{"id":14945,"date":"2009-12-23T15:12:26","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T23:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=14945"},"modified":"2014-03-02T11:12:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T19:12:04","slug":"would-you-get-spiritual-counseling-from-a-rabbi-who-had-an-affair-with-a-congregant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=14945","title":{"rendered":"Would You Get Spiritual Counseling From A Rabbi Who Had An Affair With A Congregant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around 2002, Rabbi Simcha Weinberg<\/a> (brother of Rabbi Matis Weinberg<\/a>) lost his job with Lincoln Square Synagogue<\/a> for having an affair with a congregant.<\/p>\n

He was caught in the act.<\/p>\n

He was subsequently divorced (and I believe he married the congregant). He lost contact with his kids. He went into a tailspin for two years. He claimed he was paralyzed. He had all these people praying for him. <\/p>\n

After about two years, he publicly announced there had been a great miracle and he’d been healed and he returned to his rabbinic work.<\/p>\n

Simcha Weinberg was the only major rabbi who wrote a denunciation of Rabbi Wosner’s psak<\/a> against Mordecai Tendler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Simcha Weinberg speaks annually in Pico-Robertson at places such as Bnai David-Judea<\/a> and Aish HaTorah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I Googled “Simcha Weinberg” today. The first result? http:\/\/www.thefoundationstone.org<\/a><\/p>\n

The tagline reads: “Rabbi Simcha Weinberg \/ The Foundation Stone \/ Torah \/ Judaism \/ Hebrew Bible”<\/p>\n

OK. This made me queasy. I understand screwing around. I’ve done a lot of it myself. But I don’t present myself to the world as a teacher of Torah. I’m just your run-of-the-mill Moral Leader who bothers no one and no one is bothered by.<\/p>\n

What disturbed me most about this operation was the third link down on the left: “Spiritual Counseling<\/a>”<\/p>\n

I’m not sure that rabbis who screw around should offer spiritual counseling. Even if Rabbi Simcha Weinberg does not do the counseling, I’m not sure he should have his name on a website and an organization that offers spiritual counseling. <\/p>\n

It’s gross.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Simcha Weinberg’s affair and firing has been widely known for years. The man seemed very broken by it. Nobody wanted to do a story on him.<\/p>\n

Then, about three years ago, I found he was speaking on Torah at Bnai David-Judea<\/a> where I was attending Shalosh Sheudos.<\/p>\n

I let it go.<\/p>\n

Then last night I started thinking about it again and I thought I’d just raise the question on my blog<\/a> about rabbis who philander, should they teach Torah?<\/p>\n

Then today I Googled “Simcha Weinberg” and found out he’s offering spiritual counseling.<\/p>\n

It just seems like he’s pleading to be stopped.<\/p>\n

Why can’t he be quiet? Why does he want to be the front of a Torah organization? Why can’t he sell insurance? Why does he have to offer spiritual counseling?<\/p>\n

The day I offer spiritual counseling, I want Yeshiva University<\/a> to revoke my semicha<\/em> (rabbinic ordination).<\/p>\n

From The Jewish Survivors blog<\/a>: “Rabbi Simcha Weinberg is Matis Weinberg and Aviva Weisbord’s younger brother. His father was Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, and his mother is Chana Weinberg.”<\/p>\n

“You should list Simcha Weinberg too. He’s the brother of Matis Weinberg. He didn’t molest children, but he did loose a rabbinical post for allegedly having relations with women he provided counseling to. He also has a Ner Israel connection. His father was a past head of the yeshvia.”<\/p>\n

“Rabbi Simcha Weinberg was married to a niece of Rabbi Norman Lamm.”<\/p>\n

If Simcha Weinberg did not have such illustrious yichus (lineage), do you think places such as Aish Ha Torah<\/a> invite him to speak?<\/p>\n

You can get away with a lot if you have the right yichus. Look at the cases of Rabbi Aron Tendler<\/a> and Rabbi Mordecai Tendler<\/a> and Rabbi Matis Weinberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PS. I get asked a lot about rabbis like Simcha Weinberg — what if they stopped counseling and stopped teaching Torah? Would that be ground to remove my posts on them?<\/p>\n

I think it would probably be grounds to remove such posts. I’d have to talk to a rabbi about it.<\/p>\n

PPS. In the Jul-Sep 1990 edition of Ultimate Issues, Dennis Prager wrote to Rabbi Simcha Weinberg: “As I regard you as a model of living Judaism…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around 2002, Rabbi Simcha Weinberg (brother of Rabbi Matis Weinberg) lost his job with Lincoln Square Synagogue for having an affair with a congregant. He was caught in the act. He was subsequently divorced (and I believe he married the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,20653],"tags":[29892,13016,20654,668,20655,12117],"class_list":["post-14945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abuse","category-r-simcha-weinberg","tag-aish-hatorah","tag-hebrew-bible","tag-mattis-weinberg","tag-moral-leader","tag-spiritual-counseling","tag-torah-judaism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14945"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52753,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14945\/revisions\/52753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}