UPDATE::For those who revered him, D.C. rabbi’s sentencing for voyeurism will not bring closure - The Washington Post

I will be honest, I want to say something snarky, but I wont.  All I will say, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."  That being said, this comment, I think sums up the situation:

These two statements from the article will make it very difficult if not impossible for the Kesher community to fully heal: "Judaism teaches that speaking negatively of others — or even listening to negative talk or gossip — can be sinful, and the D.C. Orthodox community is small." and then "...but this wasn’t a sin of the congregation — it was a sin of the rabbi.”

The congregation does bear ample responsibility for the actions of its former faith leader and until the congregation as a whole accepts and acknowledges its part it will be unable to fully heal and will certainly fall victim to the actions of its next charismatic leader. They need to understand what led them to permit the Rabbi to do what he did, fully understand and take responsibility for their part, grieve for their loss and those who were harmed. Until the faith community can hold a series of meetings guided by a professional mediator this congregation will never be able to overcome this scandal, nor be in a position to make the changes to polity that will prevent a recurrence.

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This week, a D.C. Superior Court judge is scheduled to hand down a penalty for Barry Freundel, a powerful Orthodox rabbi who for years secretly videotaped his female followers as they prepared to submerge in the mikvah, a ritual bath. But in the Orthodox world where Freundel was once a giant, the fallout of his crimes will continue unspooling.

Some of the hundreds who studied or worshiped with Freundel have stopped going to the mikvah, a ritual that is considered so important in Judaism that women are commanded to use it monthly before sharing any physical intimacy with their husbands.

Others who converted with Freundel are terrified that their status as Jews will forever be in question in their law-focused communities. Some people have stopped going to synagogue. Others suffer nightmares in which they are spied upon — and feel complicit.

 “This man was Judaism embodied for many of us, we must reconstruct our faith absent his titanic influence. Some members are experiencing deep crises of faith,” reads a group statement by a dozen of the hundreds of converts Freundel mentored over the years. “It was as though he took G-d away from me,” one wrote, using a traditional, respectful way Jews refer to God.

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For a man who wrote 55 books and articles, lectured at places from Princeton and Yale to the Aspen Institute and Congress, this is a steep fall.

“There is a need to ostracize someone like this. While Judaism has a process of forgiveness and repair in such cases, it’s not instant,” said one D.C.-area rabbi. “There’s a notion in Judaism of someone in the community who becomes contaminated. They do return, but not just because they feel like it. I think he has to go through some process of reflection, treatment and repair.”

Orthodox Jews vary on what they want to happen Friday, as Judaism doesn’t clearly embrace incarceration simply for punishment. If someone is a danger, that’s one thing, said the rabbi, but “by punishing someone with incarceration, they aren’t allowed to grow.”

For those who revered him, D.C. rabbi’s sentencing for voyeurism will not bring closure - The Washington Post