Seminary Scandal: Questions from a loyal and informed CBD supporter - and my answers

This post originally appeared as a comment to a different post - but I thought it would be of more use as its own post. My answers are interspersted and preceded by DT.

Material that I have added after the original response in the comments sections is in bold letters.

=====================

Guest Post by puzzled by RDE •

 

RDE: Your position on this issue has truly surprised me. It is difficult to fully understand how you have so aggressively sided with the IBD here. 

A few very specific questions for you - I would ask that you answer them directly. (If you can indulge me by answering - please do, rather than reference another post where you addressed this already). (As an intro - I too have been in touch with people deeply involved, including personal conversations with the dayanim on both sides - so please don't simply dismiss my words as someone who is not informed.). 

1. A choshen mishpat shayla - a person signs up their daughter to go to a seminary run by Rabbi/Rebbetzin/Mr. "X. In the period of time after the deposit is paid the seminary is transferred to a new owner, etc. - does the parent have a right to ask for the money back with the simple claim of "I never agreed to this - I signed up for something else." What do you believe the answer is? Have you asked a posek?

DT   @puzzled I am puzzled by your puzzlement - since you claim to have access to dayanim on both sides - why haven't you asked them. Is it that you want to know the truth or that your question is really why I am involved? Are you claiming that my answers are not what the IBD would answer because you asked them and found major discrepancies? To answer your first question since it the only one that seems to raise new issues. I have not heard that anyone is making the claim that they want out simply because their is a new owner. The claim has been the CBD has declared them unsafe and therefore it is a mekach taus. To that question it is clear that there is a need for a beis din and yes I have asked poskim and that is what they say. I am not sure that objecting to the sale merely because there is a new owner without claiming that there is a difference is services provided means anything.

I did in fact ask a posek your question and he said:
Of course it doesn't preclude a din Torah). If I pay a cleaning service (not Mr. XYZ) to clean my suits for one year,and the business (with which the contract was with ) gets sold (and the owner is not even the one who cleans the suits ; he sets policy, hires the cleaners, buys equipment -- if I want my money back I absolutely have to convince the BD that there is a real reason to think that the new person will not run the business as well as the old one. Especially if the "real" owner is an amutah.

2. You and the IBD have maintained that Mr. Yarmush "bought the seminary". What is the evidence of that? I do believe that the IBD willfully misled people to say it was sold. When I pushed one of the IBD members (who I spoke to personally), he said "it is in process" and will be sold. How is this justified by the IBD? [As an important aside - I am not offended by the practical need of Mr. Yarmush to have many contingencies before a sale is consummated. He is a smart businessman and would never buy something until he knew what he was buying. If no girls attend - why would he agree to a price now? etc. Thus - I think such an approach is perfectly reasonable. My issue is the IBD being deceptive about this point.]

DT  2. In regards to the second, I have a letter from Rav Aharon Feldman that he verified that the sale was good. Is that good enough? The CBD has been claiming - not that the sale isn't valid but that it is a sham and that Yarmish is merely a front for Mieselss. They offer no proof but keep claiming that the two are old buddies. Yarmish categorically denies that. The CBD has not produced any evidence for their questionable claim. Why don't you ask them? As I noted in a previous post - the CBD in the May guidelines made no mention of the need for Meisels to sell.

3. In the various communications send out by the administration of the school (specifically in an email invitation to a conference call for parents) - they introduced the dayanim as "our dayanim"? What does that mean?

DT 3. I don't know. I haven't seen it - perhaps you will send it to me and I'll try and find out. Someone suggested that it simply means the dayanim to whom we were meshabed ourselves to follow by signing the shtar. When I see the actual documents I can investigate further.

4. What is your view about what the staff knew? Every seminary has an Eim Bayis? Were they aware that girls were going for "rides" with Meisels at the wee hours of the morning? What did they do about it? Did they not know? If not, is this a proper level of supervision? How could the IBD make such a quick decision labeling the staff as doing their work with "mesiras nefesh" and "yiras shamayim"? More importantly - are these specific people returning next year?

DT:  4.Despite your request - this item is clearly explained in the post of the IBD father to his son.

5. You seem to have embraced the IBD narrative that they tried from the beginning to have the CBD share the testimony, etc. - which many of us question. For the purpose of this discussion - I will accept that fact. But without it how could they say what they did? How could they issue such sweeping endorsements without the facts (which they acknowledge they don't have) - based on the one sided testimony of the minahalos that that spoke with?

DT  5. Ditto for this. By the way did the CBD tell you that they in fact have shared the testimony?! If not why don't you believe the IBD. This is doubly curious in the fact that the CBD now says that the lawsuit precludes them for sharing and allowing the witnesses to be questioned. Why would they say such a thing if in fact they had already shared the information.

It also seems that part of the reason that the CBD engineered the RICO claim was to create a situation where they are blocked by secular law to share information

6. The IBD has over and over repeated the calumny that the CBD took testimony "shelo kihalacho" - not in the presence of the other side? Do you believe they are correct in the assertion? Can you justify this statement in light of the Teshuva published in Yeshurun (whose editor in chief, ironically, is Rabbi Gottesman...), written by none other than Rav Mendel Shafran the Av Beis Din of the IBD - which explicitly states that in abuse cases this is not required! [Furthermore - if as it appears to be the case - RAF left the proceeding early on - did they not do the very thing they criticized the CBD for doing!?] These are but some of the questions many of us have about this case and specifically your approach.

DT 6. The simple explanation to this is that there is significant difference between a beis din which is to determine guilt and one which collects testimony strong enough to remove an educator from a school. The Shoel UMeishiv is halacha for the latter case. The CBD's claim that Meisels is guilty of all the sexual sins on the book - indicates a full beis din judging guilt or innocence. That requires hearing both sides. Meisels denies that accusation. As far as I know there has not been a proper beis din trial and therefore they can't according to the halacha claim that he is guilty as they claim.

Please go back to the CBD and request some documentation for their allegations. You might even want to show them my presentation of the IBD's views. I will be quite willing to publish their point by point rebuttal - especially if they provide documentation to prove that they have given over their data to the IBD and that they in fact have conducted a proper din Torah that allows them to pasken that Meisels is guilty of all sexual sins.

Additionally when the IBD claims the CBD is acting shelo kahalacha it is because the case has been give to IBD, through a shtar that says they would not. The CBD simply is not authorized to be issue psakim in this case and need to work through the IBD or at least in conjunction with it as Rav Aharon Feldman suggested and the IBD agreed to do.

I hope I don't sound condescending when I suggest you rethink your views on this sordid scandal. I suggest this because I usually think you are on the right side of these issues and am baffled at your approach here. less 

DT Please get back to me soon so this whole affair can be brought to a peaceful resolution before Elul.