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| Zivia Rotenberg (Limited Times) |
When combined with a faulty conscience, the sex drive can easily become a weapon that can and often is used against vulnerable people that will result in immeasurable damage that can last a lifetime.
I have often wondered how it’s possible for prominent people of great accomplishment and even great compassion to be sexual predators. And yet this happens so often that it makes me wonder if a conscience exists in them at all despite all of their good deeds.
Do sexual predators in fact have a conscience? Or is it all an act to be discarded at will when an opportunity for sexual abuse arises? Does the way they were raised have anything to do with it?
These were my thoughts as I read about the latest accusations of sexual abuse. From Arutz Sheva:
Highly respected haredi teacher and mother of four 66-year old Zivia Rotenberg is accused of repetitively sexually abusing minor…
For decades, Rotenberg was considered to be a revered teacher of the Beit Yaakov Beit Yisrael girls' elementary school in Jerusalem. An investigation to be published Friday in Israel Hayom brings the testimony of five women, who describe in their own words how Rotenberg harassed, abused, and hurt them.
Rotenberg, a mother of four, grew up in Jerusalem as the daughter of a well-known and influential family in the haredi community. Her uncle, the late Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, was considered one of the greatest leaders of his generation during his lifetime, and his halakhic rulings were accepted by all factions of Orthodox Judaism.
For the past four years, Rotenberg has served as the high school principal at the prestigious Lithuanian seminary "Maalot Beit Yaakov," located in Ramat Shlomo - a Jerusalem neighborhood named after her prestigious uncle.
From the accumulated evidence, a pattern emerges in which Rotenberg used to harass and sexually and mentally abuse her students for years. Most of them were minors who were under her authority.
It would seem that people who opportunistically abuse other people is the very definition of a sociopath. Having no conscience or guilt whatsoever about what they have done or continue to do as opportunities arise. One might argue that all the kindness and good deeds they have done during their lives as just an act. But I have to wonder if it is possible for a person to keep up such an act for an entire lifetime if they do not have any real desire to do good deeds?
I suppose that in some cases it is all an act. But in other cases they might actually have a conscience at some level and their good deeds are genuine. But their consciences are overcome by aberrant desires that cannot be acted upon in socially acceptable ways. So given the opportunity they are overcome by the very human and very powerful sex drive and strike - albeit with a guilty conscience. In some cases I believe they may actually be in denial about the damage they cause to their victims. Even to the extent of fooling themselves into believing that their victims actually enjoyed it!
This does not in any way excuse them. But it might explain them. It might also be the reason that pedophiles cannot be disabused of their aberrant desires. As another prominent abuser, Woody Alan, once said in response to marrying his step daughter, ‘The heart wants what it wants!’ If the ‘heart’ seeks a child, it will try and get one.
Yes! ...they are still monsters. But they are ‘sick’ monsters that are acting on impulses they cannot control or have any legitimate way of satisfying.
That is the only way I can explain why so many sexual abusers are so accomplished and otherwise contributing members of society. It explains the high level of denial by people in communities that benefited from them for many years.
It also explains why people that are raised well in families that impart all the right values to their children might have one child that ends up being a sexual abuser anyway. While the rest of their siblings end up being model citizens who wouldn’t dream of doing anything like that. Sociopathy is a mental disorder that parents are not responsible for. Nor are they responsible for any aberrant sexual desires a child might have
This may very well be the case with someone like Zivia Rotenberg. She was no doubt raised by parents who had the highest standards of parental responsibility - as one would expect from the Auerbach family. And yet if these allegations are true (which they very likely are) it can only be explained as a mental disorder that is nobody’s fault.
None of which changes how we should deal with pedophiles or any other sexual predator. It does not in any way minimize the damage they do. We need to protect our children by teaching them what to do if they ever encounter an abuser. To recognize when they are being ‘groomed’ and report it to their parents. Sexual predators need to exposed for who they are and what they do. And separated from the public. And if they abuse anyone - to be treated like the criminals they are. And to confront their enablers who might defend them or protect them. Or worse accuse their victims of lying. But I think it’s helpful to try and understand why abusers do what they do.
