Rabbinic "Confidentiality" Exposed

Woman's Lawsuit Against Rabbis Alleges Improper Breach of Privacy

Recently, a maelstrom of controversy has been whipped up by a Long Island woman's accusation against two area Orthodox rabbis over the issue of rabbinic confidentiality. The woman, Chani Lightman, consulted the rabbis while going through a divorce several years ago. As a result of her conversations and the Rabbis' subsequent actions, Lightman, a nurse and mother of four, has become the focal point of a battle in which the nature of Orthodox rabbinic interaction with congregants has become a matter of contention.

Mrs. Lightman claims that while arranging for her husband to provide her with a Get, or Jewish bill of divorce, she met with two community rabbis who were acquainted with her husband and his position in the case. During the two separate meetings, Mrs. Lightman confided that she no longer practiced taharat hamishpacha (family purity laws) as she was no longer intimate with her spouse. Subsequently, the two rabbis, Rabbi Dovid Weinberger of Congregation Shaarei Tefilah of Lawrence and Rabbi Tzvi Flaum of the White Shul in Far Rockaway, filed an affidavit in support of Dr. Hylton Lightman, Chani's soon to be ex-husband. Their affidavit concluded that the courts should be sympathetic to Dr. Lightman's case as his wife is no longer a practicing Orthodox woman.

Mrs. Lightman took the offensive, suing the rabbis for breach of confidentiality. Despite a recent ruling in the case against Rabbi Weinberger in which the judge, David Goldstein, called the rabbi's disclosure "outrageous and most offensive," the case is by no means over. Franklyn Snitow, who has a long history of involvement in legal proceedings involving Orthodox Jews, is the defense council for the accused rabbis. He plans to appeal the ruling and in the meantime both he and his clients have remained silent on the case saying only that "there was never any expectation of privacy." They insist that Mrs. Lightman was aware that her meetings with the rabbis were never intended "as pastoral counseling or a penitent's confession." Nonetheless, organizations from across the Jewish spectrum, from the New York Board of Rabbis (which plans to hold a "symposium" on the confidentiality issue in the near future) to the right wing Agudath Israel (which plans to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the defendants) have had their say on the issue.

At the heart of the debate is the serious question of what constitutes the rabbi-congregant relationship. Catholicism, which includes the precept of the confessional in its theology, has been viewed by US courts as possessing an inviolate confidentiality in the priest-penitent relationship. This special relationship is not, however, extended by the courts to Protestant ministers nor, to this point, Orthodox Jewish rabbis.

Rabbi Dr. Moshe David Tendler, a RIETS Rosh Yeshiva, had extensive contact with the issue of confidentiality in the early 80's. He believes that the issue of rabbi-congregant confidentiality is a multi-textured one, and there should be no hasty rush to judgement in the case of the two rabbis. Rabbi Tendler cites the Tarasof case in which a psychiatrist was repeatedly told by his patient that he would kill his wife. There, the counselor, albeit in a secular setting, was held liable by the courts for not preventing a crime despite the existing rules governing confidentiality.

Similarly, in the rabbi-congregant setting, not only criminal behavior but serious violations of halakha may similarly necessitate the breach of confidentiality. Nonetheless, Rabbi Tendler cautions that if the woman was not planning to have marital relations with her husband, there was no violation of halakha, per se, if she did not go to the mikvah, or ritual immersion bath. However, Rav Tendler says that he does not know enough about the specifics of the case to definitively state that the rabbis were unjustified in breaching confidentiality.

"Whether the Rabbi's had the status of counselors [and are thus subject to confidentiality rules] depends in what context she came to them. If it was just to discuss the divorce, that's not necessarily counseling. Its not at all clear from the Court papers in what context she came to the rabbis. I don't know what the rabbis' position was. Certainly the fact that Snitow wanted the case thrown out is indicative of how deeply the rabbonim felt in regards to their innocence."

In purely halakhic terms, there appears to exist the possibility of confidentiality in the rabbi-congregant relationship. Michael Rothschild, Director of the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation, has commented previously on this issue. He stated that the laws of Lashon Harah, or religiously proscribed slander, "can be used and interpreted very subjectively so they therefore need a lot of thought." Other routes in establishing a definitive, halakhic confidentiality run into problems in terms of drawing up practical guidelines.

Nonetheless, it appears that many Orthodox rabbis believe that the laws of confidentiality can be broken when a congregant person expresses a desire to harm himself or others. The crucial question in this particular case then, to many Orthodox rabbis, may be whether Mrs. Lightman intended to cause harm to herself or to others.