Rabbi Eidensohn,
I am one of your biggest fans, But I am disappointed at your negative spin about the Chicago Beis Din. Just because you are close friends with a member of the IBD does not give you license to smear the Chashuva Rabbonim in Chicago who for 3 months worked diligently to determine what the facts were.
Why did they remain silent until they referred the matter to the IBD? Maybe because they wanted to get all of the facts and testimony before accusing anybody of anything. I really don't understand why you have to smear these fine Rabbonim Chashuvim with headlines that include hot button words like 'cover-up'.
If you want to use that word, try using it on the educators in Meisel's seminaries that chose to coverup what he did... and the IBD who seems not to care about that in Kashering these seminaries so quickly.
Harry Maryles
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The above letters is from one of the few people I consider a good example of yashrus and commonsense. But his letter demonstrates that yashrus and commonsense are not enough when there is misplaced loyalty and respect for talmidei chachom - because they are talmidei chachomim.
One of the basic facts that we all need to know is if sexual abuse, or corruption is to be dealt with properly - is that when a wonderful rabbis or laymen are accused of major crimes the defense is always - "but he is such a good person, he is such a big talmid chachom, he has such good midos - it is not possible that he can do what he is accused of." The most important lesson that needs to be learned is that character references or mastery of Torah literature - is not proof that a someone could not have committed the transgression. The actual facts need to be examined - even for nice people.
Reb Harry claims that I am putting a negative spin about the Chicago Beis Din. That is false - I am not twisting the facts - I am accurately describing the negative things that they actually have done.
He also objects to my saying that when they concealed from publication the fact of Meisels serious misbehavior for at least 2 months - that they were covering up the abuse. In a long talk with the rosh yeshiva of Ner Yisroel - Rav Yaakov Weinberg - I learned a critical lesson that I hope I will never forget. The lesson is that words have meaning. While that seems obvious - it is often forgotten when dealing with things that are precious to us. We especially tend to twist the meaning of words in order to make things sound frum or to defend frumkeit.
If I had said that some priests in the Church had concealed the presence of a pedophile and had concealed that there were other priests who were complicit by their silence - Reb Harry would be the first to scream - coverup - and he would be right. But when it comes to his heroes. The people he looks up to - he has a different standard. Words have a different meaning if they sound critical about nice people, about saintly people about respected talmidei chachomim. He doesn't allow the world coverup to be used about these people - and in this he is clearly wrong. You will note his last paragraph - that I can only use the word coverup about people he doesn't respect!
The Chazon Ish says one can say negative things only about big and influential people. That is because people need to be able to guard against the weakness in people they respect or influence them. For someone you don't pay attention to - there is typically no justification or benefit from saying bad things about them.
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