An Orthodox congregation in Washington, D.C. is reeling after its longtime senior rabbi was arrested last week for, among other things, peeping at women in the mikvah.
As our story on page 9a details, the charges against Rabbi Barry Freundel are particularly egregious because of his status as a spiritual leader, not because religious figures are less prone to sin, but because they operate within an institutional structure that accords them certain powers. In Judaism, that power is amplified when it comes to potential converts, who depend on the rabbi to guide them through what must seem a very mysterious process.
Since his arrest, several women have come forward to say that Freundel, while overseeing their conversions, made unusual requests, ranging from one who said he asked her to do a “practice dunk” in the mikvah under his observation, to others who said he set up joint bank accounts with them or made them do unpaid clerical work. They did what he asked, the women said, because they didn’t want to jeopardize their conversions, which, after all, he controlled.
Freundel’s crime, if indeed he is found guilty, is — like rape and abuse — about power, not sex. Still, most of the media attention has focused on the voyeurism aspect of the case — the idea that a rabbi would violate the sacred trust of the mikvah, where women are at their most vulnerable, is unconscionable.
While mikvah attendants — those who observe the women using the mikvah to make sure they dunk correctly— are always female, mikvah supervisors typically are male. And in a conversion ritual, three rabbis sit behind a partition while the female candidate immerses, naked, in the water. If the conversion is Orthodox, those rabbis are always male. It’s a terribly intimate moment, where men have traditionally been in charge, at least within the Orthodox movment.
Since Freundel’s arrest, a number of prominent Orthodox women have raised their voices in protest, calling for more women to take leadership roles in Orthodox life, including at the mikvah. Why should men hold the keys, they are asking?
At least one institution — Nishmat, the Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women — is already qualifying female Torah scholars to serve as mikvah supervisors. Nine are serving in North America, and they soon will be joined by seven others. The undertaking has widespread Orthodox rabbinic backing, as it should.
But much more needs to be done, to empower more women to oversee rituals that affect them most specifically, from divorce to family purity.
Controlling the mikvah is one important step in that process.