A Rabbi's Fall

It has attracted national attention because of the aberrant conjuncture of a rabbi first suspected of, then arrested for, and finally convicted of hiring hit men to kill his wife. There are standards and expectations that we have for men and women of clergy of all faiths, and unfortunately and tragically, Fred Neulander transgressed just about every single one of them. The localness disappeared immediately when a rabbi was implicated. Once the rumors began about him somehow being involved in the murder, this became a case of national concern.

The only thing that really joined the Roman Catholic scandals and the Fred Neulander scandal was that in all those cases, clergymen violated their own precepts. Clergymen violated the deep faith entrusted to them. As much as the Neulander case is an absolute aberration, there are transgressions in so many of the helping professions, be it clergy, psychology, psychiatry, or teachers. All of them deal with human beings who are extremely vulnerable and extremely weak. With Neulander, at least two of his mistresses were women in the weaker moments of their lives--one had just lost her husband, another was having marital problems. They confided in him, they trusted him. But that same pattern could hold in any one of the helping professions.

What does this say about Judaism, and the clergy of any faith? For all faiths, all of us in a particular faith comprise a community. There should be a mutuality of respect, of compassion and concern, and it should go both ways. Yes, clergy people have immense responsibilities whether you're a rabbi in a congregation with 1400 families or an imam at a street corner mosque with 75 people, you minister to people's souls and to people's hurts and hopefully to people's joys as well. On the other side of that equation, people should try to exhibit as much compassion toward their rabbi or clergy member as they would want from that clergy person. So often a lot of clergy people are simply overworked and overburdened, especially if you're in a congregation the size of Fred Neulander's. He had over 900 families. There's little time for self-reflection, there's little time for knowing who you are.

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