https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-868336
Disturbing recent publications have revealed judges in the rabbinical courts accused of corruption and other offenses.
This comes against a backdrop of appointments tainted by nepotism and the rewarding of misconduct with promotions, rather than with painful punishment. These cases point to a system suffering from low functional performance and missing professional standards.
Yet, contrary to all logic and almost without opposition, this same system has recently been growing in power. In recent months, we have witnessed laws to expand the rabbinical courts’ authority passing unopposed, touching on sensitive issues regarding children, finances, alimony, and more.
At the core of the matter is the pretense of Jewish law. Yet, Jewish law contains a great deal of compassion, flexibility, and sensitivity. Through it, one can strive to do justice and fulfill the commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The law is like a hammer. You can use it to build a house or to crush someone's skull. That's always been the problem with beis din. If you have a kind rabbi, you get a good judgement. If you have an arrogant rabbi, you get every chumra in the book thrown at you.
ReplyDeleteA couple of decades ago there was a survery in America that revealed that a high majority of Orthodox Jews wouldn't not go to beis din even if they were obliged by halakha because they didn't trust the system. The response wasn't "Oh crap, we'd better figure out what's wrong and fix it so people have confidence" but "How dare you question the system!" And that just drove more people away.
"corruption and other offenses". -- just like batei din in America.
ReplyDeleteFrom Jpost?
ReplyDeleteSame article is a repaste every half decade
iirc there has been not a shred of expansion-only contraction
You were being Serious??