Why rabbis sin
Wherever you have a self-perpetuating oligarchy, its members come to see themselves as above the law.
By Jeremy Rosen Tags: Israel newsOne could be forgiven for thinking that this past year was a very bad one for Orthodox Judaism. Across the Jewish world, one scandal followed another: corrupt and criminal activity among kosher slaughterers and kashrut supervisors, drug smuggling, theft and other illegal financial practices, racial discrimination, sexual abuse, some rabbis recorded demanding sex for conversions and others taking drugs and employing prostitutes. One after another, the headlines have reiterated a sad litany of corruption among Orthodox Jews, in many cases among their rabbinical leaders.
None of this is new; it has been going on for a very long time. But for someone as committed to Torah as I am, this phenomenon represents, far more than theological issues, the most serious of challenges to faith.
I am tired of making excuses. Once I would argue that 2,000 years of oppression, hatred and exclusion had taught the Jews to do whatever they needed to survive. Or, I would note that much of Orthodox Jewry nowadays is barely a generation removed from life in an Eastern Europe where the state was an enemy and everyone had to break the rules in order to evade the discriminatory regimes. In Israel, one could put the blame on David Ben-Gurion, for not having separated religion and state, which in effect encouraged the Orthodox to indulge in all the temptations that accompany political power.
But as with attempts to rationalize terrorism, you go through the obvious list of justifications - poverty, alienation, discrimination - and then you find perpetrators who have suffered none of the above. Daily, we Orthodox repeat mantras about justice, charity and kindness in our prayers, and the more we seem to spout them, the less many of us seem to pay any attention to translating the words into actions.
Catholicism might chalk it up to original sin, explaining that we are all corrupt by nature. Judaism, however, tells us that we are not necessarily evil, but influenced from birth by two inclinations, one to do the right thing and the other to do what is wrong, and we can give priority to one over the other. So why do so many of us ignore our own rules and standards? Is being religious, perhaps, just a social phenomenon, an accident of birth, a system of habit, norms and customs carried out without thought or spiritual significance? After all, even though observance is intended to promote moral behavior and allows for repentance, most people only pay lip service to that. Some people do change. But the vast majority are the same after Yom Kippur as they were the day before.
One could also argue that some people are simply genetically disposed to be more concupiscent, greedy and immoral than others, just as others seem to be more naturally saintly. We all struggle against our evil inclinations, and some people appear to have it easier than others.
But there are other factors at play here. Wherever you have a self-perpetuating oligarchy, its members come to see themselves as above the law. Just as a regime of men usually discriminates against women. This is why the unfair laws of divorce in Judaism have still not been modified to remove the disgrace of male chauvinists who can blackmail their wives over a get. When a majority of rabbis turn a blind eye, claiming they can do nothing, they are really encouraging the process of coercion, providing easy outs to the men while refusing to budge for the women. Add to that the superstition factor - and a tendency to attribute superhuman powers to certain rabbis, so that many then fear crossing them - and you have additional opportunities for corruption.
It may be true that every religion has a similar problem, but that's no excuse. I don't deny the goodness, charity and spirituality that do exist within Orthodoxy, but I am concerned about so many who let the side down, and an automatic tendency of authority to blame the messenger.
Considering how religions seem incapable or unwilling to police themselves, what is the solution? Shedding constant and consistent light on the murky recesses of religious corruption, I would sugest. Most humans behave far better when they think they are being observed. If rabbis who are charlatans, predators, thieves and hypocrites know they are likely to be exposed, they might think twice about what they do. As it is, though, Orthodoxy tends to protect them, claiming wrongly that exposure breaches the laws of gossip and lashon hara. Religious leadership tends to close ranks, often blaming the victims or exonerating the perpetrators. Recent ads in the Orthodox press even claim that those convicted of fraud are like "captives" who must be freed.
All closed groups behave this way, not only Orthodox Jews. This is precisely why Israel's Supreme Court is so unpopular with the Haredi world - and so necessary, because it will recognize no such defenses. It is why a free press, and now the Internet too, is so important, and why public opinion must not let even outwardly pious criminals get away with their wrongdoings. This is why a code of human rights must coexist alongside Torah. It shouldn't need to, since Torah requires justice and righteousness. But when we see the outwardly observant betraying their core values while Orthodoxy stands idly by, we need the checks and balances that a universal system of legal ethics mandates.
Jeremy Rosen is a rabbi and writer. He lives in New York and blogs at jeremyrosen.com/blog.
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molested by Catholic priests - belief in your Yeshua doesn't inevitably leads to holy behavior. As to orthodox religious leaders who do wrong, I am not so sure it is a matter of the rest of the world holding them to a higher ethical and moral standard so much as that these leaders purport to hold themselves to a higher standard ? and so their moral and ethical failings invariably carry the scent of hypocrisy. Some will find in their actions justification for doubting the validity of religion. This is a mistake ? it is all but impossible to discern a person?s spiritual state from their outward appearance ? all because someone is a Rabbi and lives publicly in accordance with Halachah doesn?t make them holy; neither do their misdeeds negate the validity of the religion they profess to practice. In the end, we are all human, and we are all involved in our own struggle to find goodness, and the path we tread is seldom straight.
These Rabbi's just don't know their Messiah -Yeshua-Jesus Christ- Christ=anointed one of God-SON of God-Abba Father God in the flesh. IF they did know Yeshua- they would have NO SIN problem. In fact, ALL ISRAEL would have NO problems ! Because there is no sin in Abba Father-God, therefore no sin in Yeshua either-GOD IN FLESH! Though they be two... they are ONE. IN ONE HOLY SPIRIT of TRUTH Nothing is impossible with God ! These people honour God with their lips but their hearts are far away- because without Yeshua IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for man NOT to fall into sin- disobedience, unbelief, fear...then all the others. Yeshua defeated satan because HE IS God-Messiah & HE has NO sin... sin-attachments satan could CONTROL HIM on. Either we serve God-Elohim-Yeshua HaMessiah OR satan-anti-Christ spirit-driven people of this world, Abba said. Each MUST choose ! Every time we sin we give satan our power- evil gets worse...more darkness..hatred..war. Give vote-Yeshua= TRUE enlightenment !
It seems most rabbinical sins involve finance, like accepting charity vouchers for school fees or laundering money. The chap who allegedly propositioned a prospective convert seems to be moving into new territory.
Oppressed people-oppress others ..hurting people-hurt others- transfer pain & suffering in an effort to get rid of it. But this is wrong- Yeshua takes all our pain & suffering...away at the Cross. Yeshua gives us HIS POWER & AUTHORITY of ABBA FATHER GOD-ELOHIM ...so we can do what HE did- CAST-OUT demons, HEAL sickness, DO miracles, live PURE, HOLY, SINLESS as Yeshua lived. Yeshua-the ONLY one to ever DEFEAT satan.. the only Messiah to show & guide us safety around satan's land-mines. State & politics should NOT be separated.. a lifestyle pleasing to God according to God's Holy Word. But politicians nor religious leaders don't have a hope in hell without YESHUA ! Satan has 6000 years start on them.. world system is designed to entice us to fall.. charity- good works will NOT get us into Abba's Holy presence..we MUST come by Abba's Pesach Lamb- that taketh away the sins of the world- incl Jewish. Destruction of poor is poverty. Satan comes to kill, STEAL & destroy. Yeshua=life
Lovely article ! ALL people need: to know their Messiah-Yeshua-Jesus Christ. Once they acccept Yeshua-Jesus ABBA FATHER-ELOHIM WILL send HIS HOLY SPIRIT of TRUTH to abide-LIVE-IN them. The Holy Spirit will guide them to all truth & convict people of wrong thinking, words & actions, it is written. God will immediately convict them- for they are now directly connected with God - by HIS Holy Spirit- through FAITH in God's SON-Yeshua. Yeshua- Pesach Lamb of God- atones by HIS shed blood all OUR sins- giving us HIS righteousness. Law given by Moses..Grace & TRUTH given by Yeshua-Jesus. Only Jesus (God in the flesh) has defeated the devil..never sinned..so the devil had no attachment on HIM. ONLY JESUS-Yeshua can cleanse-atone-save us from the temptations-tricks-sins-snares of the devil. Our only HOPE for love & peace for Israel & this lost, dark, sinful world. Our ONLY Messiah-true enlightenment ! Ask HIM- HE will answer all your questions! Praise God-Elohim! With Much Love
Thanks for your courage & analysis of the main causes of this paramount problem. Why don't u quote the last michna of gemara Sota ? a orthodox jew trying to behave like a real orthoprax, not withtanding the behavior of numerous (incresing number) of "charlatans".
According to the Mishna, the problem is that these sinning rabbis don't have actual jobs in the real world to complement their Torah study. See Pirkei Avot 2:2-- "R. Gamaliel said: "Great is the study of Torah together with an occupation, for laboring over both makes a man forget sin" The same mishnah continues: "Any study of Torah which is not combined with an occupation will eventually cease and will draw sin in its wake."
One of the reasons for the curious lack of some forms of ethics could be that our study of Shulchan Aruch in recent generations has tended to leave out a lot of Choshen Mishpat. The Tzadik Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer ztl noted that we sometimes honour people who behave as if Choshen Mishpat were not prt of their Shulchan Aruch.
Part of the problem is the nomenclature. We have come to use the title Rabbi for anyone doing any religious function. In proper Kehillohs only the Mora d'Asra is given the title Rabbi. Others with semicha are officially laymen. When the Naturei Karta were challenged over 'Rabbi' Cohen's semicha, he admitted he was a shochet and not a Rabbi. Teachers are given the courtesy title Rabbi in some communities. The only genuine Rabbis convicted are the Spinker Rebbe and the Syrian senior Rabbi in Deal N.J. That doesn't make it a lot better, but it does clarify the widespread abuse of the Rabbinical title.
My own experience within the Haredi world is that it has become over the past 40 years LESS corrupt, but today corruption is better covered by the media. Even the mainstream has improved. Forty years ago Carmel College, Anglo-Jewry's Eton, was rotten to the core. Today, thank G-d, it's shut down. Transit umbra... lux permanet
That rabbis are human.
All right, there are otherwise Halachically Observant Jews who commit sins. And, if they are "rabbis", that doesn't mean they are, rabbis, anymore than doctors or lawyers who might have passed through their professional schools, acquire their licenses, and practice what they were supposed to profess. Just as there are judges and leading physicians and surgeons who often get to their positions on the basis of cronyism and nepotism, sometimes the same Yetzer HaRa in those "secular" realms seeps over to rabbis who seek out roles of leadership. The judge who had to be called back to stand on trial was related to Aharon Barak! Doesn't that bring up questions about the former Chief Justice of the Israel Supreme Court, or do we deign to ask such questions. The problem is that in a society where religion is put up to a "higher" standard by people who would prefer that it not be there, makes me think that often the protesters doth protest too much methinks.
Rabbis sin because we accept and do not fight them! If orthodox would stand up and fight them, a lot of wrongdoing will stop. Rabbis today are only interested in power (and money). What batter then have the women captives? It is time that - as in the past has been done - the laws and rules are changed. the Rabbis lack the courage to stand up and defend their opinion. Look only at the recent case involving Rabbi Riskin, who showed to be without backbone. Not everything is anti-religion when it should be changed: this just a cheap excuse. Do you need more to know why so many are staying away of the religion?
are above the reach of the law.
are above the reach of the law.
a few.