To report or not to report? There is no question!

To report or not to report?  There is no question!

The Case

“Because we publicly spoke out against Rabbi Freundel, and supported the allegations against him, we have been made to feel unwelcome in our Orthodox synagogue. The rabbi specifically told us not to speak about the allegations against Freundel, which he considered to be lashon hara.” http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/the-torch/author/emmashulevitz/

The Question

A person believes that she or he has been addressed, pressured, or touched sexually in an unwanted, unsolicited, halakhically forbidden, and therefore abusive fashion. The Orthodox rabbinic institutional establishment seems to have argued alternatively  [see http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/08/ous-rabbinic-authority-says-do-not-call-law-enforcement-on-child-sexual-abusers-456.html and a “clarification” at http://www.rabbis.org/news/article.cfm?id=105757.  See also http://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/rabbi-eidensohn-questions-the-rca-clarification-about-rabbi-belsky/ for an insight into the ethos of many voices in the contemporary Orthodox rabbinate regarding this issue. The arguments against reporting abuse include:

1. it is forbidden to  inform the Gentile authorities of the bad acts of a Jew.  It is proper to suffer stoically and in silence, as befits a pious, complaint Orthodox Jew.
2. Even if one really were sexually abused, how does one dare to shame the larger Orthodox community by airing our private dirty laundry in public?  Any bad press or complaint makes our community, the community of which the person thinking of tattling to the authorities is still a welcome part, look bad. Do the right thing and do not foul our communal nest. If a person shames our community, that individual’s valued place in the Torah community will be forfeit.  We have our rules, our discipline, and we are prepared to protect our interests.
3. Great rabbis have ruled that Orthodox Jews consult them and not turn either to selected Torah citations or to the police when there are complaints of sexual abuse. An uninformed layperson cannot possibly know all of the relevant sources, the consequences to oneself and to others of   going outside of our community in order to satisfy personal, and perhaps vengeful complaint, all in the misguided guise of justice and relief.  Authentic Orthodox Jews are not prepared to compare their own simple-minded, naive reading of Torah ethics to those great rabbis who forbid one’s going to the police with  complaints.  We defer to those who know better, whose learning is immense, whose piety is beyond measure, whose rulings are not subject to review, and whose learning is informed and divinely inspired.
4. Worse than being sexually abused in private is shaming the entire Orthodox community and its rabbinic leadership in public. Because a sincerely Orthodox Jew would not even think to shame our community, we as an Orthodox community will shun anyone and everyone who brings his friends, extended family, neighbors, and holy rabbis, to shame—and to account. And shame on everyone who dares to shame us and dares to hold us to account.

One Modern Orthodox Answer

1. According to normative Orthodox Jewish Civil Law, Hoshen Mishpat 425:1, instances of sexual abuse are supposed to be reported to the civil authorities.   Failure to uphold this settled code law is for Oral Torah Orthodox Judaism unsettling indeed. Deuteronomy 13:1-6 reminds Jewry that Torah law is absolute, i.e. it does not provide for change or manipulation on the part of false dreamers, prophets, or, for that matter, institutionally affiliating Orthodox rabbis who are so great that they alone get to cherry-pick only those Oral Law citations  that confirm their power, privilege, and authority.
2. When the law of pursuer, the rodef, i.e.  the case of an endangering, threatening person, conflicts with the law of the informer, the moser, i.e. a person tattling to the Gentile authorities regarding the misdeeds of a particular Jew, the law of the pursuer, requires that the threatening offender be stopped, no matter what, even at the cost of the presumptive culprit’s life, always and rightly prevails. In Judaism, innocent people have rights, too.  In Jewish law, we first protect the weak and innocent victim before we are concerned with the shame of leaders who put their station above suffering innocents. [Leviticus 19:16 and bSanhedrin 73a]. This, too, is Orthodox Jewish law. This law is often observed in the breach because the self-interest of hierarchical self-preservation often and sadly trumps what Jewish law actually requires.
3. Core Jewish law really is humane, logical, and reasonable. But this Core Jewish law has been uncited, superseded, suppressed, and for those reasons, also undiscussed.  This silence is the source of the cognitive dissonance between what Orthodox Jews do and what Orthodox Jewish law requires.
4. Judaism is about “doing the right and the good.” [Deuteronomy 6:18]. This norm is a “meta-halakhic” rule of thumb to be applied when statutes may seem to suggest alternative and even contradictory prescriptions. The rabbinical decisor must not only read the sacred text well; he must have a sense of fairness, justice, and the thin, small voice of a fearless   moral conscience. Therefore, looking good while acting badly looks bad in God’s eyes. We are required to pursue justice [Deuteronomy 16:20], not what is good for “just us” and not each other, either. An Orthodox community that forbids mixed dancing while tolerating mixed groping is unorthodox in, and of, the extreme.  Before throwing our first stone at dissenting others, we would do well to be in God’s good grace without sin. An Orthodox community that wants to be free of shame will take the steps, and its risks, to shame its shameful offenders without regard to their misplaced high station.
5. An informed, observant Jew will follow the Divine Law, not the consensus of a mindless, leaderless herd. Let’s learn what this Core Jewish law actually prescribes together.   It has been asked, “Is it possible that all Jewry can really be wrong, when our pious rabbis tell us not to tattle to the Gentile authorities and rattle our sacred communal cage?”  Not only does the Hoshen Mishpat 425:1 teach that we are required to tattle to the authorities when predators prey on their guiltless and vulnerable victims, the Hebrew Bible at Lamentations 5:7 and Leviticus 4:13 says that the whole community can indeed  be wrong.  “Everyone is doing it” does by no means make a wrong into a right.  So let us protect the innocent, comply with Hoshen Mishpat 425:1, and obey God.
6. If we do not want to have our dirty little—and large—misdeeds discussed in public, we would do well not to do those offensive deeds that bring about comment even in private.