Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Rabbi and The Prostitutes and The Divorced Wife

The story is entitled The 'randy' rabbi and the theme is a prostitution sting in angry ex-wife's suit

The bare (cough, cough) details:

A prominent Long Island Jewish leader was caught with his dreidel out in a string of sordid sex tapes, according to sensational Manhattan court records. Rabbi Avraham Rabinowich -- who leads the wealthy, Conservative Bellmore Jewish Center and is vice president of the Long Island Board of Rabbis -- allegedly made appointments with prostitutes on the Sabbath shortly after services. He was then caught on camera in a hotel room enjoying some hard-core, commandment-breaking action, according to blockbuster court papers filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

There's a video tape at the source but discretion advised.

More:

...[the] estranged wife, Amora, a respected psychologist, got wind of the tawdry tricks while they were going through a bitter custody battle, she said. She managed to have Rabinowich secretly filmed with a call girl and entered the photographic evidence into the record of the bitter custody case.  "Since when are prostitutes kosher?" Amora Rabinowich told The Post. "He was coming to court claiming he was this pious individual, but he was using the phone on the Sabbath to meet prostitutes. "And what kind of rabbi is he? He didn't even take these prostitutes to the mikvah [Jewish ritual cleansing bath] first. "What is he doing, praying or laying?"

Well, as for prostitutes, there is a text in the Talmudic Tractate Moed Kattan 17a which someone already applies to a...Rabbi:

Rabbi Ila'i said: If a person is tempted by his evil urge [note: yetzer is usually connotative of a sexual charcater] he should go to a city where he is not known, dress in black clothes, cover his head in black, and do what his heart desires so that G-d's name will not be desecrated.

Although Gil Student takes another view:

...the person is bidden to first delay his intended actions by going to a city where he is not known. This lengthy trip will serve as a cooling off period. He is then told to dress humbly which should further serve as a reminder of what he should be doing compared to what he plans on doing. Rather than offering carte blanche permission to sin, the Talmud is suggesting a form of indirect rebuke to prevent the person from sinning [see Rashi in the name of Rav Hai Gaon and Chiddushei HaRan; Tosafot, Kiddushin 40a]. The desecration of G-d's name is a subterfuge to convince this sick individual to follow the path to health.

The passage just before does mention being stung in the penis.

And as for mikveh, well, were the girls Jewish?

Malcolm Taub, a former lawyer for the rabbi, blasted Amora, saying, "This is a very sick woman . . . This man has gone through hell with this woman."

According to papers filed by Amora, the rabbi wound up arranging a romp through a madam who really was one of his wife's private eyes...He was eventually filmed with the hooker at the low-rent Pam Am Hotel in Queens on March 18, 2006, the court papers claimed. A second woman in the photo was the private eye, Amora Rabinowich said.

The Rabbi does look good in a hat.  But there is also the commandment that Amora should have heeded: not placing a stumbling block before a blind man.

Which all goes to show, if you are clergy, don't get too urgy.

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