|
Response to Rabbi Mark Dratch's "Reporting Jewish Abusers to the Civil Authorities" (www.JSafe.org) by Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn Rabbi Dratch begins his piece (which can be seen at the above website), "Safety is the number one priority. In the hierarchy of Jewish legal values, 'Protection from danger is a more significant factor than refraining from ritual prohibitions.'" The source listed is a gemora in Chulin 10a. How amazing that a rabbi can state "Safety is the number one priority." This is completely untrue. There are many values in the Torah higher than safety, although safety is also important. Every Jew knows that we sacrifice our lives rather than commit the sin of paganism, or other cardinal sins. We must die rather than profane the Name of G-d. If so, how can a rabbi state that safety is the greatest mitzvah? If safety was the highest Jewish value, all soldiers should flee, and everyone should leave Israel. Rabbi Dratch supports his statement by twisting a gemora in Chulin. Anyone who took the time to read this gemora would immediately realize that it is not true that we may eat all doubtful food, and it is wrong to say that doubts if something is kosher are all permitted. Therefore, before we begin pontificating about abuse and civil law, at least get the gemora straight. The gemora deals with a mole, carrying a dead and impure rodent, seen walking on top of loaves of a pure priestly food called truma. Do we assume the mole touched the dead rodent to the pure loaves and thus contaminated them or not? The Talmudic principle involved here, says Rashbo, is whether something assumed to be in a kosher or pure state loses this status when there is a doubtful occurrence. Did the occurrence make it forbidden, or do we ignore the occurrence and allow it to remain kosher? Did the impure rodent touch the pure loaves or not? Does this doubtful occurrence, a possible touching, ruin the previous assumption of purity or not? The gemora concludes that in a doubt if the status of kosher food changed and the issue is purity of food, we are lenient. But if there is a question if a snake dropped poison in some food we are stringent. This is because, "Danger is more stringent than ritual prohibitions." This means that when the general tools of the rabbi to adjudicate a question of kosher food, etc., allows him to be lenient, based upon a technical device, we do not allow that technical devise to permit a doubt of poison. That is all it says. Those devices that permit eating a doubtful food do not allow us to eat a doubtful poison. But safety, although very important, is not the highest value. This is not at all true, and the gemora does not say it. But there is a method to the madness. By putting safety on the pedestal, and denigrating everything else, we prepare ourselves for the environment of hysteria that drive all before it to "protect" the "abused." I have called the police on some of my neighbors and testified in criminal and family court against abusers, so I am certainly not insensitive to violence and danger. There is a time when safety is paramount and there are other times. Rabbi Dratch's article, for all of its twisted scholarship, is a polemic, not a scholarly and practical how-to-do-it about calling the police on abusers. The final paragraph called "The Bottom Line" states "Child abusers must be reported to the authorities." Period. I have worked with child molesters, abusers, even attempted murderers, and I would suggest a different opening and ending, indeed, a different and more accurate and more practical approach to the issue of abuse, of children or of a wife. Here is how I would address the abuse issue. One, get the facts. One thing we want with facts are what they are. What exactly happened? Did it happen only once, or is it a pattern? Can you get the offending person to help, to a therapist, and is there a hope for a cure, or can you not? Can you remove the child from the influence of the molester? Another thing we want with facts is whether they really happened, or the woman is using abuse as a tool in a pending divorce. Woman are being taught to lie about their husbands and put them in jail in order to get power in a divorce. There are frum people out there encouraging the wife who wants a divorce to call the police and report her husband as a danger to herself and the children. There are too many rabbis who are quick to give permission for a woman to obtain an order of protection for charges that her husband is a danger to her, even when these charges come after twenty years of marriage and at a time when the rabbi knows the woman is in the midst of a divorce. For twenty years, when there was no divorce, the wife had no problems with the husband. Suddenly, when the divorce comes along, she reveals that the husband is a fearful monster who is prone to violence, abuse, to her and the children. What happened during the first twenty years? Such a rabbi is either a fool or worse. But the feminist force in our community is terrifying professional rabbis, and they toe the line. The Torah is not a gender war. The Torah is truth, and this article by Rabbi Dratch has nothing to do with Torah. It is politics of the worst sort, in the name of "Torah." Sending a Jew to court in an abuse case is a very serious issue. Jails are filled with homosexuals who rape helpless men. These rapists often have AIDS. Thus, sending someone to jail is very serious, and is only done in very dangerous situations. I have sent people to jail, but surely there are different circumstances. Putting a person in jail may be an act of murder. If someone is a clear danger, such as the man who axed his wife's head and her brains spilled out that I put in jail, put him in jail. But if it is one of the myriad cases of abuse where two honest and capable people could disagree whether abuse really occurred, how can we put someone in jail? How can we send such a person to the mercies of a fanatic judge who has zero tolerance for the accused when the accusation is abuse or domestic violence? There is a great difference between civil and Jewish law. Jewish law considers abuse a crime, but it is not a cause. A civil judge, on the other hand, may consider domestic violence not a crime but a cause. The highest level of civil law is something considered a "compelling state interest." Once so mandated, no constitutional rights prevail against it. The state has raised a certain minority's rights above those of other people. It becomes, not just a crime, but a cause. The ordinary rights of the suspected criminal may not prevail in some courts. For instance, a woman was divorced several times, but finally she found a new husband. During a domestic spat she compared her new husband unfavorably with her previous husbands, and he threw something at her. There was no danger, just an expression of anger. The woman called the police, but soon regretted it. She realized that if her husband went to jail he would divorce her. She begged the judge to allow her to rescind her complaint, otherwise she may would be divorced and alone possibly for ever. The judge responded, "I am going to send a message." The judge looked upon this incident as a cause, not a crime. If it was only a crime the woman could possibly rescind her complaint and beg for forgiveness for her own sake. But the judge considered domestic violence a cause. So important is this cause that we must destroy the life of the victim to punish the perpetrator. In the Torah we would not consider such a case a cause to destroy a woman's life. We would allow the woman to forgive her husband. We would even allow the woman to apologize for causing the anger that resulted in the violence, in the light of the fact that it was not a dangerous violence. It is against the Torah to put a person in jail just to send a message that abuse is bad. We don't send messages in the Torah every time there is an issue of abuse. We have to deal with a case by its merits. Rabbi Dratch's article does not discuss the varying degrees of abuse, nor does he discuss the varying degrees of civil punishments for abuse, nor does he discuss what in practical terms calling the police means. He has given the suspected abuser the same rights as the fanatic judge who considers his courtroom a place to promote certain causes at the expense of the accused. For this there is no room in the Torah. Years ago, someone told me that their child was molested and he was going to call the police. I said, "Fine, but before you call the police, find out what, in practical terms, that means to you." The man called me back later and thanked me for saving him from a lot of trouble. You think that calling the police on an abuser is bad for the abuser. But it may be worse for you and your children. Once the Family Court gets its teeth into someone, they control the lives of the children and the family. Huge expenses are necessary for therapists and legal help. Getting government help with a lawyer is a disaster. Getting free therapy is a disaster. Getting secular people who "know it all" even though they are not married and have no children is a disaster. So, before you call the police, find out just what is going to happen to you. By the way, there is a good chance that a molester with a good lawyer will beat the rap, and go free, while your child will be badly damaged emotionally with who knows what results. There are other things to talk about in terms of domestic violence. But one thing is sure, the standards of domestic violence now in vogue are not recognized by the Torah. New York City considers non-physical abuse a crime. One example I saw of domestic abuse is a woman who stays out late with a man and spends her husband's money, and the husband complains. For trying to control her, he is a criminal. I spoke to the Justice Department about this, and they were embarrassed, but this is the way things are going. Instead of fighting these absurd and anti-Torah ideas, rabbis like Rabbi Dratch are lining up to side with the ciivl authorities. This article doesn't mention anything about this issue. Allowing someone to go to the police about domestic violence is too broad a permission. Unless there is physical abuse, and of a sustained nature, and a true danger, going to court and calling the police can be a great sin. Also, as one woman who called me found out, calling the police can be done by husbands, too, and then, who knows how wonderful calling the police becomes. And if wives can lie, so can husbands. Rabbi like Rabbi Dratch are out there beating up husbands. And when these husbands fight back by withholding the GET, what happens then? Well, don't stop with sending husbands to a treife court. Make a treife forced GET, and make a few mamzerim. It is time for the Haredi community to realize that women from the modern Orthodox world, or those in the Haredi world who use certain rabbis, may have questionable GETS, and if they remarry they may be living in sin, and their new children may be mamzerim. Making a child a mamzer is the ultimate abuse. |