{"id":38035,"date":"2014-10-27T21:03:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T21:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=38035"},"modified":"2014-10-27T21:05:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T21:05:25","slug":"one-bad-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/one-bad-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"One Bad Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"apple_slide\"I wasn\u2019t going to talk about Rabbi Barry Freundel. I really wasn\u2019t. When I have occasion to reference a news story within the community, I tend to obscure the names of the involved parties because I find it unseemly to air our dirty laundry in public. When I do reference a current event, I give enough information that anyone with a thimble-full of computer savvy could spend thirty seconds on Google and get the full story. But, despite my preference not to name names, I can\u2019t dance around the Freundel case. It\u2019s too big and too well-known.<\/p>\n

The story, in case you\u2019ve been on vacation in Addis Ababa, is that a prominent rabbi in the Washington, DC, area was arrested for allegedly spying on women in the mikvah with a hidden camera. This crime was not limited to the married women in his community; Rabbi Freundel was in charge of conversions for his part of the country, and conversion also entails immersion in a mikvah.
\nYes, we have a religious obligation to judge others favorably and there is a civil presumption of innocence but the evidence against Rabbi Freundel is significant. A hidden camera was found in a clock radio that he was seen installing. The instruction manuals for hidden recording devices were found in his home. Reportedly, the police recovered the video footage he shot. Converts have come forward with stories of \u201cpractice immersions\u201d that he organized (not a real part of the conversion process). One woman even recalls being told not to put her water bottle in front of the clock that was later found to contain the concealed camera. So things look pretty bad for Rabbi Freundel. <\/p>\n

And that means that things look bad for all of us because this is a huge chillul Hashem<\/em>. A chillul Hashem<\/em> \u2013 literally a \u201cdesecration of G-d\u2019s Name\u201d \u2013 is when a Jew acts inappropriately. This makes observers think badly of Jews as a whole, Judaism in general, the Torah, and\/or G-d Himself. The more religious the Jew, the more prominent the Jew, the more heinous the crime \u2013 all of these make for a bigger chillul Hashem. If there were a chillul Hashem alert, this story would have sirens blaring, lights flashing, and troops being mobilized. It\u2019s off the scale.<\/p>\n

I still wasn\u2019t going to comment on this case until I read the following: one of the victims told a newspaper that she could never feel secure in a mikvah again. That\u2019s it for her; she\u2019s done with mikvah.<\/p>\n

Now I have to say something:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t throw the baby out with the mikvah water.<\/p>\n

I totally get what you\u2019re feeling. I truly empathize. About 25 years ago, I was robbed at gunpoint on the New York City subway. For about two weeks after, I was extremely paranoid on my daily commute. That feeling tapered off after a while and eventually it went away altogether. Since then, I have not been the victim of a mugging, nor have I witnessed one. Yes, once burned twice shy, but eventually the reality sets in that the overwhelming number of people with whom we interact are not going to shoot us, stab us or club us over the head. They\u2019re just going to work, the same as you and I are.<\/p>\n

The same is true in the Freundel case. What Rabbi Freundel is said to have done is indefensible. It was an invasion of privacy. It was an abuse of his authority. It was a breach of the trust that his congregants and the converts he mentored placed in him. It was also so rare as to be a statistical anomaly. You would have been hard-pressed to find another mikvah with a hidden camera before Rabbi Freundel\u2019s arrest and it would be even less likely now. (How many mikvahs do you think did sweeps for surveillance devices after hearing about this case? And in the unlikely event that anyone did have such a thing in place, I would bet that they removed it with all due haste.)<\/p>\n

Bad stuff happens in this world and sometimes people in our community are involved. Children are molested. Money is embezzled. It\u2019s inexcusable. It\u2019s a chillul Hashem. But it\u2019s also rare.
\nOrthodox Jews are not \u201call alike, this one just got caught.\u201d Institutions are not necessarily riddled with corruption just because one bad apple was discovered. Just as most people on the subway will not try to shiv me and take my wallet, the overwhelming number of rabbis are not trying to cheat the government, touch your children or spy on you in the mikvah. Remember, \u201cDog bites man\u201d isn\u2019t newsworthy. It\u2019s \u201cMan bites dog\u201d that gets the headline because it\u2019s unusual. These cases are prominent because they\u2019re rare.<\/p>\n

What happened in the Georgetown mikvah is terrible in so many ways. People have every right to be upset and feeling a little gun-shy is a natural reaction. I\u2019ve been there. But I hope that as the emotional wounds heal, you will come back to the mitzvah of attending the mikvah. As grave as Rabbi Freundel\u2019s transgressions were, no effect could be more tragic than tainting this beautiful ritual and distancing a woman from a process that unites a man and a woman with each other and with their Creator. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t going to talk about Rabbi Barry Freundel. I really wasn\u2019t. When I have occasion to reference a news story within the community, I tend to obscure the names of the involved parties because I find it unseemly to air our dirty laundry in public. When I do reference a current event, I give<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOne Bad Apple - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/one-bad-apple\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One Bad Apple - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I wasn\u2019t going to talk about Rabbi Barry Freundel. 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