Throwing away the shells

I met with a teacher of mine tonight to talk about dealing with rabbis who have personal problems. There have been several very highly publicized cases in recent years of rabbis who have sexually molested students. It had come up several times recently in conversation, and I asked to meet with this particular teacher because he had known two of the rabbis.

We talked over the issues for awhile as I was trying to grasp how such a thing could have been tolerated in the Jewish community. He, who is older than I, reminded me that women's rights were not respected very well in the past, and it is only recently that things have begun to change for the better. These rabbis had grown up in worlds where such behavior was not openly discussed and though it was viewed as wrong, there wasn't much pressure not to do it. I want to point out to that my teacher never said any of this to justify the actions, just to understand them a bit better.

When I asked the question of how to deal with teachings of these rabbis, some of which are really very special, when we know that the person who taught them is deeply flawed? He responded by quoting from Talmud. There was a Talmudic persona called "Acher" (other) who was very well respected and then excommunicated (for unclear reasons - click here for an earlier post about it). People asked one of Acher's main disciples how he related to his teacher after he was declared a heretic, and his response was that he ate the sweetness inside, but threw away the shell. My teacher said that's how it is with these rabbis today, keep the sweetness of their teachings, but don't learn the lessons they taught by living badly. He also pointed out that doesn't mean deny what happened or minimize it in any way, but learn the lessons of what not to do from them as well.

I thought all of this very wise and wanted to pass it along.