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December 11, 1998/ 22 Kislev 5759, Vol. 51, No. 12
Ruling on rabbinic confidentiality may have legal fallout
Rabbis in Valley say conversations must stay private
DEBRA N. COHEN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
and MICHELLE ACKERMAN
Staff Writer
Ethically and Jewishly speaking, Valley rabbis say it shouldn't have turned into such a big issue. But other observers say a recent New York court ruling on the question of rabbinic confidentiality could have broad ramifications for the Jewish community - in both legal and congregational settings.
A New York State Supreme Court judge recently ruled that Rabbi David Weinberger was wrong to disclose a congregant's confidences by revealing them to her estranged husband and testifying before the court that oversaw their divorce.
Commenting on the New York case, Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, of Conservative Temple Beth Sholom in Mesa, said she thinks it is good that the court chose to enforce the idea of confidentiality between a rabbi and congregants who disclose personal information.
"Still, it's sad that it would take a law to enforce that (assumed confidentiality)," Koppell said. "I think it's fairly intuitive that if a congregant comes in to talk with me, the assumption is that it is confidential."
"Congregants generally develop a relationship with their rabbi and know when they can trust their rabbi," added Rabbi Maynard Bell of Reform Temple Solel in Paradise Valley.
In general, religious leaders contacted by Jewish News agreed that all conversations with individual congregants are confidential, and that the only domestic matter a rabbi would ever be compelled to report is child abuse - and in that case, in the person's presence.
As Rabbi Mark Bisman of Conservative Har Zion Congregation in Scottsdale pointed out, the Jewish law of lashon hara instructs people that harmful language is to be refrained from. And breach of confidentiality, said Bisman, constitutes harmful language.
"Whenever you deal with people, you need to preserve confidentiality," Bisman asserted. "People doing therapeutic work, whether as a rabbi or counselor, need to understand the sophisticated rules of ethics."
Rabbi David Rebibo of Orthodox Beth Joseph Congregation in Phoenix agreed that there is implied confidentiality. But he said he also believes that "in order for material to fall within the context of confidentiality, the person has to really alert the clergy to this effect."
Several Jewish groups - including Agudath Israel of America and the Orthodox Union - are closely following the case and may file briefs in upcoming rounds of the legal battle. The New York Board of Rabbis said it is considering running a symposium to examine the implications of the case.
In the New York case, Chani Lightman, a 38-year-old Orthodox woman, nurse and mother of four daughters, has been trying to obtain a divorce from her husband since 1995. She says her husband, Hylton Lightman, a prominent pediatrician in the Five Towns region of Long Island, has so far refused to give her a get, the Jewish divorce that only a man can issue according to halachah, or Jewish law. He is said to have filed a get with Rabbi Motti Wolmark of Monsey, N.Y., who said, through his secretary at Yeshiva Shaarey Torah, that he had no comment on the matter.
Chani Lightman has been given no opportunity to accept the get if there is one, said her attorney, Daniel Schwartz, and "if her husband believes that she has been unchaste, he is obligated to give her one forthwith."
The Lightmans are in the middle of civil divorce proceedings as well, and the court has awarded Hylton temporary full custody of their children. Chani Lightman said she went to Weinberger, who was her pulpit rabbi, and another rabbi in the community, Tzvi Flaum, in 1995 to discuss her troubled marriage because she was aware that her husband had also spoken with them.
During her separate meetings with one of the rabbis, she revealed that she had stopped going to the mikveh, the ritual bath into which observant women immerse themselves after menstruating and before resuming sexual relations with their husbands, because she wanted no further intimacy with her husband. She also told Flaum, according to the affidavit he submitted to the court, that she had seen another man socially.
The rabbis submitted affidavits on Hylton Lightman's behalf as part of the divorce proceedings, saying that she was not living as an Orthodox woman should. Chani Lightman took the unusual step of suing the two rabbis because they disclosed private information to her husband and to the court without ever getting her permission to do so.
On Nov. 18, Justice David Goldstein ruled that Weinberger owes Chani Lightman damages for causing her harm. In his decision, Goldstein called Weinberger's disclosures not only "improper" but "outrageous and most offensive."
No date has yet been set for either his ruling on the amount the rabbi owes his former congregant, or for Flaum's hearing. The attorney representing them both, Franklyn Snitow, said that he intends to appeal the ruling in the Weinberger case.
Lightman's cases poses several thorny questions, among them, "How private is the information a congregant shares with his or her rabbi?" and "Does a person run the risk of making public the most intimate details of his or her life when they turn to a rabbi for guidance?" The New York court ruling has also raised questions about how involved civil courts should be in deciding whether a rabbi's judgment is correct.
David Zwiebel, director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, a group representing fervently Orthodox interests, said he has received a large number of phone calls from concerned rabbis since the ruling was handed down. It is likely that the Agudah will file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the defendants after they appeal, he said.
"The general rule in secular law and halachah is that things said in confidence must be kept in confidence," Zwiebel said, adding, "There are times, though, when the general rule must be breached."
The rabbis in this case were "concerned over the mental and spiritual well-being of the children. The rabbis are entitled to make these sorts of judgments," Zwiebel said.
"If a civil court is saying that they are not, it comes awfully close to the kind of entanglement that the First Amendment is designed to prevent," he said.
Zwiebel said the decision is already having a chilling effect on the ability of rabbis to counsel their congregants because they fear that if they learn anything they feel compelled to report, they might be sued.
If people declare their intention to physically harm themselves or others, the rabbi is obligated to do whatever it takes to stop them, said several experts.
Snitow, the defendants' attorney, maintains that "there was never any expectation of privacy" when Chani Lightman went to talk to them.
"It was never intended as pastoral counseling or a penitent's confession," he said in an interview with JTA. That, said Lightman's attorney, is simply untrue.
The impact of what the rabbis did, said Chani Lightman, has been "like a nightmare."
"I've lost custody of my children, and I've been obliterated (in the community)," she said.
"Other women should not be bamboozled by the rabbis and turned into a pariah."
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