically became a rabbi.
He sought out the rabbinate asa profession because he hoped it
would keep him in check.
He hoped that by adhering tothis not just religious
(20:54):
lifestyle but a public religiouslifestyle, that it would
somehow curb some of his darkertendencies, which apparently he
had a little bit ofself-awareness about.
Now again, my mom didn't tellme this until I was in my 40s,
so you know too late then.
But it's very fascinating to meto think about how religion is
(21:19):
used, not only in my family, ofcourse, but in many families and
in many religions obviously notjust Judaism Every religion.
You will have people who takethe religion and are either
using it as a cover for theirown bad behavior or maybe
(21:45):
they're using it to, almost in aperverse way, help keep them on
the straight and narrow.
It's not clear to me exactly.
I think some people seek outGod and religion from a very
sincere, authentic place.
There's, of course, manyreligious people who are
(22:06):
authentically good people.
I'm not here to pass judgment onreligion as a whole Right but I
think that it can also be a bitof a mask for many of us.
It can also be a bit of a maskfor many of us, and you know, it
sounds funny to say that I'vedone a lot of research for this
book, because it's a memoir andit's my own life.
So you would think, well, whatdo you have to research?
(22:27):
You just write about your ownlife.
But I actually did quite a bitof research into clergy abuse in
general and I read, you knowsome definitive histories, let's
say, of like abuse in theCatholic Church and you see,
sometimes with you know, manyyears later, the priests who you
(22:47):
know have been found guilty ofabuse and later maybe share some
of their experiences.
You see, it's a very convoluted, complicated, almost dangerous
relationship between religionand abuse, because as human
beings we have this ability tocontort religion to suit our own
(23:10):
purposes.
So you can almost twistreligion, and many religious
leaders do twist religion, sothat they don't necessarily have
to look at their actualbehavior.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Spiritual abuse, abuse in the name of religion,
and so on.
All the things that you'redescribing are.
There's episodes in their ownright for a podcast.
We could talk about that weprobably don't talk about it
enough on the show.
I'd love to learn more aboutthat and talk with experts about
that.
But I think to your point, allof it played a role and that
(23:48):
moment of self-awareness that hehad actually, I think, is very
telling, and how he was usingreligion to keep himself under
control, but also, when thatdidn't work, it was a
justification for his influenceand power and control over the
family.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
A hundred percent.
You know, and that's where,like I said, I am I'm not
anti-religion in any way and Ithink if you read the book
you'll see I, you know, sharedin the book my own very real
struggle to you know, try toreclaim pieces of the religious
tradition and hold on to piecesthat are meaningful for me,
because I'm not a person whosays, you know well, all
(24:27):
religious belief is I don'tthink that but at the same time
I do think, you know, embeddedin our religious traditions, and
not only in Judaism and otherreligions also is, you know,
unfortunately often a verypatriarchal structure that
favors the male head of thefamily, or the male head of the
(24:50):
church, or the male head of thesynagogue, or the male head of
the religious school, or thechoir leader, or whoever it is,
and it's often a man.
And I think in our culture wehave traditionally been very
deferential to that authorityfigure, whether it's the priest,
it's the rabbi, it's the imam,whoever it is, they are the
(25:11):
authority figure.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I think anytime whether it's religion or it's
something else anytime you'regiving away your authority to
somebody else, you run the riskof losing yourself, and I think
it's a very dangerous thingactually.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Now, just keeping on thereligion theme for a minute and
going back to that very powerfultitle for the book, you noted
in the tagline of the title thatthis is a story of both trauma
and redemption, that being yourtrauma and your redemption.
But there were brothers andsisters, and your mother who
also endured abuse, alongsideyou.
(25:51):
I'm curious how they respondedto you telling your story in
this memoir.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah.
So I will say, you know,there's definitely been an
evolution over the years,because I didn't, you know,
start writing this book one dayand publish it the next day.
It's been a years long project.
So I would say my siblings andmy mom were always, you know,
kind of aware that I was workingon this book in some fashion or
another over really decades.
(26:18):
So there was a journey there,you know.
I would say initially, forexample, my mom was a bit
skeptical about this.
You know, I think she you knowrightly so was concerned about
herself being exposed, exposingour family, and I think she was
also concerned about me and mymental well-being, and is
(26:42):
spending hours and hours andhours a day, every day,
excavating this material reallythe best thing for my mental
health, especially because Ihave fought so hard to be in an
okay space mentally?
Is this really the best way tospend my time and is this
ultimately going to be a goodthing?
(27:02):
So I think initially there wasskepticism, there was
apprehension, there washesitation, like sometimes I
would call my mom on the phoneand tell her I was working on my
book and she would say in aconcerned way you know, are you
sure that that's really the bestthing for you to be doing?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
do you?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
think this is a good thing for you to be doing, and I
and I explained to her.
You know what, mom?
The thing that was hard aboutmy life is not the writing of it
.
The thing that was hard waswhen it happened.
Writing about it is not thehard part, that's actually
healing part.
So I assured her that I actuallydid think this was a good thing
(27:41):
for me and I'm very gratifiedto say that over the years there
really was, like I said, anevolution, so that by the time I
had a complete manuscript andthe book was ready to be
published, I sent an early copyof the manuscript to my mother
and to my siblings and I thinkby that time they were just 100%
(28:03):
supportive.
And I would say, since the bookhas come out, I mean, my mom
flew in for my book launch inWashington DC.
She's recommending the book toall of her friends and you know.
So there's there's been a shiftand I'm I'm really really
grateful for that shift, becausethe abuse that our family
experience went from beingsomething so shameful, so
(28:25):
secretive, to being somethingthat we've all kind of not just
accepted but almost like embrace, like yeah, this is our family
story And're going to put it out.
And here it is in a beautifulbook and you can read about it,
you know.
So I it's.
It's been a really meaningfuland gratifying experience.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
That's so interesting .
Now we touched on this, but Ineed to come back to it, because
your father's abuse seemed tolast his entire lifetime.
Yeah, it did not end when youbecame an adult and a mother,
and, in some ways, it wasintensified due to his substance
use.
When did you realize that yourfather's situation was worse
than you had even thought ormaybe experienced, and how did
(29:07):
you respond to it?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah.
So I had kind of distancedmyself from my father.
I would say by the time I wasin my late 30s I had really like
kind of taken a step back.
I wasn't you know, I was a bitestranged from him.
And then I got a call from mybrother, my youngest brother who
was living down in Miami wheremy father was living at the time
(29:30):
.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
And now, at this point, your parents are not
together.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
At this point.
So my mother had left him.
My mother left him.
She left him after 40 years ofmarriage.
(29:53):
Yes, so she had left him a fewyears earlier and, of course,
let's just acknowledge how muchcourage it actually takes to
leave an abusive marriage.
In my mother's case, it you'recorrect, my mother had already
left.
My brother was down in Miamiwhere my father was living, and
I got a call from my brotherdescribing some of the most
horrific things I've ever heardin my entire life in terms of my
father's escalating drug use,which I had really not been
aware of.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, that was really shocking to read about.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
And it was shocking to me as well.
I didn't know my father was adrug user, I mean certainly not
a hard drug user.
That was shock, absolutelyshocking to me.
And even more shocking, ofcourse, was this revelation that
he was abusing young women inhis new congregation in Florida.
This, it really cannot beunderestimated, the huge shock
(30:38):
that this was to me, because Ialways thought, you know, well,
my father abused us, but youknow we're his family, so in a
way it's okay, you know, but howcan you abuse strangers?
And that just goes to show, Imean, just the twistedness.
You know that I had been kindof raised to believe, well, okay
(31:00):
, well, if you abuse your family, you know, well, you know, I
guess that's okay.
But it's the real problem whenyou abuse other people.
I mean, it was like I couldn'tbelieve it that it was both.
And I have a line in the bookwhere I say I thought my father
was sane enough and discreetenough to know that it's one
thing to hurt your family,something else to hurt strangers
(31:21):
.
And once I found out that hisabuse was not only continuing
but actually escalating, that'swhen I said no more and that's
when I decided I am going tostart writing about this in any
way, shape or form that I can,and so, as soon as I found out
that this was happening, Istarted publishing essays about
(31:44):
my father's abuse, because thatwas a breaking point for me.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, I can't imagine that it wouldn't be a breaking
point for you, because that'ssome pretty serious stuff that
was going on and it goes into alot of detail, some pretty
serious stuff that was going onand it goes into a lot of detail
in the book.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
My youngest brother was the first person who kind of
alerted me to this fact that myfather was abusing young women
in his congregation.
To make a long story short,this woman young woman she was
22 at the time she did end upcontacting me directly over text
and we did develop arelationship of sorts in the
sense that I was texting withher on and off for several years
(32:25):
, trying to help her and tryingto get her.
Number one just to stay awayfrom my father who was still
actively abusing her, and numbertwo to try to really encourage
her to seek out psychologicalhelp.
And number three to try toreally encourage her to seek out
psychological help.
And number three to also try toget her legal help.
In the end I failed at all ofthose three objectives and she
(32:50):
was completely dependent on myfather financially and for drugs
and I think also, if you canbelieve it, for spiritual
guidance.
And that's really the shockingthing was that she didn't
consider him her friend or hermentor or her confidant.
She considered him her rabbiand she spoke about him that way
(33:14):
.
This is someone who's givingher drugs and also abusing her
sexually and physically andemotionally.
So when you think about that,within that she was still able
to consider him, her rabbi goesto show you how deeply entwined
and complicated trauma can be.
You're weaving these threadstogether where on one hand,
(33:37):
here's a man who's being abusiveto her, supplying her with
drugs, but at the same time shewould tell me that she could
talk to my father about thingsshe couldn't talk about with
anyone else.
She would go to him forspiritual guidance and religious
counsel.
So, as you can imagine, maria,that just kind of blew my brain
wide open.
Imagine, maria, that just kindof blew my brain wide open and I
(34:02):
became really committed totrying to get her help.
But in the end realized and Iwrite about this process in the
book in the end I realized Ijust have to help myself Because
if I try to be a savior to thisyoung woman, it was taking me
down with her.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, that's really profound.
Was your father ever prosecutedfor any of the offenses?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
No, not at all, and I talk about this in the book as
well.
There was a network of supportaround him, so extended family
members, friends, people veryestablished in the community who
protected him, and I've had alot of anger at those people and
(34:45):
writing this book, if you canbelieve it, has helped me to
release a lot of that anger,because I feel that you know, I
can't control anyone else'sbehavior and everybody is going
to have to make peace with theiractions at some point in their
lives, and it's not for me todictate, so I just felt that
(35:07):
writing about it was probablythe best chance that I had at
getting any sense of justice,and by sense of justice I mean a
scrap of justice.
Obviously, in his lifetime myfather did not face the kind of
consequences that he perhapsshould have, so for me, in a way
(35:30):
, writing this book was my wayof trying to see justice done.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
And I respect that, and it comes through in the
writing.
Let's also talk about the ideaof redemption, because there's
an aspect to it as the writingbeing redemptive for you.
How do you identify that?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So I think there were many years where I felt so
ashamed, and certainly as achild.
Without question, it was ashameful subject and the whole
idea was to keep things onlockdown and for nobody to find
out.
But, even as an adult woman,even once I was married and had
a child of my own, I felt verymuch like I don't want this to
(36:17):
be part of my life.
I'm trying to live a new life,I'm trying to form my own family
, I'm trying to get out fromunder this.
And that had been kind of myposition for years.
And then, you know, like I said, I was galvanized by all the
events that transpired and bythe time I decided to work on
(36:39):
the book, I felt that I was at apoint where I was saying I'm
not going to be ashamed anymore,I'm not going to live feeling
that I need to protect anyone,that it is my job to keep
anyone's secrets or that I haveto feel bad for even one minute,
that this is my family history.
(37:00):
I've done nothing wrong.
And I have a line in the bookwhere I write you know, I was
not the man who did this to thisyoung woman, I'm not the man
who did it, I'm just hisdaughter.
So you know, I was not the manwho did this to this young woman
, I'm not the man who did it,I'm just his daughter.
So you know, I think for yearsI had kind of taken this yoke on
my shoulders of you know I needto, you know almost do penance
(37:24):
in a way for my father's sinsand then coming to a place,
through writing and throughinvestigating the story, of
saying I free myself of this, Ifree myself of this.
In giving words to this story, Ialmost was trying to make it
something separate from myself.
(37:46):
It's its own entity, but I'mnot going to carry it around
anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, and that took a lot.
It took a lot of courage, ittook a lot of time to put this
in writing and to get itpublished.
And I can see it.
I mean, I can see it in youthat and I can see why you would
, you know, want to expose thefact that this wasn't your crime
.
It's hard, because I know a lotof survivors have this carry
(38:16):
the shame of the crime that wascommitted to them, but you very
eloquently pointed out thatyou're not the one that should
have the shame.
He should be ashamed of hisactions and what he had done.
All abusers should be ashamedof their actions and the pain
they've caused.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, and so a hundred percent.
And so I just reached a pointwhere I just felt like it was
becoming very heavy for me as Iwas getting older and as I was
mothering my own child.
It was becoming quite heavy onme and I felt, why should I have
to bear this alone?
My father was the head of acommunity.
(38:55):
Both of my parents gave and gaveand gave to their community in
terms of helping people whenthey were ill, helping people
who lost parents or children orsiblings.
I mean, my parents were ofservice to their community, and
so I reached a point where Isaid to myself my parents lived
(39:16):
such a community-based life andyet here I am suffering with
this secret in isolation, and Ireached a place where I thought,
why should I have to carry italone?
Let me put it out there, andperhaps we can all carry this
burden.
It should not have to be minealone to carry.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, absolutely Now, while this memoir is your first
book, it's not your onlypublished writing.
You've published essays onmotherhood, mental health and
domestic violence that haveappeared in the New York Times,
slate, the Forward and elsewhere.
Tell us a little bit about thatwork.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Sure, well, as I told you, when I found out that my
father had been abusing otherpeople, namely young women in
his congregation, as I mentioned, that really galvanized me and
I thought well, I've beenworking on this memoir for so
many years, but in the meantime,let me start just writing about
it.
And so I wrote an essay.
(40:14):
The first essay I wrote aboutmy father was almost 10 years
ago, and it was about findingout that he was dying.
He had an advanced form ofcancer, and it was about my
struggle, my conflict withinmyself.
Do I go visit my dying father,who at that point, I'd been
estranged from for a number ofyears?
(40:36):
Do I go say goodbye?
Do I try to have some kind ofyou know, final closure?
You know?
So that that was the firstessay I wrote.
I wrote another essay about whenmy father died and the question
of how do you mourn an abusiveparent.
This is something.
I really looked for resources.
(40:57):
I looked for other books,articles that have been written
about it.
I couldn't find that much, andso instead I wrote about it
myself, which was you know, howdo you grapple with the idea,
when a parent dies, they'restill your parent, no matter
what they did or didn't do?
You only have one parent and or, you know, you only have one
(41:19):
mother and one father.
And so I wanted to really writeabout that kind of very deep
internal conflict of, on onehand, wanting to kind of
acknowledge and mark my father'spassing but at the same time,
feeling that the traditionalways of doing that, like
attending a funeral or giving aeulogy, or saying the Jewish
(41:42):
prayer, the Jewish mourner'sprayer, I felt that I didn't
want to do those things, youknow.
So then the question becomeshow can you mark the death of a
parent who's been abusive, youknow?
And how, how do you navigatethat?
Because it's it's it's adifficult, it's a difficult
thing to navigate.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah, To say the least.
Before I let you go, will youshare with us your website and
how people can follow you onsocial media share with us your
website and how people canfollow you on social media?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Oh sure, so please follow me on social media.
I'm on Instagram more than Ishould be.
It's my name, Sarah Sherbaugh.
S-a-r-a is my first name.
S-h-e-r-b-i-l-l is my last name.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
You can find me on Instagram and my website is also
just my name.
So, yeah, please find me thereNow.
We have something special forpeople who've listened all the
way through this episode.
You have a passage from yourmemoir that you are going to
share with us.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yes, I am, and before I share it, I just I want to
say one thing, which is that,you know, in this conversation
we've been talking a lot about,you know kind of the nefarious
uses of religion and howreligion can be a destructive
force, or how it can be, let'ssay, used as a destructive force
.
But I also just want to saythat, even though I'm not
(43:03):
formally religious anymore, Istill consider myself a
religious person, even thoughI'm not following the laws and
the traditions in the same waythat I used to.
And so, before I read thispassage, I just want to say it's
really important to me in thisbook to show that religion can
(43:24):
be wielded like a weapon, but itcan also be a source of meaning
and even a source of healing.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I'm going to read a passage from the book.
It's toward the very, very endof the book and it's about a
realization that I had when Iwas on a walk one morning.
Now that I am no longer a child, I have learned some things
about God.
God is not the voice insideyour head that tells you you are
(43:53):
bad.
God does not care about thelength of your hem or the length
of your sleeve.
God is bigger than that.
God is the voice you can callupon from across a deep chasm.
God is the thing you draw onwhen you have nothing left to
draw on.
God is the force that tells youyou will be okay.
(44:18):
God is the power above you,around you, inside you, Wherever
you feel God.
That is where God is.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to
give women in abusive situationsa way out.
We are committed to our missionof providing safety, shelter
and support for women andchildren who have experienced
domestic violence and to raiseawareness regarding its cause,
prevalence and impact.
Join us in creating a societalshift on how people think about
(44:48):
domestic violence.
You can learn more atgenesisshelterorg and when you
follow us on social media onFacebook and Instagram at
Genesis Women's Shelter, and onX at Genesis Shelter.
The Genesis Helpline isavailable 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, by call or text at214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.
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