July 14, 2013 The Moonies Luke Ford No sacred cows.

The Moonies

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

I was 12 years old and living at Pacific Union College in the Napa Valley when the Jim Jones murder/suicide of over 900 people took place in Guyana. The religion had been big in the San Francisco Bay Area and suddenly we Seventh-Day Adventists were talking about cults and whether or not we were one.

There were many Moonies (members of the Unification Church) near us and I heard that Moonies were a cult. They operated a golf course in Pope Valley, Aetna Springs. During summers in high school, my friends and I used it frequently.

One Sabbath afternoon in eighth grade while I was living apart from my parents who were in Washington DC, I took a drive with the Muth family and we ran into this Moonie kid Mrs. Muth knew and I got all excited, thinking he’d have horns or be terribly deformed or something and I was stunned when Mrs. Muth talked to him like he was a normal human being.

I never had any non-Adventist friends until my dad got kicked out of the Church’s ministry in September of 1980. I never knowingly met a Jew until arriving at UCLA in the fall of 1988. I didn’t grow up relating to the world at large. It seemed like a scary place.

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Pilot of the Airwaves

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

My parents left me behind at Pacific Union College in January 1980 so that I could graduate in June with my eighth grade class at the church elementary school. I stayed with friends of the family and had a lot more room to do the normal things forbidden by my parents, such as listen to popular music.

I’d put my radio under the pillow at night and listen to KNBR and one of the first songs I enjoyed was Pilot of the Airwaves.

I wasn’t able to attach normally to people, so the radio was my closest friend. Its music elucidated everything I was feeling and its news informed the things I thought about.

During these months, I decided I would make my career in journalism where I could penetrate to the core of what was going on. It was a way I could force myself into being included. I’d be such a powerful writer that people would have to accept me or they’d get on my bad side and I’d slash them in my columns.

I thought I was going to be a big star in either the newspapers or the radio or TV and I would earn a hot wife.

I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist. Dancing was strictly forbidden. I’d listen to popular music and feel a yearning to move but I didn’t know how. I was just filled with strong awkward drives I couldn’t express. I still don’t know how to dance. I really need to learn to dance to disco. I want some Studio 54 type experiences, without the coke.

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My 14th Birthday

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

I turned 14 on May 28, 1980. It came towards the end of my eighth grade at Pacific Union College Elementary School. I’d been staying with friends of the family for the past five months so I could finish the school year with my mates.

In the lead up to my birthday, I said some stupid things to my hosts. When they would inquire about my birthday, I said they better not forget it because I was expecting big presents. I was just joking but it was an awkward thing to say. Still, once I began the gag, I felt locked in to it.

One of my requests — not granted! — was that for my birthday, I ought to be allowed to watch as much TV as I wanted for 24 hours. I honestly thought I would enjoy watching TV for 24 hours straight. TV was the coolest thing I could imagine. Unable to attach normally to others, I attached to things like the radio and TV and fantasies of grandiosity.

I didn’t grow up with a TV, but when I moved in with my hosts in January of 1980, they had a color TV, and I could watch an hour a night. I loved it. I was fascinated. And I could fit in better with the other kids at school because I could talk about what was going on.

Australian Seventh-Day Adventism was a much more conservative and restrictive variety than the Californian one where people were more likely to own TVs and to listen to pop music (sins according to much of Australian Adventism). Now that I was away from home, I got to enjoy more of life. The fun stuff, it seemed to me, was forbidden by my parents and yet enjoyed by most of those around me.

My birthday coincided with a class field trip to the beach and various boys threatened to dunk me for all the obnoxious things I said and did. I grew frightened. When we got to the beach, I quickly changed, discarding my underwear and just going with some loose-fitting shorts, and ran off from the crowd, afraid I was going to get drowned. I hated having my head held underwater. I had some near drowning experiences in early childhood and was still traumatized.

Eventually, my best friend Andy came to rescue me. He said no one would hold my head under water. I calmed down and then I started acting silly and playing with my shorts in front of the girls. “Are you wearing underwear?” he asked me later. “Yes,” I lied. “It didn’t look like it,” he said.

I was close with my male host but felt embarrassed at the prospect of him coming along to the field trip and I asked that he stay home. I hurt him.

I think back on my 14th birthday and I feel bad. When the day of my birthday came, I was all over the map emotionally, vibrating from frightened to giddy. I was careless with the feelings of others. I was the recipient of much love, attention and gifts that day but I went to bed feeling awkward. I hadn’t been gracious. I’d been off-key with my attempts at humor. I inadvertently hurt someone I loved because I didn’t want the possible awkwardness of including him in the festivities, fearing my classmates wouldn’t think him cool.

A couple of weeks later, I graduated from eighth grade and never lived at Pacific Union College again (except for two-month summer stays during high school). Now when I go back to PUC to visit, I never find any of my former classmates. We’ve all moved on. But my awkward feelings, clumsy dealings with others, and off-key jokes hang on to me like the San Francisco fog.

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Dumpster Diving

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

When my parents left me behind, thank God!, at Pacific Union College in eighth grade (1980) so that I could finish the school year with my friends, my friend taught me to dumpster dive behind the market for old donuts, cakes, pies, cookies and the like. They were magnificent.

My friend liked to dumpster dive behind the Post Office for pornography but I was afraid of indulging that appetite so I wouldn’t look.

One time, he was dumpster diving behind the men’s dorm circa 10th grade, when campus police drove up and asked what we were doing. The police knew my friend, knew his parents, and they knew what he was looking for. They were cool. They left him alone once they ascertained he wasn’t making a mess. He was just going through the mess looking for the gold, and he found some, but I was too holy to look.

I would never have known about the delights to be found in the dumpster if my friend hadn’t clued me in.

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Don’t Be Horrid, Horrid Boy!

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

Much of the time, I’m working hard to not say anything ugly. When I’m in the presence of someone good and holy, for instance, I keep telling myself, “Don’t say anything horrid, Horrid Boy.”

What does this mean that I’m yearning to say bigoted things? That I’m yearning to shock and awe?

I think it’s connected to Eroticized Rage, which means getting a charge from breaking the rules. I often look out my window at the windows of other apartments and think it would be swell to quietly check out the dirty deeds going on there (I’ve never done this, but I feel the temptation, so I understand Peeping Toms).

I’m dying to transgress and to invade, some nights I have to tie myself down to stop from taking over the Sudetenland. I get a thrill from the temptation of breaking the rules, from the thought of invading someone’s boundaries and privacy and taking what I want.

I think it is a reaction to smothering mother figures in my earliest years and to a famous and impossibly righteous preacher daddy. I guess I developed in my childhood an unquenchable desire to lash out but couldn’t safely express this until I became an independent adult and then I got online and it poured out in a vicious torrent I can barely stand to think about today. I feel like the Orthodox Jewish version of the Marquis de Sade. I hope if I can just pour it all out, I’ll heal.

The more connected I am to good people and to God and to Torah and to my true self, the less driven I feel to transgress in these ugly ways.

A fire out of control, just another fool
You touch me and I’m weak, I’m a feather in the wind
And I can’t wait to feel you touching me again

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I Love Persian Jews

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

I love and admire Persian Jews. It sickens me to hear regular Jews disparage them. I think Persian Jews are amazing. Many of them came to America at, say, age 15, and then graduated Beverly Hills High School at 18, got undergraduate and graduate degrees at places like USC and UCLA, went to work in prestigious jobs, living with family until marriage. They blow my mind. I just love their culture, their rugs, their love of education, family values and traditional unspoiled mores. They’re not as jaded as Americans, and their women are more chaste.

I had a beautiful young married Persian Jewish therapist. She wasn’t religious, didn’t even know what a “Bet Din” was, but she wouldn’t let me talk about sex in therapy because it made her giggle and she lost control.

I love talking to Persian girls. I always make them laugh. I’ve never been able to date one. It kills me. I like my women a little bit dark, Persian or Asian or Sephardi or Ashkenazi with long black hair, preferably curly, and I like them Orthodox and chaste and shy and demure. I love to shock and awe them.

When I arrived at UCLA in 1988, I had the same type of admiration for the Asian immigrants I met. I was on the Quiet Floor at Rieber Hall and it was filled with Asians. Many of them escaped from Vietnam on rafts and now they were creating good lives. They studied hard. They honored their parents. They were hard-working, diligent, polite, cheerful. My roommate was Vietnamese. There were these beautiful Korean Christians on my floor. They were handsome, happy, hard-working, polite. I was dying to despoil them. They were such a refreshing contrast to the drug-taking spoiled Americans around me.

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Vespers Service At Pacific Union College

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

According to Wikipedia: “Vespers is the sunset evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours. The word comes from the Greek ἑσπέρα and the Latin vesper, meaning “evening.” It is also referred to in the Anglican tradition as Evening Prayer or Evensong. The term is also used in some Protestant denominations (such as the Presbyterian Church or Seventh-day Adventist Church) to describe evening services.”

So, in January 1980, my step-mom joined my dad in Washington D.C. so that he could defend his controversial theological views before a meeting of the Seventh-Day Adventist elite in August.

I stayed behind at Pacific Union College in the Napa Valley with friends. I tasted a freedom I’d never experienced before. For one thing, my parents couldn’t read my diary any more now that I wasn’t living with them. Soon after I reunited with them that summer of 1980, I abandoned writing personal stuff that they could possibly find for the next ten years. It’s a sharp pain that I had to give up such solace in my confusing youth. I wish I had journals from my youth I could leaf through now. Until I got away from my home in July of 1993, I had to be careful with confiding my true thoughts and feelings. Many of the people around me could not be trusted.

My family came to Pacific Union College from Avondale College in Australia in May of 1977. I was 11. Before my classmates got to know me, they were friendly. Then after they got singed by my hateful words and actions, they backed off. I wasn’t the biggest loser in my grade. I was about average. I had moved around the world, but quickly found myself in the same place in the social pecking order.

My classmate Andy Muth in December of 1979 was forced by his mother to invite me home for Sabbath lunch and it was the greatest lunch of my life. The Muth family was so cool. I could talk about everything and it wasn’t used against me. You’ve heard of the movie The Blind Side? That’s my story. The Muths adopted me, so to speak, and I became a part of the family, a bit like Brideshead Revisited but without the dark side.

Unfortunately, I could not stay with the Muths for my last six months of eighth grade because my parents had already promised me to someone else, but I did become close with Andy and his whole family. They probably did more than anyone outside of my own family to civilize me.

One Friday night, I went to the Vespers service at the Pacific Union College church. I walked in the back. The service was already going on. I stood there and looked around and felt awkward and alone, my two most familiar feelings.

Then down the stairs came a vision in white — the beautiful Denise, the classmate I had a crush on. She wore a long dress. She invited me up to the balcony where several of my classmates sat. It was awesome. I was part of the group.

We sat in the back and talked all through the services. Christian services are very different from Jewish ones. They’re much more reverent and transcended. Christians don’t talk in church like Orthodox Jews (excluding the converts and baalei teshuva) talk in shul. So we eighth graders had to whisper, but it was great fun.

I don’t think any of us had any strong belief in the church. It was just how we were raised. It was our social community. I don’t think any of us went on to lead an observant Adventist life.

I kept going to Vespers after that and kept sitting with my friends and with my parents gone, I finally felt like a normal kid and I got to do normal kid things like sit in church and talk the whole time. If my parents had been around, they would’ve put a stop to these hijinks. My parents were fervent believers. Adventism wasn’t just a social group or a good way to raise kids, it was God’s will for humanity (after my dad got kicked out of the church later that year, he said we belonged to the invisible church of Jesus Christ, and he really believed that).

When I think back to that night when Denise floated down the stairs to include me, to invite me up to the balcony to join my classmates, I well up. There’s no better feeling than being included by people you like. Yeah, I know I say and do ugly things, but I still yearn to be included.

Fast forward to May. My class went on a long bike ride on a Sabbath afternoon. I attached myself to Denise. I adored her. She biked really hard up the hill and I had to struggle to keep up. At a rest stop, she complained to somebody that I was sticking to her like glue and I got the word and left her alone. When people like her give me an inch of friendliness, I try to take a mile.

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My Writer’s Credo

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Luke Ford

I’m reading Playwriting: Writing, Producing and Selling Your Play by Louis E. Catron.

I’m on chapter four, “The Credo”. It stopped me the last time round.

Catron urges you to write out your strongest convictions, at least eight of them, for at least ten pages total.

Hmm, reminds me that a few years ago, Rob Eshman, Editor of the Jewish Journal, told me to write out my Jewish beliefs. I shrank from the task.

OK, that hasn’t served me. Time to step up to the plate. What do I believe?

What do I love writing about? That’s a good start. What moves me? Where’s my passion? Which of my writings do I love to read? What makes me laugh?

What animated my writing over the years? What were my favorite themes?

The first theme in my writing was my desire for food — whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted. That’s what I wrote my first story on when I was eight. It went about 20 typed pages. I hand-wrote it and then my step-mom typed it and shared it around Avondale College and people commented that I seemed obsessed with food. My story described my best friend Wayne and I going on a rafting trip down Dora Creek, which flowed below my house. Before we left on our trip, we went to the Sanitarium Health Food Factory and bought all the food we wanted. Then we loaded it on our raft and away we went. It was like Huckleberry Finn Down Under.

Food was my greatest desire at age eight because yummy processed food such as peanut butter was strictly rationed in my house for health reasons. We were Seventh-Day Adventists and healthiness was next to Godliness and you don’t get health eating candy and snacking between meals and drinking water or juice, let alone, God forbid, soda, with your meals. It wasn’t until midway through eighth grade that I connected with the Muth family at Pacific Union College and got to eat and drink all the approved Adventist swag I wanted. That was a life-changing lunch that December of 1979. Think the movie The Blind Side. I was adopted by a loving family that allowed me all the peanut butter I desired and to drink with my meals and to talk about girls (my dad was completely against dating if you were under 18, and only for marriage after 18).

From age ten on, from fifth grade on, my greatest desire was for romance (none of that agape crap). That’s the thing I’ve yearned for most in my life — sex and love.

I’m fascinated by power and glory and meaning and the struggle for the good. Conflict, winners and losers appealed to me so much that during high school I wanted to be a sportswriter.

I loved history from about age eight on, particularly military history.

I became fascinated by politics with the election of Ronald Reagan when I was 14. With America’s economic revival in 1983, I got into economics for the next six years. I thought that was a key for me to unlock life. Journalism started to pall compared to the rewards of doing original academic research.

I loved literature. I read widely. I loved a good story. My step-mom wanted me to major in literature but it wasn’t manly enough for me. I wanted power, fame, fortune.

With CFS crippling me from 1988-1994, the search for meaning became primary in my writing. Then Judaism and ethics. Once I regained my health in 1994, my fascination with sex reared its ugly head and became supreme in my writing for the next 13 years.

What did I love in writing about sex? The humor. The outrage. The drama. The excitement.

Sex leads to love but when it gets out of control, it starts flirting with death. Dramatic stuff.

As I entered weekly therapy in 1998, after losing many friends because they were offended by my blogging about Dennis Prager, I became fascinated by human connection aka bonding aka attachment.

My primary themes in chronological order: Food, love, power, meaning, God, ethics, sex, connection.
My secondary theme underlying all other themes: Loss.

My therapist said that when I spoke, she sometimes got the image of a baby boy sucking on his mother’s breast, sure it was about to run dry. She said I exhausted people. I took and took and took, sure the tap was about to be turned off, thus bringing about the very thing I feared.

In high school, I started getting highs from breaking scoops. I loved the excitement, the adrenalin rush, the power and the glory of journalism.

What are the topics for my credo? Revealing life. That drives me. I loathe the corruption of power. I want to unmask the corrupt and write my own way to power.

I should talk about this with my therapist and get her to help me with my writer’s credo.

Writing is a way for me to explore my dreams. Writing is a way for me to gain mastery. Writing makes me feel alive. Why? Because I get strokes for it. I get influence and money and love and fame and fortune and attention.

Theoretically, a person’s greatest concern should be acting in accord with God’s moral law, but most people can’t live by abstract theory. Practically, a person’s greatest concern should be the quality of his bonds with those he loves. Happiness is proportionate to how close you are with those you want in your life.

Yet, my greatest concern is the quality of my work aka revealing life, even if it costs me bonds and happiness. I sense my lack of attachment and then try to justify it or deal with it by writing things that will keep me excluded.

According to Torah and reason, God is the one ends in life that you can pursue without diminishing yourself. God’s dictates are what is most important and what God most wants from us is ethical behavior.

From human connection naturally flows ethical behavior. The more connected you are, the happier you’ll feel, and the more righteous your behavior. You don’t increase your ties with others by cheating them. You usually have to disconnect from people before you can deliberately hurt them. You don’t hold your head high in the community by getting caught for bad behavior. Rather, good behavior builds bonds and your close ties with those you love constrain your tendencies to bad behavior.

* What is my strongest belief? Most number one belief is in God, creator of the universe, whose primary demand of people is that they act ethically (aka according to the guidelines of the Torah). God will reward and punish, both in this life and the next.

If there is a Creator of all, then it flows logically that He will have an interest in his creation, that He will want those who have free will to choose to treat ethically other members of creation, and that all choices will have eternal consequences wherein the wicked are punished and the good are rewarded.

Because I believe in the God of the Torah, I believe that life is meaningful, that life questions each of us every waking moment, and that how we respond will echo through eternity. You ever watch a movie and want to step into the frame? You will. Each of us will get to see in the afterlife a movie of our life. For some this will be heaven, for others it will be hell.

God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.

* My second fundamental belief is that people are not basically good, that people need moral education and organization, and that religion is generally the best way for people to join together and pursue the good life. Most people are better off (morally, socially, psychologically, economically, etc) if they are a part of a transcendent community (which usually means an organized religion) that looks out for one another.

* I believe that our allegiances not only bind us together but blind us to the suffering of those outside of our allegiances. Every close-knit group is going to have moral blind spots that you could drive a truck through. I attach to close-knit groups, particularly close-knit traditional religious groups akin to the one I was raised in, but then I stand outside of them in my thinking and writing. Because I value publishing that reveals life, I do this at the price of my happiness/connections/popularity/welfare.

* I value freedom over equality of result, freedom over democracy, but because people are not naturally good, I believe that civilization must have bulwarks that limit or channel personal freedom towards ends that are good for society and the raising of children (such as teaching that the ideal vessel for sex is monogamous male-female marriage, encouraging religion, distrusting those outside of marriage and religion, etc).

* I believe that people are driven towards human attachment but if they can’t do it healthfully, they’ll attach to food, drugs, alcohol, TV, sports, exercise, etc and addictions naturally tend towards destruction.

* Life is easier and happier for people if they believe many things that are not true (such as the traditional teachings of their religion or tribe, that their aging sagging spouse is beautiful, that their parents loved them, etc). Many false beliefs in the realms of the personal and the religious are not only harmless but positively wonderful for the believer.

* I believe that the less you take things personally, the happier you’ll be. I believe that you can let go of all conscious resentment against people, places and things. I believe that you can fake it until you make it. I believe that you can recover from addiction by, among other ways, working the 12 Steps.

* Everything we do affects other people.

* Arguments about matters of faith are a waste of time. Theology doesn’t matter much.

* “He feels things deeply?” Yeah? Every man is super-sensitive about himself.

* Every minute (after ten) thinking about the next life wastes this life.

* Evil people are as apt to see morality clearly as good people.

* Everybody has parts of his life that cannot be shaken by criticism and ridicule. That’s where you are secure. When you’re criticized and bothered, that’s where you are insecure.

* People instinctively know your weak points and they will push your buttons until you become secure in that area. Life will keep reminding you of what you need to work on. Life will also show you what you’re good at. When the pain becomes intense enough, you’ll grow choose death.

* Many perhaps most of the greatest things in your life will be given to you so long as people like you and find you useful (a typical perspective of the youngest child).

* Woody Allen says 80% of life is just showing up. He’s wrong. It’s no more than 20%. If you show up but are either incompetent or unlikable, you won’t succeed.

* Addicts will use everyone and everything in their lives to meet their addictive needs.

* People will always treat their own property with greater care.

* Whatever you subsidize, including bad behavior, you’ll get more of. Whenever you increase the price of something, holding all other factors even, you’ll get less. Demand curves slope down and supply curves slope up.

* Almost all ethical questions will be solved by publicity aka if people know what you do, you’ll take care to control yourself.

* Sharing and judging are different modes. You can’t be in one and do the other. You can’t create and edit at the same time.

* Life is easier, if, all other things being equal, you just go along with other people’s enthusiasms and show appreciation for their kindness.

* You can get away with a lot if you’re honest.

* People who relate to you as fodder for a cause are easy to spot and easy to use.

* Nothing significant is accomplished without passion and you can’t get passionate about something unless you believe it is for the greater good.

* People need to put you in a box. Labels are necessary because people are many and our time and brain power are limited so we need to file people in our mind according to categories. When people can’t put a label on you, when you refuse to conform to known categories, they’ll usually dismiss you rather than push themselves.

* It’s hard to advance your social status from second grade.

* The purpose of going to work is to help God’s kids.

What are my most powerful contradictory impulses? I want to pursue my addictions (aka women), yet God commands me to be holy. Life comes down to the quality of your connections with others and yet I’m driven to shock and awe. I want to be loved by the people I respect and yet I pursue distinction (aka difference) above all else. Judaism commands that I keep my speech holy and yet I want to keep it real. I need to connect to people to get the best material but to write it, I have to disconnect and risk my bonds. I’ve converted to Orthodox Judaism and yet I am naturally lazy and rebellious.

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The Best Things In My Life Were Gifts

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Luke Ford

Many of the best things that ever happened to me were given to me. My biggest scoops were given to me. At various times in my life, I got adopted by great people. I got this great job in 1984-85 cleaning and gardening at the Boyne Island Shopping Center. I more than doubled my pay by snagging this contract and it all came about because of Mike, a friend of my brother Paul. He got it for me. I read for about three hours a day on this job. It was sweet. On my own, I can work hard and connect with people but I rarely accomplish anything great. I can go along for years working nowhere jobs. Kinda scares me how little I accomplish on my own and how much I rely on getting given things. Doesn’t feel manly.

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How Much Confidentiality Should You Expect When You Consult With A Rabbi?

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Luke Ford

What expectation of confidentiality should you expect when you consult with a rabbi? For instance, with the priest in the confessional, you expect 100% confidentiality. But I heard the other night that there should be no expectation of confidentiality when you consult with the rabbi. I heard a story from a rabbi about a man asking him a question that indicated that the man had money. The rabbi knew the man had massive debts from two decades previous, so the rabbi later went to the debtors and alerted them that that the debtee now had money and they went after the guy and got their money. And the man was indignant that his confidentiality was violated. The rabbi said there should be no expectation of confidentiality when you consult with a rabbi.

A rabbi says: “This was a court case around 15 years ago in New York where a rabbi revealed something about a wife and she sued the rabbi. Shouldn’t be hard to find the details. If say the woman reveals she isn’t going to the mikveh, this is something that the rabbi will probably tell the husband about, just like if someone reveals he is going to hurt another.”

Another rabbi says: “Great question. It is worth clarifying when ever speaking to clergy – “this is being said in confidence.” I think the rabbi sees the entire community as his concern – and not just the person he is speaking with.”

Another rabbi says: “Nothing to write. There should be 100% confidentiality unless a life is in danger.”

A major rav tells me: “The concept of confidentiality of clergy is not a Jewish concept…”

I guess there are no clear halachas here that come to mind. It seems that the more western, more secularly educated the rabbi, more likely he is to give confidentiality and the reverse for the more haredi.

Rabbi Michael Broyde wrote: ” To the extent that the secular law is inconsistent with halakha with respect to these issues, the issue of Dina De’Malkhuta Dina (the obligation of Jews to follow the law of the land) invariably comes to mind. The halakhic parameters of the concept of Dina De’Malkhuta Dina are extremely complex and beyond the scope of this memorandum.[32] However, suffice to say that the concept of Dina De’Malkhuta Dina is mainly directed towards the sphere of taxation and certain other monetary matters (such as landlord-tenant regulations or certain creditor-debtor regulations aimed for the betterment of society [33]), but is not applicable when the secular law runs directly contrary to the exercise of a religious obligation. [34] Thus, to the extent that the halakha mandates disclosure of information, then disclosure is obligatory even if it will result in an inevitable violation of secular law. The discomfort heaved upon Rabbis due to the entanglement of secular law requirements with the dictates of halakha only serves to underscore the necessity for a more conscientious application of the free exercise clause of the U.S. constitution by the secular courts.”

Agudath Israel press release: ALBANY, NY — In a unanimous decision, the highest court in New York State ruled on November 27, 2001 that members of the clergy cannot be held legally liable for the disclosure of confidential communications made to them by their congregants.

The Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit brought against two prominent rabbis in the Lawrence/Far Rockaway community by a congregant who claimed they had revealed information she had given them in confidence. The rabbis’ attorneys, supported by a “friend of the court” brief written by noted Washington attorney Nathan Lewin and submitted by the National Jewish Commission of Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) on behalf of several Orthodox Jewish organizations including Agudath Israel of America, had argued that the rabbis considered themselves obligated by Jewish religious law to disclose the information, and that secular courts are prevented by the U.S. Constitution from involvement in matters of religious law.

The case, which grew out of a marital dispute, involved the wife’s disclosures to the two rabbis that she was no longer observing certain basic practices of Jewish family law. In such circumstances, each determined that Jewish law obligated him to inform her husband, as well as the court considering issues involving custody of the couple’s children.

The woman then filed suit against the rabbis, alleging that they had violated their duty to keep silent under the New York State’s “clergy-penitent privilege.” The rabbis countered that the “clergy-penitent privilege” was enacted only to protect members of the clergy from being forced to reveal, in court, confidential information relayed to them by their congregants, and does not grant individuals the right to sue members of the clergy. They further argued that they had been religiously required to make their disclosures, and that their actions were thus protected as a matter of freedom of religion.

Initially, a lower court ruled that members of the clergy could indeed be sued for violating their congregant’s confidences. That court went so far as to conclude that the rabbis’ defense – that they had been religiously obligated to disclose the information – was “wrong” and “outrageous” as a matter of religious law.

When the lower court handed down its ruling, the Conference of Synagogue Rabbonim of Agudath Israel issued a statement attacking the ruling as “troubling and dangerous.” In the words of Rabbi Dovid Kviat, chairman of the Conference: “To tell rabbis that they risk civil liability if they follow the dictates of halacha [Jewish religious law] in the extraordinary situation when they conclude that Jewish law mandates disclosure of confidential information is to undermine an essential component of the rabbinical function.”

The case proceeded all the way to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. Agudath Israel of America and the other Jewish organizations participating in the COLPA brief argued that the ultimate effect of a ruling against the rabbis would chill all communications between a rabbi and his congregants, out of fear of civil liability. It further made the point that secular courts cannot and should not rule on issues of religious law – in this case, whether the rabbis were correct in determining that as a matter of Jewish law they were obligated to reveal the information provided them.

The Court of Appeals, in its ruling, agreed: “The prospect of conducting a trial to determine whether a cleric’s disclosure is in accord with religious tenets has troubling constitutional implications.” Citing past precedents, the court ruled that “civil courts are forbidden from interfering in or determining religious disputes,” and concluded as a matter of law that the “clergy-penitent privilege” does not provide a legal basis for suing members of the clergy for violating their confidences.

Posted in R. Michael J. Broyde, Rabbis | Comments Off