Something Moshe Forgot To Mention

Due to my being a kofer b’ikar, mechalel shabbos b’farhesya, and mumar lihachis, some have asked me to comment in on the growing concern over child molestation in the frumme veldt. They must assume that one disenchanted with Yiddishkeit as I must me would have some deep, dark reason for leaving the derech or would at least not be shy when it comes to exposing such problems in the various kehillos. Surely, I would have no reluctance to share some of the juiciest little secrets drawn up from the dark bowels of beis medrash or mikveh.

Well, you’re going to be very disappointed I’m afraid. Fact is, I never witnessed it, never heard about it, and most certainly never experienced it. Maybe I was too busy learning and I wasn’t either cute enough, vulnerable enough, or alone enough to ever be considered choice prey for these sick mamzerim. Maybe word got around the yeshivos that Shlomo Leib, adequately nick-named the ‘Volcano’, wasn’t going to go quietly or without putting up a good fight. Maybe I just had the terrific mazel not to ever be alone with any of those ‘mechanchim’. In retrospect, the mazel was all theirs.

If any of this sort of detestable behavior went on in the Alte Heime, neither my zeide o’h, my uncles o’h, or my father o’h ever mentioned it. They told me a good deal about the physical abuse the melamdim in the local cheder would impose on children, usually as threat to engender good midos on my part, but outside of making the usual excuses for that commonplace tortuous infliction of tzaar baalei chayim prevalent in Euro-Jewish chinuch, there was never a mention of sexual impropriety. Frankly, had you asked me 30 years ago, I would have denied the possibility. Then again, I also would have believed many things that I know now to be complete narishkeit.

Let me say this. If anyone is going to be mefarsim such a thing, he or she better have some serious proof. This is likely why many are reluctant to speak out and others deny it altogether. Think about the consequences of falsely accusing a person of any crime, let alone the unbelievably heinous act of child molestation. The accused man or woman can say goodbye to mishpocho, kehilla, parnoso, and their freedom. There is no Ir Miklat or Ek Veldt for them to hide in and no teshuva, no matter how hartzike, will ever be enough. For the guilty, this is no less than they deserve. However, for the falsely accused, and there have been many, their lives are utterly ruined forever.

I find it interesting that although the Torah lists many sexual prohibitions, some of them rather wacky i.e. sex with behaymos, yet child molestation isn’t mentioned at all. Perhaps Moshe Rabeinu could not imagine it occurring or, as we have seen in our own communities, such a thing was kept shtil-a-heit, either from fear of the perpetrator or the desire to appear as if everything is going just fine. After all, in the world of close-knit communal living, who is going to let his daughter marry a boy, or vice versa, who has been sexually abused and is likely, in a world without therapy and counseling, to have some lingering behavioral issues?

Many years ago I volunteered as a camp counselor in one of the lesser known overnight camps somewhere in the US. One of my co-counselors decided that he would not sleep in the same cabin with the campers, and he cited a passage in Shulchan Aruch (and don’t ask me the m’kor) which says that a single man should not sleep in the same room with younger boys not of his family because of sexual arousal and zera levatala. Upon hearing him quote this obscure halacha, our reaction was “Well, it’s obviously a problem for him.” We honestly never imagined that any of us were capable or even susceptible to becoming aroused by the little monkalben in our charge. Yet, the Ba’al Shulchan Aruch was worried enough to say something. What did he experience that led him to issue a warning?

Since I don’t have the halacha in front of me and I can’t remember where it is exactly, I’m not going to launch into a critique of what was missing from it or how it falls very short of solving the current dilemma that faces the frumme veldt and especially for the victims of sexual child abuse. Fortunately there is now a willingness to speak out and, equally fortunate, there is still the sense that we should proceed with great caution when making accusations or contacting law enforcement. We also have to consider the greater issue of chilul Hashem and the subsequent anti-Semitism that such publicity will no doubt engender.

The problem here is the same problem that the Catholic Church is facing. We do not have to repeat the Vatican’s mistakes in how it is handled. If we try to keep it shtil-a-heit or tzuvishin unz, then the molestors will never be prosecuted nor will they ever find reason to seek help. To shuttle the mamzer back and forth between Eretz Yisroel and Baltimore does nothing but provide new hunting grounds for his perversions. The victims both old and new will then, too, have to suffer in silence and live with the belief that no one cares about their pain and anguish. Making others believe that everything is alright, while not believing the victims enough to actually do something is a doubly destructive falsehood.

The secret is knowing 100% for sure that someone is guilty. If I could know that without involving law enforcement, forensic science, and social service professionals I would fix this mess in two weeks with a full tank of gas, two big shvartzas, and a baseball bat. I mean it, and maybe this is why Moshe Rabeinu never mentioned child molestation in Torah. Maybe, just maybe, this was the act so heinous that it required us to step outside the normal boundaries of civil and rational jurisprudence and deal with this particular form of pervert in such a way that no one should know or even mention. Perhaps Moshe Rabeinu’s silence on the matter is an implied approval of whatever means we, the community, take to rid ourselves of those who prey on our children. “I didn’t tell them to do it, but I didn’t tell them not to do it either.”

Sometimes, by saying nothing, we imply everything.

Kol Tuv