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benignuman – bravo. thank you for the first accurate, appropriately stated response to that post. May Hashem continue to bless you with clarity, kindness and understanding.
“It is the unfortunate truth that our community has mishandled the issue of abuse in the past, and we need to do a better job of protecting our children”
Well said and the question is how? sentiments and meaning to do better is useless unless you take action to correct the harmful mistakes of the past. How?
Well, to start:
1. Allegations need to be taken seriously, and investigated fairly.
2. Guilty parties must not be protected. This obviously refers to abusers, but also includes those who level false accusations.
3. Rabbanim and other leaders should express loudly and often that the community “image” suffers more from one case of a cover-up than from one hundred cases of abuse.
4. Parents and caretakers should be trained to recognize signs of abuse. (BH, many schools do this already).
5. Children must be educated as to how to recognize inappropriate behavior and how to protect themselves (BH, many schools do this as well).
Since the Observers are not learned enough on their own do demonstrate why the halachic claims are incorrect and pernicious, they instead lash out and say: “if that is what halacha says, I don’t care.”
That is a poor way of expressing themselves.
as opposed to the way people here express themselves. nothing like missing the point twice
Syag,
Thank you for the compliment and the bracha.
CY -“1. Allegations need to be taken seriously, and investigated fairly.
2. Guilty parties must not be protected.”
You’re dreaming! I once had an incident with something worse than molestation!
The Rabbonim that I went to, not only did they protect the guilty one, but they refused to even take my allegations seriously!
DY, if I don’t know enough to recognize that the halacha has been misapplied, then to me halacha is protecting the perpetrators
It’s not, but let’s follow through: do you think halachah is the expression of Hashem’s will?
This is not a discussion of halacha in general and if one finds a Halacha “Wrong” should one disobey it
This is about a very specific “halacha” It was not a general statement
And I think most people got that point
Right. By putting the word halachah in quotes, you are saying that it is not the actual halachah you have an issue with, but with the fake halachah promulgated as real halachah.
Had you made that clearer inyour original post, we wouldn’t have this thread.
There was nothing wrong with the original post, It was quite clear what I had meant.
Do you really think anyone thinks I was referring to anything except molestation and abuse.
The OP just wanted to make an argument to seem he was being “Frum” instead of being a chassid Shoteh
Do you really think anyone thinks I was referring to anything except molestation and abuse.
Yes. Your words, “I will protect my family first and if it means I did an averiah, I will take that averiah” do not imply that you think it’s not an aveirah, they imply that you put your family’s safety ahead of rotzon Hashem. Why shouldn’t some people take them at face value?
You forgot this
if a known molester attends your shul with your nieces and nephews (Or any other relatives), go right ahead. I will protect my family first and if it means I did an averiah, I will take that averiah. Better I take such an averiah than anyone become a victim.
notice the key words KNOWN MOLESTER
I didn’t forget anything. You gave a case, but the reasoning you gave would apply to other cases as well.
Had you expressed the reason as the fact that the halachah in the case of a known molester is that one does report, and therefore it’s a mitzvah, not an aveirah, then your reasoning would only apply to such cases.
But you didn’t.
LU: Why did I say it?
Because many time$, Rabbi$ have made bad deci$ions about mole$ter$, ignoring the well-being of the ma$$e$ to help protect $pecific people.
In some cases, there was a different motivation. My mother told me that when she was looking into kindergartens for my older brother, there was a specific yeshiva she was looking into. She got anonymous phone calls telling her that there was a known molester there, and it was being covered up to protect the yeshiva. As most know, many details about it came out only a few years ago. The yeshiva world used their political influence to get the pervert a light sentence, without having to register as an offender.
In another community, a girl was molested by the person who was supposed to be the “therapist” (although he had no education in the area). The Rabbis who run the community ostracized her family, and blamed her. They protected the pervert again.
ZD – the comment was not about a specific issue – it was about halacha in general. Molesting was one of SEVERAL examples you made to make a point about hilchos LH IN GENERAL.The discussion was actually about speaking LH online about someone who may have been mechalel Shabbos.
Please note the following:
1. The discussion was about halachos loshon hora in general.
2. Molesting was one of several examples given.
3. The discussion had not been about a known molester. You stuck in those words afterwards.
The OP clearly stated:
“and of course in the above case it would be muttar to report. But that is besides the point.”
So it is motzi shem ra to imply that he said that molesters don’t have to be reported or that that was the issue at hand.
The molesting issue is being used as a strawman to detract from the real issue being disscussed here. This is a tactic that has been used in the CR before. (I actually learned that word from the CR).
DY +1
Health, I’m very sorry to hear about what happened to you. I hope you have been able to put yourself back together. It is devastating that the guilty party was not dealt with properly. ?? ????? ???, Hashem will not allow the wicked to go unpunished.
The Rabbanim I know take this issue very seriously. I hope it is not a dream to expect that our community has grown over the past decade in how we deal with all forms of abuse, and that my Rabbanim are now the rule instead of the exception.
CY -“Health, I’m very sorry to hear about what happened to you. I hope you have been able to put yourself back together.”
Thank you.
“The Rabbanim I know take this issue very seriously. I hope it is not a dream to expect that our community has grown over the past decade in how we deal with all forms of abuse, and that my Rabbanim are now the rule instead of the exception.”
I wasn’t talking about abuse. There are things that goes on in Frum communities that are kicked under the carpet.
That being said – there’s a Din Veshbon on e/o, no matter how powerful or how high your status is in the Frum community!
Well for the sake of anyone who has gotten into an emotional argument with triggers that take that person back to witnessing something traumatic, words may not flow eloquently here.
By forcing him to relive that experience, why? So you can tell him that he is wrong and you are right?
I don’t get this thread. I think it’s staging a situation so you can say that Hey, he did say not to listen to halacha.
Why make him go back there? He told us that he saw something questionable. Witnessed it. With his eyes mind brain. Imagine holding that information. So now you are pushing him even more.
The brain is stressed. The body stressed. The parts of the brain used for logical arguments are now put on hold to defend for life. To me it sounded like ZD was in that mode. Maybe defending it here because he is still having his buttons shoved by post after post.
If the molestation is a strawman issue. Fine. Then. Make a new thread about something else. Unemotional.
Such as purple raincoats.
If Hashem said no purple raincoats and it was raining and the only raincoat in sight was purple, ZD would you wear it?
Lashon Hora! 😉
Lol! I actually wrote a post about how I was thinking about Health! B/c I learned of a CPR training this Sunday.
But mentioning it here was out of place and so well I deleted it and there you go
DY +1 again 🙂
LB -sorry, but you are missing the point here. ZD was not the one having his buttons pushed. A false accusation was made against Yekke2 and he had to be defended.
“I don’t get this thread. I think it’s staging a situation so you can say that Hey, he did say not to listen to halacha.”
No one staged a situation besides ZD. He made up the situation in a previous thread as part of a discussion about listening to halacha in order to show that there are situations in which he doesn’t think that one should listen to halacha.
That statement of his was kefira (whether or not it was intentional) and therefore Yekke2 felt it necessary to say something in order to stand up for Hashem and the Torah’s honor. Hashem and the Torah had been debased by the statement that a person can know better than what Hashem says in the Torah. That is what the discussion is about.
I think that some of us (such as DY and myself) were hoping that ZD would say, “no, of course that is not what I meant at all” and would take back his statement and explain what he meant. We gave him several opportunities to do so.
I am still hoping that that will happen eventually. But as long as attacks are made on either the Torah or other posters, it is necessary to defend them.
ZD: “If the molestation is a strawman issue. Fine. Then. Make a new thread about something else. Unemotional.
Such as purple raincoats.
If Hashem said no purple raincoats and it was raining and the only raincoat in sight was purple, ZD would you wear it?”
ZD was the one who picked molestation as an example. He deliberately did so to make his point.
Also, we don’t care what ZD would or would not do. As Yekke2 pointed out above, that is not the issue. We all make mistakes and we have all been oiver on halacha at some point. The issue was making the statement that one should not listen to halacha.
I am still hoping that that will happen eventually.
It happened. He put “halacha” in scare quotes. Time to drop the charges against ZD.
I am done here. This CR stuff gets exhausting sometimes! But it’s fun too.
DY, it’s really nice of you to be “dan l’kaf zchus” but I don’t know. He still continued with his false claims against Yekke2 after that. And if that was his point and he really wants to take back his original statement, I think he should make it clearer.
And he still said this AFTER the post you quoted:
He is very clearly calling it an aveirah (yet still saying that one should do it).
Additionally, as you yourself pointed out previously, the fact that the guy is “a known molester” does not mean that a sheilah does not need to be asked. You have to know what you are allowed to say and to whom. It is also not clear what the definition of “known molester” is here. In the original context we were talking about people who were rumored to be molesters but were not in fact molesters. And again, molesters was just one example he gave.
Also, the context of the discussion was about posting information about people online who reportedly were oiver on aveiros (molesting was just one example) without asking a sheilah, and just assuming that it is always a good thing to do (if it was an aveira bein adam l’chaveiro) because someone might possibly be helped by it.
That is a terrible thing to say!!! You can really be ruining peoples’ lives. Sometimes, there are things that must be said, but many times it is absolutely forbidden to say something! In order to be allowed, there are many factors that must be present. And I highly doubt that anyone would say it’s okay to post online anyone who has cheated on their taxes!!!! (which was one example he gave).
So if ZD really wants to take back what he said, he would have to make it clear that he did not mean that one can publicly denounce anyone without first clarifying the halacha. (how one clarifies the halacha is another subject and we can start a new thread on that).
He was quoting himself.
No, he didn’t apologize for his wording, because he thinks it is clear that he meant that it’s not an aveirah.
I disagree, but the bottom line is that he is NOT saying it’s okay to violate Hashem’s commands for your own needs. He’s just not realizing that that’s what it sounds like.
“He was quoting himself.”
I don’t see what difference that makes.
DY: “but the bottom line is that he is NOT saying it’s okay to violate Hashem’s commands for your own needs. He’s just not realizing that that’s what it sounds like.”
I’m not completely convinced. Again, he wasn’t just talking about the molesting case. He gave other examples. And this topic has also come up in the past, and he implied the same thing.
Maybe he really thinks that according to halacha, it is always mutar to speak badly online about people who were oiver on bein adam l’chaveiro because there could be some benefit to it. Which is not the same as saying that one doesn’t have to follow halacha, but it is also pretty bad. There are many, many, conditions necessary before you run to ruin peoples’ reputations. And he very clearly stated that you don’t have to ask a sheilah.
Maybe he was only talking about cases in which it’s obvious that it’s the right thing to do. But then he should say so. And it’s still a bit shvach because you always have to find out exactly what you are allowed to say. And you certainly should ask before you say something online.
I also still feel that an apology to Yekke2 might be necessary.
You are probably right that he didn’t completely realize what he was saying. I think that happens a lot in the CR. But I still feel a retraction is necessary.
I’m not sure to what extent one can say that someone is not responsible for their words if they don’t understand what their words mean. I have been wondering a lot about that since I’m in the CR. There is definitely some room to be “dan l’kaf zchus” that people don’t understand what they are saying and perhaps can’t always be held responsible, but it still seems to me that they have a responsibility to retract once it has been explained.
Bottom line – I don’t know what can and can’t be expected of anyone else. But I definitely think my responsibility is to respond to certain types of comments regardless.
I do think that it’s great that you are so “dan l’kaf zchus”. Maybe I need to work on that. And it does seem like ZD is a very nice person, so it is probably true that he doesn’t really mean what he is saying.
ZD – I apologize if I came acros too harshly. You probably really didn’t realize what your words meant, and I apologize for not being dan l’kaf zchus enough. At the same time, I did feel a need to stand up for both the Torah and Yekke2 when I felt they were being attacked. But I apologize if it was too strong.
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