To Empower is to Illuminate: The Leadership Style Not Used by Barry Freundel Parashat Lech L’cha, 8 Cheshvan, 5775 – November 1, 2014 Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am

The first rule of sermon writing is that you have to say something people can disagree with. Truism does not homily make. Sometimes my job may be to remind you of something you already know but have perhaps forgotten or neglected. But you don’t need to tell you the obvious: water is wet, the sky is blue, or that it wasn’t just a little bit gratifying to see the Royals lose this week. So the first rule of sermon writing: if you haven't said anything even minimally provocative, you haven't said anything. I ask you: Is there anything to say about Rabbi Barry Freundel, who installed cameras in the mikvah, who recorded women nude in the shower, who violated the sanctity of a ritual bath to feed his own perverse desires? His actions, should they be proven true, were reprehensible. Who in their right mind could disagree?

But then, there's the second rule of sermon writing which is Torah must have something to say about life; it must be relevant to the world in which we live. There is no denying that this scandal has impacted many of us. Rabbi Freundel wasn’t just another abusing clergyman; he conducted his tawdry deeds with intent and premeditation. He contorted a ritual vehicle representing birth and beauty and safety and vulnerability and made it risky and ugly. He polluted living waters meant to purify and made them impure, perversely inverting the mikvah’s usual path and made it flow backwards from taharah to tumah. He took women who pray and made them into prey. But here in Baltimore, Barry Freundel’s conduct has an even deeper resonance. A fair number of Beth Am’ers know him, have studied with him, and have admired his intellect and erudition. Some of you are current or former members of Kesher Israel. And he taught at in the most recent iteration of our own Dr. Louis L. Kaplan’s Baltimore Hebrew University. What’s more, this is a congregation blessed with many by Choice, those who have studied with me or other rabbis, and who believed (and willing still believe) their journey to and through mikvah was a beautiful and sacred one. Oh yes, Rabbi Freundel’s actions, should they be proven true, are not just undeniably wrong, they are unquestionably relevant.

So, I find myself in a nexus between obvious and odious, knowing I have to speak – because not to speak, as a Christian friend and colleague told me, is tantamount to “silent complicity” – but also knowing that quoting salacious details from a scandalous news story is not religious guidance, and simply naming an abomination is not Torah. As in most cases when I struggle to discover Jewish wisdom in the mess of life, it is to Torah I turn. Because the lesson, I think in this story, is not about religion’s value (most of you know that a religious leader’s moral failing of this nature is an affront to the Freundel ostensibly taught). And also the lesson is, God willing, not about the safety or sanctity of mikvah. Surely, safeguards will and should be put in place to better protect women and men who attend a ritual bath. But, and I hope I don’t sound dismissive when I say this; abusive rabbis and compromised mikvahs are rare. No, I think the story here is one about leadership and about power. Because while the detestable way and extent to which Rabbi Freundel abused his position is uncommon, bad leadership is widespread and leaders who misuse their power are all too common indeed.

This week’s parasha introduces us to Abraham, the first Jew. And Abraham’s story offers us two leadership models with none other than God playing the so-called “leading role.” The first model has the Kadosh Baruch Hu recruiting Abraham – I think the current jargon is “volun-told.” The 1

Holy One conscripts Abraham and immediately sends him packing. Lech l’cha, “Go forth!” M’artzecha, “from your land,” M’molodet’kha, “from your birthplace,” u’mibeit avicha, “and from your father’s house.” El ha’aretz asher areka, “to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). In this model Abraham is directed, entirely passive. God commands, Abraham follows. So great is Abraham’s leap of faith that he goes to a wholly strange and new land, abandoning not only his place but his sense of place. He (and we) are not even told where he is going. Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Harlap, the nineteenth century student of Rav Kook, highlights the unidirectional nature of God’s leadership style here. “You are incapable of seeing the land yourself,” implies God according to Rav Harlap, “so I will show it to you.” Where is the source of wisdom and the locus of power? With God of course. This is not to say that God is being abusive – has v’shalom! Most leaders who patronize or even infantilize their followers don’t go so far as to abuse. But one can see, I think, how this approach taken by humans can have dangerous consequences. Think of a charismatic but manipulative leader you’ve known. Why would one deliberately withhold information? Who benefits from this dynamic? The student or the teacher? The leader or the led? Sometimes surprises are called for; a well-timed disclosure can have pedagogic value. But more often, I think, withholding information disempowers the student, leaving him or her without a sense of agency, feeling disarmed, and literally stripped of any tools for self-improvement or self-actualization.

What we’re learning about Barry Freundel is not just that he was a voyeur. He used people. It seems female conversion candidates were pressured to do secretarial work or contribute money. He had them do “practice dunks” (I’ve never heard of such a thing!) and, it seems, he wasn’t clear with people about any clear timeline for conversion, or the required benchmarks to there. Kant’s Categorical Imperative is to never treat a person as a means. Each person, created in God’s image, is an end in and of herself or himself. When I was growing up, my own rabbi wasn’t shy about his feelings, including his opinion of people at times. In private, when we would study, he would say things about people, sometimes using colorful language. But the worst thing I ever heard him say about someone was not a four-letter word; it was that a person was “a user of human beings.”

Twenty-two year old conversion candidate Stephanie Doucette’s piece in the Jewish Week on Tuesday is a portrait of such a “user of human beings.”

“At first my experiences with him were positive, and I was delighted with my decision.” She writes. “However, as time progressed I began having more difficulties… I began having issues with some of the male congregants saying sexually inappropriate things to me. It was at that point that I went to Rabbi Freundel for help, but he seemed to simply shrug the problem off and explained to me that as a young, attractive female, this was going to happen in any community. He then remarked that if he were younger and single he would be interested in me as well.

Over the period of my conversion process, Rabbi Freundel would remark in various conversations that I was a young, attractive female, especially during times I mentioned I was in no rush to get married. I went to several congregants with my concerns but they dismissed them. Eventually it got to the point where I kept my meetings with him brief. I would just simply tell him I was observing and studying as I should, and then just leave... By the time I graduated with my bachelor’s degree I was barely speaking with him and had cut many of my ties to the Kesher Israel community.”

Ms. Doucette says she was planning to discontinue her studies with Rabbi Freundel but she never got the chance. Now she’s waiting to find out if he videotaped the two “practice dunks” he had her do.

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Parashat Lech L’cha introduces us to the first monotheist. Barry Freundel presented himself a devoted servant of that God. Perhaps he was. I don’t know him personally. I’ve spoken with those who do know him who continue to feel he has done much good despite his failings. But to me his actions reveal not a faithful Jew but an idolater in the truest sense of the word. He allowed his baser urges to conquer his Godly ones. He reduced women to objects: using them, misleading them and violating their trust in him, as an exemplar of the tradition he claimed to hold dear.

Perhaps Rabbi Freundel should read another famous story about Abraham, the one in next week’s parasha in which he negotiates with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah. You remember the tale: What if I can find fifty righteous people, says Abraham? Or forty-five, forty, or thirty, or twenty, or ten? For ten righteous people will you spare the cities? Hashofet kol ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat?! “Shall not the judge of all the earth do justice?!” We’re always impressed with Abraham’s chutzpah, challenging God’s decree. But perhaps we should be more impressed with God’s role in the tale, because Abraham’s righteous indignation was a direct result of God’s very different leadership style. We, the readers, are rare witnesses to the Holy One’s internal dialogue “Now the Lord had said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do..? For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right…” (Gen. 18:17-19). Abraham is empowered, invited into a dialectical relationship with his leader.

Not only is the story profound because it seems to indicate even God can grow and improve, but it’s also a stirring reminder that justice, tzedakah u’mishpat can only be done when information flows more freely- when those in power are not stingy with what they know, or dismissive of others. But more, this second model of leadership assumes that the leader’s job is also to rely on his followers and his students, both their own knowledge and their capacity, for wisdom and growth. Good leaders don’t believe they have all the answers, and they know the difference between education and control. Leadership that empowers illuminates – both leaders, and those they are asked (privileged) to lead. I hope Rabbi Freundel comes to do teshuvah, with his victims and with his God. The sad irony is that while many of this master teacher’s lessons are undone by his actions, his actions are a lesson in and of themselves. And we would do well to learn from him.

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