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There has to be at least some positive outcome from the false arrest of the innocent Tzadik. So let’s take stock:
1. The general oilem is now much more well aware of the Halachic prohibition against a man walking between two women. While Bnei Torah and many other well informed Jews were always very cognizant of this, the hamon hoam perhaps less so. Especially women. This will surely lead women to not spread themselves out in a fashion as they did in the Shul hallway where they prevented a man from exiting a Shul. This is especially important in a Shul, which is a primary hub for men. But truly anywhere, in any venue at any building or even in the public street, women need to be aware of this to avoid blocking a man from walking through. And any men who may have been unaware of this halacha are now informed.
2. Venues, especially Shuls but truly any place where both genders regularly go through, should be sure to have Mechitzas separating the genders in all areas that both are expected to pass through during any occasion. For both this purpose, as we witnessed under the current discussion, of men being unable to walk between women — and for more general Tznius purposes, aside from this particular inyan. Baruch Hashem the Rov of this Shul in Flatbush announced last week that he will be installing a Metchitza in the Shul hallway.
3. We once again learn, the hard way r’l, the valuable lesson against Mesira. An innocent Yid was falsely accused and reported to the goyim. The moser was enabled in this terrible act by a Jewish group. Without even asking a Shaila first and despite the fact that, at the time of reporting, the child was safe and sound in his mother’s care. All based on the most flimsiest and innocence of acts which was turned into an accusation of the greatest severity and gravity, namely the attempted kidnapping of a child. Something that could have potentially resulted in decades in prison without the possibility of bail even before trial. Trial in a forum of where 12 random jurors, including accepting and welcoming vagrants and the homeless to this pool, to sit upon judgement of an outstanding citizen falsely accused — where his obvious status as a religious Jew could easily work against him in a non-Jewish court.
4. And then there was the oilem hagolem, who quickly, easily and harshly condemned this innocent Tzadik within moments of the so-called “story” hitting the blogs, web and newspapers, “Jewish” or otherwise. The comments were worse than appalling; they were full of condemnations of him, having judged him in the most harshest ways.
5. Finally, after his complete innocence and tzidkus was completely proven beyond a shadow of doubt, many of the same above oilem hagolem who were mevayish b’rabbim this Tzadik then defended themselves by suddenly shifting tracks and, being forced to move away from the false kidnapping accusation, came up with the idea that there’s something nefarious with holding a child’s hand, even for a few seconds. Of course they never hold a random’s child’s hand dancing at a wedding or during Simchas Torah. And, of course, they would call 911 to have an old lady arrested if she asked a child to help her cross the street.
And when the video came out and it showed he didn’t even hold the child’s hand but, rather, simply touched the back of his shirt for a few seconds near the shoulder so they were side by side for the 20 seconds it took to walk through the crowded hallway, these feeble-minded quickly found fault with that too. After all, what better do they have to do than playing Monday morning quarterback and finding a litany of options that he should have instantly come up with as an alternative to this most innocence of acts; and thereby condemn him.
And what if the video didn’t exist that completely exonerated the Tzadik? These sinners would still be condemning him to the fire, insisting upon his guilt and that he be jailed for life, with the key thrown away. Not every innocently accused will have the good fortune of their existing a video. Indeed, most situations lack this.
What’s the solution for those that reported the Tzadik to the police, those that enabled her and the very many who made defamatory comments online or offline? Go to the Tzadik’s house and on your hands and knees begging for his Mechila. I’m sure he’ll grant it; and it sure beats a long stint in Gehenim.
Joseph,
Sane people have learned the following lessons from this sad story:
1) A child is not a “cheftza shel mitzva” and touching someone else’s child without permission is obviously a very dangerous idea.
2) While a man should not walk between two women, doing so while holding an object such as a wallet or phone resolves this issue. It sure beats a long stint in jail.
To avoid all this craziness, why wouldn’t the obvious solution be to politely request the women to move to one side so this “Tzadik” could comfortably exit the shul? Clearly, putting a mechitza is a good solution in a shul, but most publicly accessed commercial facilities, such as a grocery market, are NOT going to put mechitzas by the door.
As previously mentioned, you do not touch other peoples kids regardless of your perceived needs. This wasn’t a life or death situation. There were plenty of men present to accompany him. FWIW he still has two charges pending.
My biggest issue is with Shomrim, why not take 5 minutes and realize that this was much ado about nothing, I will never give them a dime.
UJM
“We once again learn, the hard way r’l, the valuable lesson against Mesira. An innocent Yid was falsely accused and reported to the goyim. …”
how did we learn that?
don’t we see the opposite?
He was falsely accused and walked home free that same day? You say “Something that could have potentially …” yeah but it didn’t. how do you see the opposite? IF anythign we see the system works. If concerned for a child’s wellfare report first. If in fact he was innocent he’ll walk that same day.“asking a teen (who happily agreed) to walk a few feet through a crowded hallway with him is absolutely, positively, nothing at all wrong with whatsoever…
Perhaps true from the perspective of this “Tzadik” but clearly raised a lot of questions with others, including his mom. Tzadikim are free to make these kind of decisions but they should also be prepared for the consequences if others don’t agree. The world we live in today is very different from the world where a lot of us grew up and even in the frum velt, there are new norms and guardrails which you violate at your own peril. Enough said.
Joseph, the man has two charges against him. Frankly if I had a child and a man physically led him out of a building I would fully drop kick him in the crotch. Yid or no yid. Frankly I’d prefer to be wearing Doc Martins when I did it, but hell I’ll sacrifice my Manolos. I’d drop him first and wait until he was done puking to hear his excuse.FWIW you are not the arbiter of what is legal. Now go tend to you wifes. LoL.
Whenever my wife tells me to stop doing something, I shout ‘but it’s not illegal!’
Why did he need to use a child, though, especially a child that’s not his? You can’t just come up to someone else’s kid and do things like this. What’s wrong with carrying an object in his hands, like a wallet, phone, etc.? The problem is obscurantism. Being totally out of touch with reality. I’m not saying that halacha ought to be compromised, although this is not something that appears in the Shulchan Aruch even, but this man should’ve used seichel and exercised common sense. He did break the law in order to fulfill an inyan of kashe l’shichacha, basically. I don’t think he had any negative intentions, but to call him a tzaddik based on this is not appropriate, either, although maybe he is, according to people who actually know him, I don’t know. His stupidity did him in.
BTW, so called “Tzadikim” may well be shomrei torah umitzvos, big malamdim, have wonderful midos,etc. etc. but still on occasion exercise poor judgment. Perhaps a bit overdone by calling this guy the Tzaddik from Flatbush over and over. Next thing you know he will be anointed as a Gadol Hador and nominated as an ex officio member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah and have a brass plaque with his name on the new mechitah in the entry hall of the Flatbush Shul
> at which point he didn’t have to walk between women, and he exited alone.
Just browsing here, finally a reason for this bizarre episode. Maybe, this should be called
Tzaddik Shoteh (paraphrasing Gemora about someone not saving a drowning woman as chasid shoteh).To call the practice against walking between two women a Halacha is a misnomer. It is not brought down in any of the classic Halacha sources (rosh tur shulchan Aruch rambam). In fact the practice comes from the belief in witchcraft as the Gemoro says psachim 111 :”הני תרי נשי דיתבן בפרשת דרכים, חדא בהאי גיסא דשבילא וחדא באידך גיסא, ומכוונן אפייהו להדדי – ודאי בכשפים עסיקן. מאי תקנתיה? אי איכא דירכא אחרינא – ליזיל בה, ואי ליכא דירכא אחרינא, אי איכא איניש אחרינא בהדיה – נינקטו לידייהו בהדי הדדי וניחלפו, ואי ליכא איניש אחרינא…”.
At best it’s a hanhaga tova. Most Poskim file this information where they put other outdated hanhagos like zugos.
Some achronim bring it (as does the Zohar). This is how the kitzur says it:
יש ליזהר שלא ילך איש בין שתי נשים, ולא בין שני כלבים או שני חזירים, וכן לא יניחו האנשים שתלך ביניהם אשה או כלב או חזיר.
Please read that to your wife and mother and come back here and tell us her reaction to the kitzur.
Ujm, who called 911 and the Shomrim?
ujm said: “Six seconds of normal human activity in a crowded hallway.”
no-one in their right mind would consider this normal human activity.
Could you imagine a genuine Godol Hador like R Moshe or R Yaakov doing this?
It’s totally wierd and goes to show what happens when someone knows Halocha but never learnt the 5th Chelek of Shulchan Aruch…common sense.
This guy is a Tomim, not a Tzadik, and needs to be taken aside and gently explained how the real world works.
UJM
“then this completely innocent Yid could very well still …”
Again “if …could”
And if he did abuse the kid and the mother delayed and asked a shailah and the Rav didnt care then he could abuse others.
My point is “what if’s” are silly. We can always create all sorts of what ifs to satisfy any preconceived opinion. THIS case shows the criminal system worked. does it always work? maybe not. But this case shows if you are concerned for a child’s safety notify the authorities
Holding a minors hand during simchas Torah of at a wedding is a different context than a situation where it isn’t really warranted. In the yeshiva world it’s common for someone to not be aware of boundaries whike citing a halacha or hanhaga tova to compensate.
ujm: i am not sure why the six seconds here and the six second there matter to you so much. How long do you think an actual abduction takes? As for the mesira, are you upset the mom called the cops in this case or would you also be against leiby kletzky’s parents calling the cops? are you against “mesira” in general or do you think that in this case there was no need to call the cops?
At this point, I think the repeated references to this clueless guy as a “Tzadik” is a deliberate troll. As just about everyone except R’ Yosef has acknowledged, he likely did not have any perverted motives, nor is he even remotely suspect for child abuse, but someone needs to take him and any OTHER such “Tzadikim” aside and give them supplemental instruction on basic common sense before they end up in serious trouble in a secular court that could care less about his beliefs regarding halacha versus hanhagah tovah.
Joseph,
It’s obvious from the responses that your bizarre attempts to justify touching a child, especially lying about him being a teenager, has only turned this “tzadik” into a complete “chasid shoteh” at best. If he actually gave you explicit permission to defend him on the web, it only shows how woefully sheltered and uninformed he is. He’s already got two charges on his police record and shouldn’t also have to fight the damage you’re adding to his reputation with every post.
@besalel, yes I fault the Mother and Shomrim, had the mother taken two minutes to ask what happened this thing would not have blown up, had shomrim been professional and view the tape they would have seen its much ado about nothing, instead they acted like lynch mob.
Anyone falsely accused of horrific crimes is obviously a tragedy. And he should certainly be apologized to. But that being said, our (justified) fear of accusing someone falsely more often than not handcuffs our community from protecting our children and I think we need to change our approach. False accusations are far rarer than children being abused and no one acting to their defense. Unfortunately, it’s very possible that in many of these cases, bending over backwards to make sure our children are safe and secure is the lesser of two evils, even if it means the occasional false accusations.
I’m not convinced that the mother and shomrim did the wrong thing given the circumstances, and just like we have gedarim for so many areas of our lives, not touching minors without the knowledge and consent of their parents is certainly one we should embrace. Though in hindsight, they were indeed wrong, and the innocent party needs to be apologized to… Even if he himself may need to do his own cheshbon hanefesh on the proper way out of the halachic situation of walking between two women next time.
We need to do our best to make sure there are no false accusations… But not the expense of putting innocent and vulnerable children at risk. And if we can’t do both, then our priority should be making a safe environment for our children from the sick and evil people hiding within and without our communities.
Ujm,
Re part one:
You’re expecting people to learn a lesson, they don’t think and people that don’t think won’t learn a lesson
There is one lesson for me here. If you watch the video, there were a number of adult men he could have asked to help him, but he did not. It seems to me that he did not ask an adult because he was afraid of the reaction, the ridicule and disdain he would face. He realized the only person who will not judge him is the child. And the lesson I take for myself is that we should be more tolerant of others’ hanhagos. I do not practice this hanhaga but I shouldn’t make someone who does feel uncomfortable. We should be more accepting of other people’s minhugim even if they seem foreign to us.
besalel,
Nope. A Tzadik would graciously educate others, grabbing the opportunity to teach proper hanhaga while following it. Instead of grabbing a child and giving onlookers something to judge him negatively for.
Ujm- it’s a debate among the poskim whether mesira applies in a just society like ours. I think there’s a famous Aruch HaShulchan about it (tohoigj there is a debate on whether he actually meant what he wrote). That being said, since there is debate on whether mesira applies nowadays, and the stakes here are pikuach nefesh (as children being abused is no doubt pikuach nefesh and we almost always paskin safely pikuach nefesh lechumra), the issue of mesira when it comes to children safety is not one of particular concern to me.
Joseph,
The Novominsker Rebbe, zt”l served on the Moetzes as well as the head of Agudas Yisrael for over twenty years. Everyone at the convention knew who he was and he’d ask bachurim to walk with him. He wasn’t some unknown guy touching children.
Ujm- if she thought an attempted kidnapper was on the loose, even if her own son was safe, it certainly is a pikuach nefesh situation. And I appreciate the accusation, but my feelings on mesirah are not solely my own, but based on learning the sugya with my Rav.
this is a very self-centered argument whether the Tam behaved appropriately. This episode is a simple proof that such behavior is not appropriate as it may cause moris ayin and a long prison term.
Maybe, just maybe, there is room to permit when there is a camera that will help during prosecution. Even then it is a big bitul Torah for the Tam, the youngele, his ima, dayan and lawyers, most of whom might be Jewish. And the camera may be off.
To sum, staying away from questionable behavior that might cause a problem is an etzah tova. If you don’t want to walk between two nashim tzadkiyos, just get out a sefer and wait until they finish the conversation. At worse, you’ll do an extra siyum.
“To sum, staying away from questionable behavior that might cause a problem is an etzah tova. If you don’t want to walk between two nashim tzadkiyos, just get out a sefer and wait until they finish the conversation. At worse, you’ll do an extra siyum.”
Alternatively, download the YWN mobile App and share your thoughts on complex questions of halacha to those in the CR breathlessly waiting for your eitzah.
So we bring down from R Yosef’s tshuvah that if you are driving on the NJT and spot a car whose license plates match those on an Amber Alert related to an alleged child abduction, you should FIRST call 911 and inquire whether the suspected abductor is Jewish before reporting the target vehicle’s location. Otherwise, you might inadvertently be “Massering a Yid”.
> I recommend that you never look at a child for more than 2 seconds.
you are evidently struggling with the fact that this person was reported. If he was reported, that means his actions were not appropriate, whatever faults you can find in my logic.
Gadol, your question requires possibly that the abductor be more likely to be Jewish or not.
So, if this is happening on Rt 9, simply count whether it is closer to Lakewood or Tom’s River …
or maybe what is the car direction (from which town it is going).On the other hand, in laws of iyush for the lost item, it is possible that there is “rov goyim” even for an item left in a shul – as Jews are there to daven, so a non-Jew is more likely to find it. So, the same thing here.
But the real question is that we do we do if H’V abductor is Jewish? As the punishment is misa, do we keep him until moschiach comes, or do we transfer him to Texas for the punishment?
So, one, not the only, way mesirah is bad – non-Jews will typically inflict harsher punishment than this Yid deserve. A thief can get a long prison sentence or have his hand cut off, instead of monetary payment by us. In this case, kidnapper is hayav misa and non-Jewish punishment is milder.
Ujm- in emergency situations, asking a Rav could potentially waste time and make the sakana even worse. Anyways, most competent Rabbonim would advise the shoel to ask an expert to determine if this is a pikuach nefesh situation and to rely on their advice. Which is exactly what this mother did by reaching out to shomrim first. Does she have to apologize to the innocent man who was accused? Of course. But does that mean she should act differently in the future, I don’t think so. Unless she was dishonest in what she told shomrim or the police, I don’t see that she did anything wrong.
Now, whether shomrim jumped the gun in advising her to call the police is a different question. Clearly in hindsight they were mistaken. But I don’t know the facts on the ground as they do… How don’t percentages or statistics or how a delay in arresting an attempted kidnapper could make it that much more difficult to find him and whether that delay could put more people at risk. Without the benefit of that expert knowledge, I can’t pass judgement on whether they should have acted differently. But, clearly in this specific situation, they were indeed mistaken, and like the mother, should apologize to the wrongly accused.
simcha613,
There’s no point in debating issues of children’s safety with someone who insists that convicted child molesters like Walder and Helbrans are Tzadikim.
My question to AAQ is, why is MY action obviously inappropriate, because YOU reported it? If you see me holding the hand of a crying child ( you never met me before) you might choose to call 911, Shomrim, ASPCA, PETA,or whatever authority you choose, to report a kidnapping. You can even argue that it is the right thing to do. But if you take a step back and find out that I am taking my child to the doctor for a very painful ear infection, you would realize that obviously what I am doing is not inappropriate, even though you chose to exercise extreme caution, rather than finding out the story.
Ujm: I think you are (purposely) missing my point. You point to the six seconds as if that fact exonerates the man. My point is that the six seconds tells us nothing because that is how long an actual abduction takes. What exonerates him isn’t the six seconds you keep pointing to but the fact that he is innocent as shown in the video.
As for second point, it has nothing to do with my wife to your mother. Here is the kitzur, in full, unredacted:
יש ליזהר שלא ילך איש בין שתי נשים, ולא בין שני כלבים או שני חזירים, וכן לא יניחו האנשים שתלך ביניהם אשה או כלב או חזיר
Now read this to any frum, yeshivish, chareidi woman. ALL such women will always have one of the following two reactions, she will either tell you she is offended or she will lie to you.
@Hadofi, I think Walder was a molester, I think Helbrans was a sick twisted perverted man AND I think that Shomrim jumped the gun on this and is 1000% wrong, if all they are is just a glorified lynch mob let them disband
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