How a mikvah scandal could happen: a thought

I hope you enjoyed your Yom Tov. For me - right before Simchat Torah, I found out about the mikvah scandal in Washington DC. That pretty much killed it for me.

In brief, for those who don't know: a veteran "Modern Orthodox" synagogue rabbi is accused of placing a hidden camera in his synagogue's mikvah, and committing related obscene abuses of his position. I spent Simchat Torah reeling at the multifarious horrific ramifications. [I omit his name not to protect him, but because seeing it makes me ill. If you need to know more, feel free to use Google.]

I can't understand this; I find this base betrayal of a community by its 25-year leader as incomprehensible as it is revolting. But I will venture the following thought, without claiming to mind-read the villain in this particular scandal: this sort of crime is enabled when people allow themselves to see others not as human beings, with feelings and emotions, but as objects which happen to populate their world. Ignoring people's feelings allows someone to say, "They won't find out, so where's the harm?"

Our weekly Torah portion, telling the story of the biblical Flood, speaks strongly against this objectification:

• First, Bereishit 6:2 says G-d decided to destroy the world when powerful men "saw that the daughters were good, and took women from any they chose." The women were merely objects.
• Second, this may be why G-d chooses to place all of the animals in the direct care of Noach's family for a year, rather than take care of them miraculously. Caring for others, immersing themselves in anticipating and meeting their needs, trains Noach's family to see others as feeling creatures.
• And third, after the Flood, when Noach's son Cham displays no empathy in humiliating his intoxicated father (Bereishit 9), he is cursed for his insensitivity.

At the other end of the spectrum, one of the Torah's chief paragons of empathy is Moshe Rabbeinu. As a teenager, Moshe endangers his own life to save a Jew who is being beaten – and when he flees the country and arrives, friendless and impoverished in a new place, his very first act is to endanger himself to save Midianite women from harassment at a well. Moshe is worthy to give us the Torah, to be the first Rabbi – the empath who sees kinsmen and strangers, Jewish and non-Jewish, as human beings deserving of selfless friendship and protection.

May we eradicate the objectification of human beings that enables abuse. May we emulate Moshe's activist empathy. And may we teach our children this empathy, making ourselves worthy of the Torah that Moshe brought us, with which we danced last week, on Simchat Torah.

So what's wrong with Noach, and the US Government?

Anyone who went to Jewish day school or who has spent time in a synagogue at this time of year has heard the divrei torah about Noach: Sure, he was good, but he didn't think about the people around him. Noach was righteous, but unlike Avraham, he didn't try to help those around him to improve.

This weakness is visible in the Torah's description of Noach - after all, the Torah presents ample material about Avraham's interactions, and our spoken Torah expands upon it, while Noach's story offers nothing in this regard. Nonetheless, these divrei torah seem odd: How could someone be great enough that he would remain righteous and Gd-fearing despite living in a world rotten enough to be condemned, how could someone find such favor in Gd's eyes as to deserve a miracle [as well as Divine conversations], and yet be derelict in such a fundamental human obligation as looking after the people around him? Can this be a real human being?

Then again, I wonder if this isn't entirely consistent. Perhaps in order to be a Noach, one must be driven to stand apart from the world. Perhaps being dismissive of his neighbours is a logical byproduct of spending a lifetime rejecting their ways.

And an additional thought: Perhaps this is what makes compromise so difficult for lawmakers. The architects of the US Government shutdown, on both sides of the aisle, spend so much time and energy and emotion on distinguishing themselves from those on "the other side" that compromise becomes an impossible challenge. Further, what drives many of them into government in the first place is their passion for their partisan views, and that passionate personality has real difficulty opening up to another's viewpoint.

And perhaps this is exactly why Avraham is so great; Avraham is able to stand apart, and yet sympathize with his neighbours.

Just a thought. [This could become a derashah, I suppose; this would work well with Rav Zalman Sorotzkin's thought at the end of his Haggadah, on the Jews as rebels and the need for them to learn unity in their slavery and in the model of the matzah.]