WHO IS MAKING A CHILLUL HASHEM?

Right at the start of the court case, the judge, who is Jewish, asked both sides to resolve this at a Din Torah in order to avoid a Chillul Hashem. He has repeated this request again and again.

At a recent session, the judge asked: “How are you, as Lubavitcher Chassidim, not embarrassed to bring your dirty laundry out in the open for all to see, and to cause such Chillul Hashem?”

He turned to Spritzer: “Would you have brought them to court if the Rebbe were alive?”

Spritzer told him no.

“The Rebbe must be turning over in his grave because of you!” the judge berated him.

We told the judge we were ready for a Din Torah, and let him know this in writing, too. (see Exhibit # 6) But Spritzer and Schreiber have repeatedly refused.

Who then is creating the Chillul Hashem in this case?

After the judge asked us to resolve this at a Din Torah, I wrote to Sam Malamud, as an old friend and as chairman of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, to let him know what was happening and my apprehension about the potential Chillul Hashem. My letter quoted the Rebbe’s handwritten words about a similar case:

“I have said clearly to all who have asked me about this case that everything has to be only and exclusively by means of Rabbonim (besides the main point that that is in accordance with the Shulchan Aruch), for if, g-d forbid, this reaches the civil courts, it is impossible to estimate the damage (above all to the side that starts the court proceedings) and the enormous Chillul Hashem…”

My letter begged him to do everything in his power to get the case out of court and to a Din Torah, explaining that otherwise we would be forced to defend ourselves (for we cannot afford to pay $2,000,000, and innocent victims have every right to defend themselves), and then no one can have any complaint about any lack of respect for the Rabbonim.

We have no idea whether he tried to stop them. Meanwhile, however, the case goes on and the Chillul Hashem becomes ever greater.

Instead of using his powerful influence to stop the Chillul Hashem before it gets even worse, Mr. Malamud has opted to take the easy way out. Instead of protesting vehemently against vicious individuals who have dragged five innocent families into civil courts – against the Torah – he has chosen to vilify and slander the victims in a public letter that deliberately ignored our side of the story.

Imagine: They have stolen the camp from us, embezzled the money we raised, dragged us into civil court and tried to have us jailed, wasted our time and hard-earned money – on lawyers and court motions. Yet when we try to defend ourselves, they cry “foul”!

Doesn’t this upside-down justice sound like Sodom and Amora? Remember the story of Avrohom’s servant Eliezer who was beaten up in Sodom. When he took his attacker to the local court, the judge told Eliezer to pay his attacker for the medical benefit of his bloodletting! (But Eliezer got the last word by making the judge bleed and telling him that the money he now owes him for bloodletting he should pay to the original attacker…).

Shame on you, Community Council members!

For the past two years you could have stopped Spritzer and Schreiber from going to court, thereby extinguishing the fires of hatred and preventing the terrible Chillul Hashem! But you did nothing. Yet now you come and complain about Kovod HaTorah?

Since when have you become experts on Kovod HaTorah and Kovod Lubavitch? Why don’t you leave the Rabbonim, Roshei Yeshivos, Mashpiyim and Torah scholars of Lubavitch to take care of these central issues?

Why don’t you do what you were elected to do, to improve conditions for all residents of the community?