UNITED STATES
Haaretz
By Rabbi Elianna Yolkut | May 14, 2015
My Washington D.C. community has been engaged in impassioned debates over how severe a punishment Rabbi Barry Freundel deserves for spying on women in the mikveh (Jewish ritual bath), since prosecutors recommended he be sent to prison for 17 years for 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism.
“Murderers and rapist don’t even get that much time,” one congregant insisted.
“Are you kidding me? He was a rabbi; he shamed people. It’s like murder,” another interjected.
Back and forth the arguments flew, growing louder as congregants contradicted and agreed with one another. Listening to the conversation, I wondered: What does Judaism teach us about those who exploit others: do we have a right to seek a severe punishment, or must we strive for leniency, in an effort to exhibit compassion?
Teshuvah (repentance) and forgiveness are central elements of Jewish thought. In the Talmud is the famous phrase, “Human beings should be pliant as a reed, not hard like the cedar,” in granting forgiveness (Taanit 20a). This phrase, and others, is often used to describe a victim’s responsibility to be soft and flexible in their ability to offer forgiveness. In Shabbat 133b we are taught, “Just as it is in the nature of God to be merciful to His creatures, so man in attempting to imitate the ways of God should be forgiving toward those who have injured them.”
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