No, You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Kol B'Isha Erva
July 30, 2014

http://kolbishaerva.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/no-you-cant-have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too/

Oy veh! Did you hear about the female Mashpia who was accused of hanky panky at Jerusalem’s Yeshivas Rabbeinu Moshiach? This sad excuse for a tzanua engaged in regular yichud with bachorim entrusted to her by their parents who are far away in Chutz La’Aretz! Rachmuna litzlon! No you didn’t hear? That would never happen because yeshivas don’t hire women to work in direct contact with their boys? Baruch Hashem!

Of course, how could I have thought such a thing! Yeshivas would never engage in such impropriety as to hire women! My apologies to the nonexistent female Mashpia! Now remind me, what is the excuse for seminaries hiring men?

Sorry, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t indoctrinate women with the idea that men are animals who can’t control their sexual urges and then paint them as holy bastions of indifference and self control when they have the title “Rabbi” tacked in front of their names. It doesn’t work that way. What applies to one applies to all.

As such, just because a man happens to have semicha –

No, he may not seclude himself in a closed room with female students or congregants.

No, he may not put himself in a position where he is bosom buddies with vulnerable young women far from home and craving the security of an older mentor they can trust.

No, he may not flirt and call it charisma.

No, he may not invite or accept girls flirting with him and claim ignorance of their behavior or intentions.

No, he may not invite girls to sleep over at his home on Shabbos and Yom Tov – even when his wife is sleeping in the next room over.

No, he may not act as a dorm monitor.

No, he may not grill girls about their experience with boys or personal discussions related to sex in any way shape or form.

No, he may not confide his marital troubles to the females under his charge.

No he may not justify yichud or negiah as the only solution to helping out an “at risk” girl.

No he may not enjoy parents’ tuition dollars in exchange for molesting their daughters.

No, men can’t have it both ways. If, as women are repeatedly told, we can’t comprehend the level of perversion and depravity that men are constantly struggling against, than men can’t feign innocence when they are called out on their bad behavior. At the end of the day, rabbis are only men, and should be held to the same standards of behavior as every other man.