Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Chief rabbi responds to haredi author's suicide

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/319483

The office of Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi David Lau responded Wednesday to the accusations against author Chaim Walder, and to his subsequent suicide.

The statement followed Rabbi Lau's condolence visit to Walder's relatives, who are currently in their week of mourning following his death.

"The Chief Rabbi's definitive stance was and remains that we must not ignore every harassment or injury," his office said. "These acts must be uprooted and eradicated completely. In any case when there is a hint of an indecent act or harassment, there is an obligation to complain to the authorities in charge of these issues, and not hide it."

"In addition, in his position as President of the Rabbinical High Court, the Rabbi is aware of these problems and is working to eradicate them. These things have been said at many conferences which deal with the issue, and the Rabbi will continue to repeat it at every opportunity. The Rabbi's heart is with all those who were hurt, and he will do everything in order to help them."

4 comments:

  1. That's about as convincing as Bibi's congratulations to the winner of the American elections.

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  2. Perhaps he shouldn't have visited the shiva house but he could at least have said "If the man was a sinner, what did his family do?" That he walked past all the victims to show his respect reminds me of all the "Rabbis" who walked past Malka Leffler's victims on their way to show support for "one of ours!"

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  3. Let's just see what is going on here-


    the Torah forbids adultery - outright.


    Suicide is also forbidden, and is considered a serious sin in halacha.


    see https://outorah.org/p/24295/


    rape, child abuse - the sources are a bit wishy-washy but a case can be made tha it is a serious sin. Hilchot rodeif allows us to actually kill a rapist to prevent him from carrying out his sins. Then there are derivative sins - chillul Hashem, destoying people, and helping to increase the OTD numbers.


    So now, the Gedolei hador, that is of Bnei Brak, and of the Chief Rabbinate -are basically brushing aside all these evil acts. Adultery is a given, and they are not even bothering to deny it.
    Suicide, well the poor guy was depressed from all the bad press he got.

    Child abuse, well that is a joke anyway, for all the good work of a few, it is still being brushed aside.


    Let us just see what happens when some people who are not "insiders" use these kind of arguments:


    Riskin - gays suffer from some sort of compulsion , so are not liable. (Suicide under the same compulsion is totally OK, and he is given the grand funeral and shiva).


    Rav Goren - whereas a rasha, rapist and adutlerer in Bnei Brak is badmouthed and this is a crime beyond all crimes, and will not allow them to get theri olam haba, a giatn Talmid Chacham who made psak 50 years ago, is ridiculed, called the vilest of things, with posters put everywhere denouncing him, because he tried to free mamzerim based on adding doubt upon doubt. Chareidim see it a s mitzvah to say loshin hara about him, and some would also say it about rav Kook, Rav Soloveitchik etc.


    Greenblatt /Kamenetsky - I amnot about to discuss the validity of their heter - but the worst case is that they allowed eishet ish, adultery by their faulty halacha. And they have been pilloried, attacked, perhaps not to the degree R Goren was, but still mocked. Did we not just see that Loshon hara is worse than the Adultery they are accused of allowing?




    So it is further evidence that there is no consistency , or honesty in hareidi discourse. Every time we are led to believe that they know what they are doing, another thing blows up.

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  4. I recall a Lubavitcher criticizing me for calling Rubashkin a horrible person. He insisted that since none of his crimes has been investigated by Beis Din, he was to be viewed as completely innocent until that happened. And since he was innocent, this was proof that his treatment by the justice system was anti-Semitism.
    Same thing here for some people.

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