NEW YORK
Frum Follies
Jonathan Rosenblatt, rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center, is the grandson of Yossele Rosenblatt. I am sitting here listening to Yossele’s magnificent cantorial singing on recordings made a hundred years ago. He had everything, vocal range, control, phrasing, musicality, originality, and above all, soul. His secular contemporary in the opera was Enrico Caruso.
According to an often repeated story, Caruso attended one of Rosenblatt’s New York recitals. After hearing Rosenblatt sing Eli, Eli, he went on stage and kissed him. That was an innocent kiss expressing one great artist’s admiration of another.
But other interactions devoid of physical contact can be downright creepy. Most women have had the unpleasant experience of being visually undressed by strangers. Even worse, most have experienced conversational partners talking to their chest instead of their face.
Men are used to using adjacent public urinals. Most such interactions are matter-of-fact. Whether or not one chances to notice the other, we are all socialized not to stare. To be caught staring is to cross a boundary. We know when it happens and we turn away or glare back.
As long as the inappropriate gaze comes from a stranger is it mostly an annoyance. But it gets much more unpleasant when it comes from someone with power over you like a parent, teacher, boss or mentor. Workplace sex harassment lawsuits arise from such situations.
Inappropriate gaze is not necessarily a crime, because the law is a crude instrument. It can become the crime of child endangerment when it involves nudity and minors in ways that accustom them to being groomed or sexualized.
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