Agudah Acknowledges Dropping The Ball On Abuse, Claims Near-Perfection
“Look, I don’t write off the bloggers as leitzanim and reshaim, because they will be judged, as we all will, after 120 years for their motivations and techniques. I’m not a condemner, by nature.”
“I do believe that among them there are people who are deeply pained about certain issues and feel that this is the way they can express their pain. I will even go a step further and say that through the pressure they’ve created, communal issues that needed to be confronted were moved to the front burner and taken seriously. A case in point is abuse and molestation issues. The question is, if the fact that they’ve created some degree of change is worth the cost. At the very least, it’s rechilus, lashon hara, and bittul zman. That’s a high price to pay.”
“Then there is the damage wrought to the hierarchy of Klal Yisrael. We’ve always been a talmid chacham-centered nation, and it’s dangerous to ruin the fabric of Klal Yisrael by denigrating the ideal of daas Torah and by allowing personal attacks on gedolei Torah.”
Reb Chaim Dovid believes that the process of decision-making through the Moetzes is as close to perfect as can be. “It’s a homogeneous group of the most intelligent, empathetic individuals — all great talmidei chachamim — and they grasp all aspects of an issue right away.”
Where do I begin?
Let’s start with the positive. R. Zwiebel acknowledges that the charedi world was not taking the issue of abuse and molestation seriously. That’s worthy of credit, even though it’s blindingly obvious. Given that there are other Agudah spokesmen who only weigh in on this topic to claim that there is a baseless witch-hunt in this area, it’s refreshing to see R. Zwiebel admit that the charedi leadership dropped the ball on this issue.
It’s also good to see R. Zwiebel acknowledge that a large part of the credit for the charedi world beginning to take these issues seriously is due to bloggers. That can’t be an easy admission to make; Failed Messiah and UOJ write many things that are distasteful, to say the least. But it is clearly due to them that the charedi world started to address abuse, and so it is good that R. Zwiebel gives credit where credit is due.
On the other hand, given these admissions, R. Zwiebel’s other comments are all the more incomprehensible.
R. Zwiebel admits that the Charedi world did not take these issues seriously – that the abuse of hundreds, probably thousands, of children continued, while molesters were protected and parents were told to shut up. But he wonders if stopping that evil is worth rechilus, lashon hara, and – I’m almost gagging at typing this – bittul zman! By what possible measure might it not be worth it?!
Then we have to think about whether there really are crimes of rechilus, lashon hara, and bittul zman. Sure, there may be some accusations that are false. But, as Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz notes, the majority of discussions about abuse are about cases which are true, and talking about them on the Internet was leto’eles, since it has gotten them dealt with – nothing else worked! So where is the excess of rechilus, lashon hara, and bittul zman?
Then we come to R. Zwiebel’s protest that the blogosphere has denigrated Daas Torah and the honor of the Gedolim. Well, yes, it has. But considering that Agudas Yisrael’s version of Daas Torah is a recent invention, I can’t see that the exposure of its failings is such a terrible thing. And considering that the Gedolim are the leaders, and are thus responsible for dropping the ball on the issue of abuse, surely any loss of respect is their own responsibility. I haven’t seen anyone denigrating and losing respect for rabbis such as Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, Rabbi Yosef Blau, Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik and Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein. Respect is given when it is justly earned.
Next, we have Mishpachah describing R. Zwiebel as believing that “the process of decision-making through the Moetzes is as close to perfect as can be.” Given that he’s just admitted that, unlike the majority of society, the Gedolim did not know how to deal with the issue of child abuse (i.e. they did not know that YES IT REALLY HAPPENS, YES IT’S REALLY TERRIBLE, NO YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH IT ON YOUR OWN, GO TO THE AUTHORITIES), how on earth does he believe that their decisions are “as close to perfect as can be”?