Week of Parshat Va'Era
by Rabbi Avi Billet
A scandalous story in Israel came to the first stage of a conclusion with the apparent suicide on Monday of a popular author in the "frum" community. With details still coming out and court cases that may never happen, this will not be the space in which that case will be discussed.
If the allegations are true (as of this writing information is still coming out and by no means is a full investigation complete), it is not the first case of a person of influence and power controlling victims and getting away with bad behavior and it will likely not be the last.
While of course we must have empathy for all victims, and even empathy and sadness for his family who are victims in their own way of the reputation he has taken to his grave which they now have to live with, there is a bigger issue which this is related to that also plagues our community.
There are obvious lessons to be gleaned from this story regarding in what manner we allow our children and grandchildren to be put in any kind of compromised position where an abuser can gain control and destroy their lives. This also includes the need to protect anyone from falling under the spell of a charismatic persona who takes advantage of being in a position of power to control people's lives. We must create an environment of protection so that a person in such a position is impressed with the reality that there is “someone watching” and that there is oversight and accountability for actions and behaviors that go too far.
Of course it must be stated that we are allowed to trust people, because most people ARE good people.
And yet, there are outliers. There must be an address where people who are taken advantage of can go, in safety, where they will be heard, where the mistreatment - and I want to emphasize that not all mistreatment is specifically criminal behavior - can be addressed. If it is criminal behavior, the authorities who have the legal power to deal with investigations and to supervise repercussions should be alerted immediately if the accusation is credible and there is danger for further victims. If the behavior is not criminal but is nevertheless disturbing, it must be dealt with, because we cannot have people in positions of power taking abuse of those positions to the detriment of others' lives.
This is not about when people have differences of opinion. We should absolutely feel comfortable challenging opinions, if it’s a conversation worth having, and that should always be done respectfully in both directions - focused on the differences in point of view but never on the personality of the person who holds a different point of view. Holding a different opinion, or even an unpopular opinion, doesn’t make the person who has that opinion a bad or dangerous person. Our society does itself a serious injustice in judging people negatively for having unpopular opinions. It is sad to see and sad to say that the Jewish community is not immune from this terrible scourge of judgmentalism when it comes to what can be boiled down (in most cases) to a political flavor of the day, one which is too often dictated by the largest media outlet. It should not be that way at all, and we, in the Jewish community, must be better than that. As is well known, in the realm of opinion, even when agreement is impossible, people may "agree to disagree." After all, in a civil society, people who disagree are allowed to do so, and should still be able to live together in harmony. Usually much more unites us than divides us.
How does a person in a position of influence get to be so powerful that people are afraid of challenging the person when he or she does wrong things? Usually people accept the reality of that person's actions either because they don't want to be "involved in machlokes" or they feel no one will listen anyway because the person is so controlling and so powerful. [Perhaps if a leader or rabbi is ever described as being "powerful," our community should take a second look at what has been wrought. I imagine in some cases there is room to distinguish if someone is, for example, a "powerful force in Tzedakah" when all of the person's efforts and influence is in doing chesed and the person isn't ever involved in controversy.]
When there is a leader of influence who takes advantage of a position of power, the problem we will often face is that the address to which complaints might go are individuals who know the particular leader, and who may be quick to dismiss the complaints thinking "I know the person. That's just the way s/he is! Don't think too deeply about it." A further concern is of whitewashing the complaint because the person does so much good and has such a wonderful way that calling other manipulative behaviors into question might delegitimize the person's positive impact or may even cause a "Chillul Hashem."
This is why any concerns of this nature (non criminal abusive behavior) must be able to be presented before neutral parties who do not view either side in a particularly favorable way but can simply assess the claims on their own merit. Sad to say, while a Bet Din could be an address, sometimes one or both parties don't want to go to Bet Din, sometimes the issue is not Bet Din-worthy, and sometimes the Bet Din costs are the kind neither side wish to absorb.
We, the Jewish people, and especially those who are enjoined through their positions to be leaders, must be able to hear victims, must be able to empathize with the ways people are mistreated, and must be able to call out bad behavior, even when it is not criminal behavior, but simply behavior which is unbecoming of a Jewish leader. This includes marginalizing people who think differently, ostracizing people who have different points of view, and deciding who, based on criteria that have nothing to do with Torah, is either worthy or unworthy of being part of the Jewish community.
Years ago there was a very popular rabbi in Israel who was accused of sexual crimes – with boys – that had spanned decades. He was involved in Chinukh, he jumped from position to position, because when an accusation was made, the move was often seen as a way to get him away from that space, where he can turn over a new leaf and stop his errant behavior. Surely the effort expended in protecting him was entirely unsuitable - was WRONG - as it led to more victims over the years. He was eventually barred from being involved in Chinukh – despite his charisma and his followers who kept having a blind eye to his deeds and crimes. There was an article in the Jerusalem Post from this past March entitled “Convicted Sex Offender” and it mentioned his name “relinquishes his rabbi title.”
I recall reading an article, a reflection of some kind, of someone who had visited the offices of this rabbi, from a popular publication the rabbi had started that made its rounds to the 4 corners of Israel, and having an eerie feeling that something was very weird. The rabbi’s picture was everywhere – on every publication, on the walls of the offices, in a manner that goes beyond, for example, how newspapers might put a small photo of the contributing writer in an op-ed or article. This was clearly by design of the rabbi himself. And the writer was opining that ego was certainly one component driving the man, and that was fueling his untouchable nature – because he seriously was very popular and charismatic – and all those positives put up a veneer that blinded some, if not many people to the possibility that he was a serial abuser who had hurt many students through his decades in Chinukh.
There is a very simple solution to this, and it’s the model we have from Moshe Rabbenu. Moshe Rabbenu did not want the job he got. He did what God told him to do in all his dealings with Pharaoh. And with the exception of what we will read next week, when Moshe leaves from Pharaoh in a fury of anger when Pharaoh ignores the warning of what will happen to the first borns of Egypt, Moshe remains a pretty even-keeled defender of Bnei Yisrael (a people he would never take advantage of in any way), and even of Everyman Egyptian who need not suffer on account of Pharaoh’s stubbornness. What drove Pharaoh to destroy his own people? Ego. Plain and simple. Not a Pharaoh was immune from ego – look at the edifices, statues, pyramids, etc that they built for their legacies.
And of Moshe, what do we have? ענו מכל אדם. All of Moshe’s actions were NEVER about Moshe. He was ready to give his own life for the people he shepherded. He had his share of dissenters, those who challenged him. Yet God was in his corner, because he only did the will of God, and so even in his being the greatest leader the Jewish people have ever known, his shining light of modeling leadership was his lack of ego.
Was Moshe Rabbenu perfect? I don’t know. The Torah never points at anyone as perfect. There are kind accolades for Chanokh, for Noach, for Yaakov. Chazal speak of some individuals who never sinned. But Moshe Rabbenu is not on that list. So… perfect? No.
Or HaChaim has a long comment in Parshas Beshalach, when the people are thirsting for water, and as they complain to Moshe, he turns to God and says “עוד מעט וסקלוני” – they are about ready to kill me. Or HaChaim asks why in that instance did Moshe not turn to Tefillah, as he did in so many other instances, and instead threw this accusation at the people which seems to ignore their plight and their thirst?
Or HaChaim writes that God was testing the people, to teach them, to guide them, to turn to the heavens and to pray when things are troubling, because this is a fundamental arena in which Emunah – faith and trust in God – and the completeness of the soul – השלמת הנפש – are achieved.
The problem in those instances – complaints of hunger and thirst – were that the people didn’t turn to God. They challenged God through complaining to Moshe, but they didn’t turn to God not to forsake them in their having been taken out of slavery to… what?
Moshe understood what the problem was, so he too didn’t pray on behalf of the people because that would have been an easy fix and the people would not have learned the important lesson they needed to learn. He knew that the first thing that needed to happen was for the complaints to stop. Maybe even for things to get a little worse so the people would themselves turn to God. After all, as we read last week, it was their cries that caused God to appear to Moshe at the burning bush.
Or HaChaim concludes that perhaps that was the reason they didn’t consider Tefillah as an option. They felt that if God had done everything to take us out of Egypt, He certainly wouldn’t have done so to abandon us and not provide for us. So, "NU? Where is the sustenance?"
Or HaChaim’s point is that we can never rest on laurels and go with any assumptions that everything seems OK, or seems scripted, and therefore we can relax in our need to connect with God because He is going to provide anyway.
God simply doesn’t work that way.
And in the trigger for this discussion, we must be vigilant and never rest on laurels that assume charismatic and popular personas who have a significant following don't ever let it get to their heads. We must be extremely careful of charismatic leaders who create an empire around their personality and who build up support systems that seem to be more about them, and less about the good they are achieving. A cult of personality is very un-Jewish - it was the hallmark of Korach in the Torah, of Avshalom in the Prophets, of Shabtai Zevi in his time - and it led to their (and all ego-ists in history) respective downfalls, or to their having a negative reputation when people were able to wise-up to their reality.
There is certainly good in everyone. But sometimes the good is too good, and there could be an ulterior motive behind the empire. Is it power? Is it control? Is there a secret bully and manipulator hiding behind the smile and the efficacious demeanor? Is it a mistaken notion that other people shouldn’t have the ability to make their own decisions because the leader/personality/egotist knows what’s best for the followers?
Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes.
A person without ego doesn’t even attempt to do anything that is manipulative or destroying others’ lives, because there is nothing to be gained from it. There is no ego. The person merely wants to serve God and wouldn’t do anything of significance that would erode the most important relationship a Jew must strive to have – being as close to the Master of the World as possible.
Moshe Rabbenu knew very well that what matters is God and our relationship with Him. Moshe Rabbenu’s job, both in his dealings with Pharaoh and with the Bnei Yisrael, was to inspire people to the truth of Hashem Echad. It wasn’t about selling books. It wasn’t about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram followers. It wasn’t about counting blog post clicks. It wasn’t about pasting a personal photo everywhere. And it wasn’t about being popular.
His job as a leader was to help people achieve their potential. To see, for example, the power of Tefillah. To listen to God’s instruction. To realize that all of us, with respect to the Almighty, are nothing, and should all therefore be exceedingly humble. And he modeled by example, by being the greatest leader who himself was defined by his humility. Humility didn’t mean he felt he had no role to play or that he was a piece of trash to be walked over. It means he knew his role, knew what he had to do, but never never made his existence or his role about himself.
The Jewish people should only merit to have leaders who take this lesson from Moshe Rabbenu, and we should be blessed to see the eradication of any kind of abuse of power. Jewish leaders are charged to follow the model of Moshe Rabbenu, to fit their role with modesty, humility, earning respect while running from the limelight. In the end we all have to answer to God.
May we be blessed to live lives that help us have much less to answer for and much more to be proud of – because what is said about us is that we are humble and modest and we respect every Jew's right to find their own path to God, and of course to live lives unencumbered by bullying and manipulation and any kind of abuse.
The leader who lives up to this charge, who is truly humble before God, could never be so controlling or abusive to take advantage of anyone in any capacity because he or she knows it is never about himself/herself but it is only about how we can all have positive influences and impacts on the lives of those who trust us because we are all servants of the Almighty and have rules and safeguards which are meant to keep us all in check from overstepping any kinds of necessary boundaries.
May all victims of abuse find healing and support from the community and from the leaders who take their tafkid seriously and with humility, never allowing any kind of abuse (including abuse of power) to go unchecked.
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