But this was not a US pulpit rabbi. Dayan Abraham was far more senior: A judge on Anglo-Jewry’s primary religious court, which effectively determines religious policy for the United Synagogue.
One might expect some public soul-searching to follow. But not a bit of it.
Every effort appears to have been made to sweep this episode under the carpet. Dayan Ehrentreu put out a statement, asking people not to discuss events (although as every PR person knows, this is guaranteed to have the opposite effect). Chief Rabbi Mirvis spoke to his rabbis and rebbetzins. And the process to find a replacement, we are told, is now merrily under way.
But this episode cannot be allowed to pass with so little comment or reflection, not least because this is the second time in 20 years that a London Beth Din dayan has left under a cloud. In 1998, Dayan Casriel Kaplin was fired after it emerged that he had removed £500,000 worth of books from the Beth Din library.
Given the tiny size of the London Beth Din and the average tenure of its members (lengthy), two disgraced dayanim in just over 20 years is a very poor track record.
The Chief Rabbi told his rabbis, “When one of us fails in this manner, we are all greatly diminished. A Beth Din must be unimpeachable in its embodiment of Torah values.”
I would go further. The moral authority of this Beth Din is seriously damaged by what has happened. How can United Synagogue members be expected to accept the Beth Din’s religious guidance and rulings, when one of its dayanim has by his own admission fallen so badly short?
More broadly, the reputation of the entire rabbinate is hurt. And those who were close to Dayan Abraham may find the very foundation of their faith is shaken.
A sensible institution would acknowledge these dilemmas. It would address the questions, and explain clearly what steps are being taken to restore the community’s confidence in the integrity of the Beth Din. Instead, it is projecting a sense of business as usual.
Ignoring these questions does not make them go away. It merely leaves them unanswered, where they can percolate and simmer and eventually do even deeper damage to this country’s Orthodox leadership.
The fact that the Beth Din does not seem to understand this raises questions about the judgment of its remaining members.
Do they not understand how information in the 21st century works? That very little can be hidden and that discussions cannot be suppressed in the age of social media and WhatsApp? That institutions are expected to communicate with their members, and to be open, transparent and accountable if they are going to be trusted? And that they are not above this?
Are they really so out of touch, that they imagine that the community is going to gloss over the implications of this explosive episode?
I fear the answer to all of the above is “yes”. Not that this is surprising — for years the Beth Din has failed to communicate around issues of legitimate communal interest, such as conversion and agunot.
The Beth Din may argue that, internally, the Dayan Abraham episode is being taken extremely seriously. The matter was dealt with “swiftly”. And I am certain that the dayanim are grappling with many of the same questions as others, and asking themselves what might be done differently next time.
But dealing with the fallout behind closed doors is not enough. Unless there is an honest discussion with the community about these events, the Beth Din’s authority may never fully recover.
