NOTE READER THAT MY AMAZINGLY SIMPLE PARODY [see below] WAS ALLOWED TO REMAIN MERELY FOR 2 HOURS OR SO - YESTERDAY EVENING UNTIL THEY FINALLY WORKED OUT WHAT I WAS DOING TO THEM INTELLECTUALLY!!
SO MUCH FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION!
BUT ONE SHOULD READ HER PARADIGM - INFLICTED COMMENTS:
FOR EXAMPLE - SEE QUOTE BELOW.
So you can see she effectively uses the interesting devils' advocate tool; sad really.
No time for more.
But there have been no comments at 1 45 pm on Wed. 18/2/15 Amazing - they censured my words and have no one else?
GS WED. 1 51 pm 18/2/15
“I thought we had cured him.” Again, to be fair, Rabbi Telsner didn’t say this. Rabbi Groner did. But Rabbi Telsner was asked to explain this statement, essentially, to explain why Rabbi Groner would have thought it reasonable to allow a paedophile — reformed or otherwise — to continue to work amongst children.'
Shalom Bracha Rafael!
I failed to go past your 4 times use of the paradigm word in the first 2
smallish paragraphs.
Indeed - a reasonable paradigm has it thatone should essentially never use
the word!
Look at my secondary blog - socialistdystopia.blogspot.com.au
At the last 7 entries. All devoted to teach you about the use and abuse of
language.
Your comment I will determine my commentary.
It is expected that there will be challenges that I will find
paradigmatic.
All the best
Geoff Seidner
East St Kida
Op-ed: rabbinic failures go deeper than a lapse in judgment
February 17,
2015 – 1:05 pmNo
Comment
I want to dig into what is
fundamentally wrongwith
the current generation of rabbinic leadership in this country, as exemplified by
one Rabbi Tzvi Telsner. The Royal Commission is giving a lot of airtime to a
paradigm that goes largely unchallenged. I am interested in challenging this
paradigm because children’s safety depends upon it.
This paradigm is worlds
away from mainstream society. It is worlds away from most religious homes. And
the expression of this paradigm — as clear in Rabbi Telsner’s evasions,
half-answers, and omissions as it is in what was said — is giving rise to fury, but not much
discussion. I am hoping to name this problem so that we can fix
it.
The problem is the
terrifying moral equivalence that the rabbis are still struggling to shake
themselves from. Rabbi Telsner’s testimony is the most recent illustration of
this.
Most people hold child
sexual abuse apart from just about every other evil they can think of. The
report title Little
Children Are Sacred spells it out
clearly: when secular society uses religious terminology, you know it cares
very, very much about the matter at hand.
But it is clear from Rabbi
Telsner’s testimony that for our rabbinic leaders, child sexual abuse is just
another evil, just another sin. It is merely one way that God’s will can be
thwarted. Eating bacon is another way. Lashon
hara is yet
another.
The Torah and halacha does not encourage scholars to rank sins
from bad to worst. This is helpful for discouraging sin altogether but is not
helpful when two sins need to be weighed against each other. Until 2011 the
rabbinic leadership weighed the evil of allowing children to be harmed against
the evil of reporting on fellow Jews and favoured the former.
The religious leadership
has changed its mind on that issue (due to Manny Waks changing the terms of the
debate) but Rabbi Telsner’s statements indicate that the above approach is alive
and well. We, the lay people, find ourselves in the bizarre position of
questioning the moral compass of our religious leaders.
This is the failure of the
rabbis coming before the Royal Commission. They are failing to spell out, in
clear terms, that abuses against children constitute a violation of God’s will
several orders of magnitude greater than the other common aveirot they are normally faced with. This is
what we want to hear, and they are dancing around this point.
Perhaps it is simply the
case that there is not room in the halachic system to accommodate this paradigm
shift. That to place child sexual abuse apart from other sins (sins, not crimes)
is intellectually dishonest. If this is true, then the rabbinic leadership must
abdicate authority on this matter. If halacha does not allow them to ensure that their
institutions are safe for children, then the lay leadership must do
so.
If one is inclined to be
generous to Rabbi Telsner — and I am not, particularly, but here goes — there is
a smidgen of entrapment in the questions he was posed. He did not draw the link
between paedophilia and homosexuality: he was asked to comment on it by a
lawyer.
All he needed to say was
“I object to these terms of reference. The two issues are nothing alike.” But he
didn’t do that. He retreated to academic possibility-granting, to probablies,
and I-can’t-recalls.
Let me be very clear. I do
not believe that homosexuality is a disease. I do not believe it is wrong to be
gay. I think it is cruel — oppressive — to suggest either of the above. However,
the point that Rabbi Telsner was making was that oppression, or rather,
repression can work. Put enough effort into it, and you can convince gay people
not to have sex. Put enough effort into it, and you can convince paedophiles not
to offend.
The first is an act of
oppression, motivated by homophobia. The second is straightforward
rehabilitation, and is necessary for the safety of society. Most paedophiles do
not serve life sentences. They will one day re-enter the community. So we do
need ways to keep leashes on former offenders. If therapy helps to do that,
fantastic.
Which brings me to yet
another problematic element of Rabbi Telsner’s testimony:
“I thought we had cured
him.” Again, to be fair, Rabbi Telsner didn’t say this. Rabbi Groner did. But
Rabbi Telsner was asked to explain this statement, essentially, to explain why
Rabbi Groner would have thought it reasonable to allow a paedophile — reformed
or otherwise — to continue to work amongst children.
Because even if therapy
can be effective at helping a paedophile not re-offend, surely we shouldn’t be
making it harder for them to do so. By which I mean: why on earth would you
allow anyone with a history of hurting children anywhere near
children?
And again, to be fair, we,
the community, don’t actually want an explanation. We want an apology. Because
the answer here is foregone: it is indefensible that David Cyprus was allowed to
continue to work amongst children. At best, that was the outcome of reckless
naiveté, at worst a shocking indifference to the pain and suffering of children.
Either way, it speaks of a rabbinate that must change radically or must hand
over certain responsibilities.
This is why we have
Working With Children Checks. Why recovering alcoholics don’t touch alcohol. Why
I, as a paramedic, am required to consider a patient’s past abuse of opiates
before I administer morphine. The principle at work here is that re-exposure
interferes with recovery. A paedophile who truly wishes not to re-offend would
make every effort to deny themselves the opportunity to do so.
This principle exists
in halacha as well. It’s why we have fences around real
prohibitions, so that we do not even come close to sinning.
Rabbi Telsner’s testimony,
like Rabbi Feldman’s, fills us with fear and fury because we are not being
permitted to feel confident that things will get better. And if the leadership
can’t change themselves, then our children are still at risk.
I invite religious
scholars and leaders to make a halachic case for the protection of children. And
I invite the community to judge it. Do we have faith in our religious leadership
on this matter? If the answer is no, a restructure is in
order.
Indeed – a reasonable paradigm has it thatone should essentially never use the word!
Look at my secondary blog – socialistdystopia.blogspot.com.au
All the best
East St Kida