If You Tickle Us...

The time has come to bow out of Towelgate. I shan't refer to it as the 'Painful Saga' as those who coined that name had in mind only the pain of the poor accused and his 'distinguished family'. But not a word was heard from those quarters to acknowledge even the existence of victims and never mind a kind word for their pain. It's a propitious time of year for reckoning so as we move on from the winter of discontent that has rocked our community it wouldn't be a bad idea to stand back and reflect. The basic facts hardly need repeating and the outcome is still far from certain. The reverberations will be felt for some time to come and there will be ample opportunity to analyse the causes and effects, exposures and cover ups, successes and setbacks, and winners and losers. On balance, however, I think we as a community have plenty to be proud of. We have shown that rabbis too can be responsive when the weight of public anger is brought to bear down on them. D

Harav Wosner's T'Shuvah, Highlights By ‘Moish’ Much of the confusion in the recent case has been due to the fact that there is so little by way of precedent in terms of how to deal with rabbis who are alleged to have acted 'improperly'. Within the Charedi world, although such issues have surely arisen, they have been dealt with (if at all) so furtively as to leave barely a smidgen of record in the halachic literature. Precedents from the Modern Orthodox community are easier to find, but, well, they're modern anyway so what do you expect? The one recent case that does spring to mind is that of Rabbi Mordechai Tendler of Monsey. Without going into details, the rabbi concerned was expelled from the American RCA on account of his alleged misbehaviour with women in a counselling context (ring any bells?) and a group of his local colleagues took it upon themselves to examine the evidence against him and proceeded to publicise their verdict. Whilst the parallels are fa

Leil Yud Tes Teves 5763 [1 January 2013] Statement The Union may not be responsible for the alleged misbehaviour of one its Dayonim. However its lack of willingness or ability to deal with the matter in any way is perceived to be unacceptable and is a matter of great embarrassment. As a result we have been put in an impossible position where our Shul has fallen victim to the situation just by virtue of our official association with the Union. We must do all that we can to protect the Shul and its membership from this. The internal equilibrium and stability of our k ehilla is far more important than with whom our Shul is affiliated. I am therefore fully behind the Executives decision to call this meeting, in order to examine and explore our options. We must take into account all the ramifications of any decision we make. We need to enlist Hakodosh Boruch Hu ’s help to make the correct decision, and many more t efillos to invoke His rachamim that this terribly destructive g

If anyone has a better rhyming translation for תכלה שנה וקללותיה – תחל שנה וברכותיה fee free to add it to the comments. In the meantime I leave you to meditate upon two marvellous poems, one for the dross and the other for the gloss, both by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) The Year What can be said in New Year rhymes, That’s not been said a thousand times? The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night. We hug the world until it stings, We curse it then and sigh for wings. We live, we love, we woo, we wed, We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead. We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, And that’s the burden of the year. New Year (As the old year sinks down in Time's ocean...) As the old year sinks down in Time's ocean, Stand ready to launch with the new, And waste no regrets, no emotion, As the masts and the spars pass from view. Wee

Those of us relying on the heimishe press for our cerebral fodder will have been feeling rather starved of late. In different times, a meeting of 30 rabbonim would be preceded by fliers from charity organisations exhorting us to send in our names, as it appears on the card, so that the details may be keyed in in their hallowed presence. Yet London was honoured by just such a meeting of Torah Olympians but not a word about it in our informative press either before or after. The meeting was followed by a letter from 5 rabbonim proclaiming the view of the Torah but still the Torah organs wouldn’t touch the story. The engagement of the grandson of the Kvetcher to the great-niece of the Greptser will make it in full Technicolor but the 5 must rely on the accursed world wide web for their fair share of notoriety. Aha, you may think, since the newspapers are headquartered in Stamford Hill in order to comply with the posuk , Ki m'Hackney teitzei Torah udvar Hashem m'N16 , they have