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Religious camp's finest hour

Op-ed: Elon's conviction proves Religious Zionism knows how to deal with rabbis who have sinned

By reverse psychology, the conviction of senior Bible teacher Moti Elon is a Bible lesson. Now we can understand even better the secret of the Jewish admiration for King David, despite his terrible sin with Bathsheba. The king did commit a sin, but pled guilty and regretted it almost at real time. Rabbi Elon denies it to this very day.

 

By reverse psychology, and contrary to what has been claimed this week, the rabbi's conviction is Religious Zionism's finest hour. Saddest and finest. After all, there isn't righteous man in this land who will not sin, and there isn't camp which is as pure as snow. The question is how the camp deals with the righteous who have sinned, and the Religious Zionism movement has proved that it treats them properly.

 

The rabbis of all streams in the aforementioned sector had a part in Elon's disciplinary process. They did not favor him, and were not deterred by the cries of despair of his followers who were blind to the facts. It's a shame that the rabbi himself was tempted to listen to the followers rather than to the rabbis.

 

The affair reached the court only because at a certain stage he reneged on the plea bargain with the Takana Forum, began pleading for his innocence and caused his students to treat him like a good Samaritan. In order to save one rabbi from an alleged libel, they falsely accused dozens of rabbis of envying him and setting him up. The students' strange theory said, among other things, that "extreme" Rabbi Dov Lior had conspired with "moderate" Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein to slander a third rabbi.

 

The court's ruling last week proved who libeled who. The Takana Forum may have made some PR mistakes on the way, but overall it acted impartially and made an important contribution to ethical standards. One day Rabbi Elon will admit that himself.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.11.13, 11:03
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