Walder I: Chaim U’Maves B’Yad HaLashon

Author's Note - This is the first installment of what I plan to be a three-part series. There is a lot to discuss here.     YH

I really shouldn’t be weighing-in to the Chaim Walder tragedy. (You can probably guess that this means that I am going to be weighing-in to the CW tragedy even though I shouldn’t be.) Numerous very prominent and venerable klei kodesh who are much older than me and certainly much wiser than me have already given us valuable insight and direction.

I was particularly impressed by a very “heartzige” half hour address by Harav Yitzchok Berkowitz, Shlita and a ten-minute segment from Harav Yitzchak Breitowitz, Shlita. I also listened to both podcasts from Halacha Headlines over the past two weeks, a stinging lecture from HRHG Moshe Meiselman, Shlita and read the statement from the OU authored by Rav Moshe Hauer, Shlita.

As much as we all denounce the extreme measures that Chaim Walder took, as well as a similar act by another prominent Chareidi askan who put found himself in a similar situation, nevertheless, I think most of us are breathing a collective sigh of relief that these individuals brought their episodes to a Hollywood style “once and for all” resolution and saved the Chareidi community the angst of how to deal with them.

As Harav Berkowitz passionately said, suicide is unacceptable in Judaism and is considered murder just the same. Rav Breitowitz aptly said that it is a manipulation that victimizes his family, revictimizes his victims, and scars the Chareidi world. It’s not the road to travel and we wish it didn’t happen. But then, if it didn’t happen, then what? How were we to handle him and his accusers?

This was the talk of the town before the fateful “final resolution” Monday. And the opinions were more diverse than the yea or nay of getting rid of his books. And everybody has an opinion. So where do I come in?

As usual, I like to discuss the blind spots that most others don’t seem to notice.

To quote Rabbi Breitowitz in Headlines who quoted former White House spokesman Rahm Immanuel – “Never let a crisis go to waste.” The most important thing is to reflect on “What lessons can we learn from this?” and “Where do we go from here?”

 

Who is “we”?

Us. You and me.

Allow me to elaborate.

This is definitely a horrific tragedy. I believe Harav Berkowitz said that this is the biggest chillul Hashem that he has ever witnessed. How big is this tragedy really?

Well, who are the “korbanos”?

1. At some level, there is Chaim Walder himself, guilty or not, and most certainly his family and close acquaintances. At the very least it can be said that he is a victim of himself.
   
   
2.  Then, of course, there are his victims - the ones he engaged with and whose lives were destroyed. There is no question about that.
   
   
3. Then, there is the remainder of the Chareidi community. This means people like me and you.
   
   
4. Finally, the “anti-Chareidi” secular Jews. They are also victims. 
   
   

In this post, I want to be selfish. I am not discussing Chaim Walder, AH, and his family. It doesn’t matter if he was truly innocent or guilty. He’s gone. He is in Beis Din shel maala with or without Rav Eliyahu, Shlita or Rav Silman, Shlita.

I am not discussing his victims/accusers, either. He is out of their lives. They need to pick up the pieces and, of course we need to do everything we can to help them. I may want to discuss the victims later, but not in this post. For the moment, I am discussing categories 3 and 4 – us and our secular brethren!

Where do “we” fit in? How are we hurt?

Just to remind everybody, I am Yechezkel Hirshman innovator and author of One Above and Seven Below. What stands as the goal of One Above and Seven Below?

I clearly explained it in the Introduction of my book and even in the FAQs in the opening pages.

Firstly, I am defining the Chareidi world as the society that promotes HKBH’s contract and “benefits package” in Vayikra 26:3-13 and lives by it. HKBH promises us the best of all worlds (benefits package) if we uphold the contract. That is to live as the Chareidim live. My goal is to “sell” this benefits contract to the entire Jewish population – at no cost – for, well, for their own benefit!

Incidentally, here is what a Central Bureau of Statistics report said on June 27, 2018:

Jews are more satisfied with their lives than Arabs. Among Jews, haredim are the most satisfied with their lives and their economic situation, even though haredim are poorer on average than the rest of the Jewish population.

This is a standard that is not about to change even when an occasional miscreant like Chaim Walder is unmasked.

As a skilled salesman, my job is to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and not to mess with Mr. In Between.

It’s not an easy job. This is due to my main competitor. The Satan, Yetzer Hara, Malach HaMaves or whatever he is called doesn’t want us to qualify for the benefits package. As such, he goes out of his way to present a different picture than the Central Bureau of Statistics. His method is to eliminate the positive, accentuate the negative, latch on to the derogative, and invite Mr. In Between (i.e., doubt and Safek).

And he does it by hiring people to shine a spotlight on the apparent dark side of Chareidi life. To say whatever lashon hara and even motzi shem ra on the Chareidi world in order to accomplish what lashon hara and motzi shem rah usually accomplishes, to destroy what is good.

First, he gets weak, insecure, overconfident people like Chaim Walder and Yehuda Meshi-Zahav to go haywire and destroy themselves and others. That itself puts many notches on his belt. Thereupon, he hires unsuspecting mild-mannered reporters to make it their business to publicize this destruction to the masses and thereby broadcast juicy lashon hara or motzi shem ra, as the case may be, to the sensation-hungry masses. This will disillusion the faithful, feed ammunition to the faithless and dissuade Mr. (and Ms.) In Between.

Not too good for business.

As I wrote in the Introduction of my book, I am very distressed to see “Orthodox” writers using the anti-Chareidi, left wing (or even centrist) secular press to publicize what they conceive to be the exclusive Chareidi social ills. Invariably, it accentuates the negative and eliminates the positive and presents a distorted picture which is only destructive.

It was for this reason that, among many similar defensive posts, I posted a three-part series in 2017 called Judging the Judges. I think it is imperative to read the first half of Part 1 HERE.

The common denominator of the three episodes that were studied is that, in each case, an individual (which coincidentally happened to be female) who had a personal grievance against a perceived miscreant from the Chareidi community, felt entitled to broadcast the iniquities to the entire world. Regardless of whether these women were justified in their grievances, there was no justification whatsoever to import the matter into the public arena. It stood to do way more harm than good.

Perhaps I should title this post: Judging the Judges: Part 4. (It may be the title of a coming post!)

This episode has a lot to do with us. But why? If we are not the perpetrators and we are not the victims, why are we involved? Okay, we all need to know that we need to throw out his books, don’t we? But how did we get involved and why? What would be so bad if the average yid hadn’t heard about this whole mess and, chas v’shalom, lo aleinu, kept his books anyway? And, if at the same time, this were also kept away from the prying eyes of the detractors of Torah Yiddishkeit?

How many of us had anything to do with this or heard about it before mid-November 2021?

What happened then?

What seems to have happened is that on or about November 12, the secular newspaper Haaretz printed an exposé story authored by Aaron Rabinowitz and Shira Elk telling the [mostly secular] public about the alleged sins of the deceased Chaim Walder (AH). In a JTA article dated November 30, 2021, parts of an interview with Aaron Rabinowitz were printed in which he detailed what alerted him to the saga and how he went about getting all the information that eventually became his exposé. It looks to me that he did a very thorough and responsible job.

In fact, he did such a thorough and responsible job that on November 28, he and his partner, Ms. Elk, were awarded the prize for journalistic excellence by the Israel Press Institute. Officially, the prize was due to their earlier exposé about Yehuda Meshi-Zahav of ZAKA fame, but it is very likely that this more recent event from November 12 had a lot of impact. It is worth noting that the prize for journalistic excellence from the Israel Press Institute is NIS 50,000.

As a result, this whole mess came out into the open and the “talk of the town”. Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, Shlita convened a Beis Din and gathered testimony. He concluded that there is truth to the allegations. Chaim Walder did himself in (as did one victim), the remaining victims/accusers have closure, and we have to decide whether to throw out his books. Case closed.

This episode has left the Chareidi world both smarter and smarting. It remains to be seen what measures, if any, will be implemented in order to prevent any repeat performances. I hope to discuss this more in a follow-up post. Right now, I want to complain.

I was not happy to hear about this saga. I would have preferred not to. But thanks to Aaron Rabinowitz and Shira Elk, this story became public knowledge. Did it have to?

I think we need to review some of the Halachos of Lashon Hara that all of us know.

Firstly, we know that there are two levels:

Lashon Hara – This is derogatory speech which can or does harm someone – and is basically meant to harm someone – yet all the details are true.

Motzi Shem Ra – This is derogatory speech which can or does harm someone – and is basically meant to harm someone – but at least some pivotal details are false.

Motzi Shem Ra is an atrocious act for which even leprosy is too good. All of the sefer of Shmiras Halashon (Hilchos Lashon Hara) is barely touching it. It only deals with lashon hara. Make a note of this.

Secondly, we all know the gemara in Erachin 15b which states:

In the West (Eretz Israel) they say that lashon hara kills three people – the reporter, the listener and the subject.

We understand this to mean that it kills these people in a figurative or metaphoric sense. Yet, the Midrash Tanchuma (Metzora 2:1) illustrates that this can actually be quite literal when it discusses how the lashon hara of Doeg HaAdomi actually brought about the demise of Doeg (the reporter), Shaul (the listener), and Achimelech (the subject). Again, we are discussing lashon hara and not motzi shem ra.

Note that even Dovid HaMelech - another "subject" of the lashon hara and not the one who spoke it - was held responsible for every single casualty in this event. Even that of the wicked Doeg. And he paid a very heavy price. See Sanhedrin 95a.

Thirdly, we know that not all derogatory speech counts as lashon hara. There is a short list of about seven conditions detailed in Shmiras HaLashon (Hilchos Lashon Hara) 10:2 which, if all that are applicable are met, nullifies the status of lashon hara. The easy ones are that the report must be totally true, the reporter knows it all first-hand, no filling in blanks or exaggerating, if possible, the subject must be confronted first, and the expected consequences should not be more severe than anything that would happen in a Beis Din.

Arguably, it can be claimed that in our case all of the above were met. But we shall soon see that the “confronting” part is very debatable.

But even after everything is true and not overstated and the rest, there are two other items on the list that override all:

1. There must be a constructive objective (toelles).
   
   
2. There is no alternative way to accomplish this toelles without disseminating the derogatory speech.

There are two more points to make regarding the toelles requirement:

• The Chofetz Chaim adds that the reporter’s intentions must be pure so that he has nothing personal to gain from his report
  
  
• As a corollary to the above, although it wasn’t said explicitly, I think it goes without saying that the intention of the reporter must be solely toward this toelles. It is not acceptable that the reporter says it to harm the subject or somebody else but rationalizes the harm in that there is also a collateral benefit to someone else.

Once we know all this – and we all do – we need to take a critical look at the exposé in Haaretz and the integrity of the authors from a Halachic perspective.

I know nothing about Shira Elk and I don’t think that she was the primary author, in any case. I will guess that her role was more to do the investigating and speaking to the women victims. I don’t know if she is religious except that she works for Haaretz which gives me a clue.

Conversely, from what I understand, Aaron Rabinowitz is quite religious and comes from a Chareidi upbringing. Despite this (or is it, because of this?), he has chosen to make a living by joining forces with a very anti-Chareidi secular media forum and to feed them whatever scintillating gossip involving the Chareidi world that he can uncover. And evidently, he goes to great lengths to uncover it. It seems that he has been doing this for several years.

Aaron Rabinowitz (and his partner) wrote an exposé article about a true (lets go with this) scandal in the Chareidi world. He went to great lengths to collect all the information. He was not sought out by the victims/accusers but, rather, he sought them out to get their stories. Of 15 victims he claims to have interviewed, only three of them agreed to let him include their stories even under pseudonyms. He judged, juried, and executed the entire exposé. As a result, a Beis Din was convened, Chaim Walder offed himself, the victims breathed a sigh of relief but not much more, and I need to hunt down his books so I can throw them out.

Assuming he is truly a religious person and has any yiras shamayim, he should know that he is embarking on a very risky venture. Why did he do this? Did he do the right thing?

Surely he can say it’s all true, he heard it all straight from the accusers, no guessing, no exaggerating, he contacted Walder for his opinion (he claims Walder said it’s all a blood libel), and the case even went to a Beis Din. All good.

But we have one more major hurdle. What was the toelles? And was there no other way to achieve it?

On the surface, there is no denial that we expunged a destructive unrepentant predator from our midst and put an abrupt end to his immense ongoing devastation. It certainly saved any new potential victims. And we were spared a lot of ogmas nefesh in the process. We also took on a higher awareness to this sordid phenomenon which sharply induces us to take stronger measures to combat this problem. Hopefully, this can go a long way to reducing this scourge in the future from other predators.

These two things are vitally positive achievements.

On the other side of the coin, Walder is dead. Yes, he died by his own hand. If suicide is to be considered a murderous act despite his iniquity, then to kill him out right is also a murderous act despite his iniquity. Remember that the gemara in Erachin calls lashon hara tantamount to murdering the subject even though the lashon hara is true and, as such, the fellow in question may really be a pretty nasty scoundrel!

Of course, one can argue that he had a din of a rodef and, as such, his blood was hefker. Tough call. But it didn’t end there. More distressing is that it seems that one of Walder’s victims likewise died by her own hand as a result of this story going public. For now (please, no more!), we have two actual bodies as the result of this lashon hara one of whom is a total victim who did not harm anyone.

And let’s not forget Yehuda Meshi-Zahav whose life is hanging by a thread (in more ways than one). Even if two of these three korbanos are people we shouldn’t really miss, the Rabbanim are crying about the frightening concept of seeing suicide as a viable option (R”L) and the message this can send.

After this, we have a tremendous chillul Hashem, the fallout that affects the entire Chareidi world and the fuel presented to Chareidi detractors to prevent them and others from seeing the benefits of the Torah world and signing on to it.

Does the toelles outweigh all this damage and make the writer a hero? Or does it take a back seat and leave him accountable?

It’s very hard to answer this question by itself. But let’s look at the next condition - There is no alternative way to accomplish this toelles without disseminating the derogatory speech. Is this the case here?

This may be an even harder question to answer. Mr. Rabinowitz collected a lot of information. Very explosive information. Dynamite. The question now is: What should a shomer Torah u’mitzvos do with this explosive information?

As a Chareidi, I would say one thing not to do with such explosive information is to hand it over to Haaretz for the sake of passing it out to the public for immediate detonation. Perhaps, if the toelles is the dominant factor and there are no other options, it may be a last resort to save those at risk, but it would be best to first try other things.

We know that Rav Eliyahu, Shlita set up a Beis Din for inquiry and was prepared to follow through with whatever tikunim. We also know that Mr. Walder was not very cooperative. Would the Beis Din still be convened if the information was passed to him up front? Or was it only as a result of the explosive publicity?

In other words, would there be a better result if this Beis Din or any Beis Din was contacted up front before breaking the story to the public?

Most likely the writer will respond that he was not aware that anyone like Rav Eliyahu was available to manage such an undertaking. It wasn’t a part of his investigation. But let’s move on.

The original article indicates that Walder was confronted. I need to ask, how was he confronted?

Did Mr. Rabinowitz confront him like an investigative journalist (gossip columnist) working on a scoop? – “Hello, Mr. Walder. My name is Aaron Rabinowitz with Haaretz. I am in the course of writing a story about multiple women who claim to have been assaulted by you. My deadline is tomorrow at 6:00 pm. So far, I have heard accusations from 15 alleged victims. It is my ethical duty to seek out your response. What do you have to say to these allegations?”

Or did he confront him like a concerned Jew with ahavas Yisroel who would like to put a quiet end to the diabolical exploits of a nefarious predator? – “Hello, Mr. Walder. My name is Aaron Rabinowitz and I am an investigative reporter for Haaretz. The aftermath of the Meshi-Zahav affair brought to light shocking accusations from many alleged victims about your dark side. Of course, I am planning to publish this story in Haaretz but, perhaps, if you take the high road and turn yourself into the Beis Din of your choice for guidance on teshuva and making amends, we can avoid all this publicity. What do you say?”

Both approaches are saying, “Walder, the jig is up. We know who you are. This is going to end.” But the first approach is saying, “This is going to the secular media whether you like it or not. What should we say in our story is your response?” In this scenario there is nothing in it for him to admit anything. He’s taking a public fall anyway. As such, there is nothing for him to do but deny it. Maybe some people will take his side.

I cannot believe that this is what the Chafetz Chaim has in mind by confronting the subject.

The second approach is giving him an out, uncomfortable as it may be. It is saying, “Walder, you have a choice. Come clean just to me and some Beis Din and go quietly. Yes, you will lose your status, reputation, parnassah, maybe marriage, maybe you will need to pay some restitution, but you have much to account for and you can still fix yourself and avoid making a public spectacle and bringing down your family and the whole community. (Or if you are going to off yourself anyway, you can do it now before we all find out and the world will think you were just under too much personal stress.) If not, I have no choice but to go public with this and put you to shame to end your shenanigans.”

Yes, coming clean quietly would require from Walder a total mesiras nefesh which was not in his arsenal (I guess suicide was), but still, a choice is a choice. This is what the Chafetz Chaim is requiring.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but it is very difficult for me to fathom that Mr. Rabinowitz would even consider the second approach. It’s not his job and it’s not what he’s paid for. He is a mercenary journalist, for heaven’s sake, not a mashgiach ruchni. Such an approach would require from Mr. Rabinowitz his own level of mesiras nefesh to risk passing up on a great scoop, fame and fortune and a cash cow, to take this a different direction.

But the Chafetz Chaim says that if you are a kosher Jew, you sometimes need to have the mesiras nefesh not to publish a scoop.

All this relates to the “confronting” issue. Regarding the issue of toelles and if it can be accomplished without detonating the dynamite, the question still stands. If he would have confronted Walder with an ultimatum (approach 2) before publishing the article, could the same toelles not be achieved without the fatal publicity (to two people)?

I don’t think we’ll ever know but, regardless, I don’t think that the option that is likely to do the most damage should ever be the first course of action. Even if that’s what one does for a living.

And speaking of what one does for a living, we reach the third issue about a toelles - the person who says the absolutely true toellesfull lashon hara cannot have a personal interest or stake in it. And, as personal stakes go, money tops the list.

They say that when it comes to buying real estate or surviving gunshot wounds only three things matter: (1) Location (2) Location (3) Location.

Likewise, when it comes to nullifying the prohibition of lashon hara because the report is a toelles, only three things matter: (1) Intention (2) Intention (3) Intention.

It’s not enough that there is a constructive toelles. Your intention must be only the constructive toelles. When I checked over Mr. Rabinowitz’s record all I could find (with rare exceptions) were “news” stories about members of the Chareidi world. “News” means the unanticipated and abnormal occurrences. Things we shouldn’t expect from Chareidim. Man bites dog as opposed to dog bites man. “News” that feeds the appetites of the secular world who want to convince themselves that the Chareidim are just as decadent as they are so they can justify their alienation and miss out on all the blessings. Tens if not hundreds of such “news” items going back at least three years (I was able to go back as far as 2019).

And in most of these news items which send out the same negative signals and promote the alienation, there is no toelles whatsoever.

Orthodox “muckrakers” who hail from the Chareidi world or from close to it – and I know a few – often rationalize their criticism as a gesture of love or altruism. They are trying to fix the wrongs so that we can all live happily ever after. They may consider themselves humanitarian and more “enlightened”. They are trying to help us.

It's hard to accept this when the writer consistently presents scores of articles that are meant to do the same denigrating and alienation even when there is no such toelles on the table. Mr. Rabinowitz is a journalist for a secular newspaper. He writes exposés about members of the Chareidi community, and he’s been doing it for years. This is the devil’s work, but he does it. He gets paid to do it. He sells his gossip to the anti-Chareidi secular world, to the population who is willing to pay for it. This is his living.

In the JTA interview (English translation), runs the headline: "A journalist breaking Orthodoxy’s biggest sexual abuse stories says he wishes he didn’t have to". Well, if he didn't have to, he would be out of work, wouldn't he? Does he really wish to be out of work?

In the article, he is quoted as saying: “To our chagrin, it was necessary for journalism to publicize the story.” – as he counts his share of the prize money. Who on earth is “journalism”?

It is my opinion that even if Mr. Rabinowitz is a well-intentioned humanitarian, he is a journalist first and a humanitarian second. Accordingly, no toelles justifies what he writes. I don’t think he is only exposing the dark side of the Chareid world (whether or not for our own good), I think he is illuminating it. This falsely gives the recessive dark side a more dominant appearance.

The money he earns by illuminating the dark side of the Chareidi world is blood money. And the Israel Press Institute award that he got over the bodies of Meshi-Zahav, Chaim Walder and especially the victim who killed herself – who might not have if he hadn’t made the scandal public – is literally blood money.

I think that if he has any real yiras shamayim, he will bid farewell to Haaretz and seek another line of work. And if he really is a humanitarian and any kind of a mentsch, he (and she) will not touch the award money from the Israel Press Institute. It is מוקצה מחמת איסור and אסור בהנאה. They will promptly pass it on to Meshi-Zahav’s family (since they got the prize for that report) or to Walder’s or to some of the victims.

At least they can show us that they are better.

 

חיים שתהא בנו אהבת תורה ויראת שמים

Postscript - To date I have made two attempts to contact Haaretz asking for an email address for Aaron Rabinowitz to send him a draft of this blog, both without success. If Mr. Rabinowitz sees this blog and feels that any part is inaccurate or inappropriate, he is invited to contact me at 1a7b.author@gmail.com.

YH