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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Kolko debacle: How to look up to rabbis who support a confessed pedophile?

Posted on 12:54 PM by Unknown

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn, 

Can you please help me?

I went to a Rabbi for guidance about how to deal with my own anger against how the Kolko affair was handled by Lakewood rabbis. My anger stems from the fact that I want to look up to these Rabbis as leaders I can trust. So I feel betrayed in a personal way. He said, without any indifference to molestation or opposition to police involvement, that I have no way of knowing what the facts really are.  Therefore I could not assume the rabbis acted stupidly or insensitively.

You can't discuss your anger about X by being questioned whether X happened.  I therefore didn't get what I was looking for.

Would you dispute the premise that I cannot know what happened?  if not, how should I relate personally to the issue? What is your response to this?  

With your permission I would like to show your response to the Rabbi.

thank you

p.s.

do I have the right  to assume they have done wrong, or only that they have failed to explain what they did?
=============update 5 24 2013
2nd letter

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

My previous letter to you was unclear, resulting in confusion among readers.  I would like to set the record straight about my interaction with a Rabbi.  This Rabbi is

1. very sensitive to the issue of molestation, and has thought about it deeply,

believing it is the major cause of people leaving Judaism

2. totally supports going to the police when evidence is present

3. knew nothing of and had read nothing about this case but based his on-the-spot response on my flawed oral report

4. was sincerely agnostic, not biased in Lakewood's favor.  He never said I should assume their innocence.

 Thus, the Rabbi was dealing not with abuse per se but with the question of what facts can one know from media. 
A lesson from this story is that there is limit to what Rabbis can do when talmidim want quick answers to personal problems.  
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