Yadeinu Shafchu Es Hadam Hazeh - Our Hands Have Spilled This Blood
By Yitzchok Adlerstein First Published at Cross Currents; Posted here with Kind Permission of the Author After the horror, the disbelief, the shock, the emptiness, I next thought what many others must have. He had to have been a pedophile. I messaged a colleague, a respected rov, and asked what he thought. I will post it anonymously; I haven’t gotten to him yet to ask to use his name: "I am sure he was, and I am sure he molested many others, and i am sure that there were people that knew and hushed it." It is time to forever bury the myth that reports of pedophilia can be managed and dealt with by committees of rabbonim, even for a short time. It is time to bury the myth that there is a serious halachic barrier to going to authorities to deal with credible reports of such behavior. Enough baalei halacha have told us that there is no barrier. Choshen Mishpat 388:12 tells us that those who vex the public can be handed over. Any pedophile does at least that, and poses a da...