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"Horace Mann was, in the way that prestigious schools often are, something of a benevolent cult. The teachers devoted their lives to us—they were with us from eight-forty in the morning until seven at night, drove us to school each day, took us on vacation trips. There were about a hundred boys in each class, and, with notable exceptions, we loved the place. We competed so keenly that when the school stopped ranking us some industrious students set up a table in the cafeteria where classmates could report their grades.

We divided ourselves into subcultures: boys found their joy on the stage, or at the weekly newspaper, or on the baseball team, whose coach—our headmaster—contracted with the Yankees’ grounds crew to groom the diamond.

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One group of boys stood apart; they insisted on wearing jackets and ties and shades, and they stuck to themselves, reciting poetry and often sneering at the rest of us. A few of them shaved their heads. We called them Bermanites, after their intellectual and sartorial model, an English teacher named Robert Berman: a small, thin, unsmiling man who papered over the windows of his classroom door so that no one could peek through.

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The ‘Pied-Piper’ is one of the most difficult situations for a Principal to deal with. Many excellent and highly professional teachers have elements of charisma in their personalities. In the ‘Pied Piper’ situation a powerfully charismatic teacher has exceeded appropriate boundaries. The teacher’s personality has become the centre of the classroom rather than the course content. A ‘Pied Piper’ will deeply affect and influence some students – but will almost always leave a trail of emotional wreckage in his/her wake.

‘Pied Pipers’ - charismatic teachers who misuse their charisma - are often themselves deeply immature, but their immaturity is emotional, not intellectual, and it is not always obvious. They can be brilliant in inspiring students to go beyond their wildest expectations, and are often regarded (by their following of students, by parents, and by the Board or the community) as the ‘most important’ or ‘best’ members of staff. There is always, however, a price to be paid.

One of the effects of charisma is to convince the recipient that he or she is the centre of the charismatic personality’s concern. A teenage student (or a particular class) may feel as though he, she or they is/are the protégé(s) of the charismatic teacher. The moment they realize that they are not (sometimes when the teacher ‘moves on to the next’), deep emotions come into play. Many charismatic teachers will lavish attention on a student or group of students – as long as the student(s) do things the teacher’s way, or accept every piece of advice or “philosophy” or Torah uncritically. The moment the student shows independence or objectivity – they are dropped. As soon as they are dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s story. Deep disillusion sets in. The student(s) are devastated. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school.

Whatever brand of identity and loyalty the ‘Pied Piper’ has inculcated – religion, sport, poetry, art, politics – may be abandoned overnight. The next set of ‘favorites’ takes their place. Tears are a feature of meetings between the abandoned students, their parents, and the Administration. Mild characteristics of cult leaders may be observed.

Other parents, however, will rave about how their son/daughter “adores” Mr./Ms/ or Rabbi X, and is “learning so much from them”. Events linked to that teacher will be showcase events, and in the Principal (or Head of Department) will come to be dependent on the teacher. “We need something special for the prize-giving...or the ground-breaking … or the community event… can you put something together?” The teacher will protest that the time is short, and it’s impossible, but will, of course, accept and do a fabulous job.

The problem is that at core, these are not educational relationships.

The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student leads to boundaries being crossed. The teacher throws open his/her house to the students. Teens idolize the teacher, and dangerous fantasies begin to develop. Boundaries are crossed; the usual rules don’t apply to the Pied Piper, or, sometimes, his/her students.

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In March, I interviewed with an organization (that will remain nameless) that’s doing some great things in Israel. This organization has some wonderful community-learning projects in Israel. It is the creation of a very well-known and charismatic teacher/preacher/Rosh Yeshiva in Jerusalem. I couldn’t help but notice that his picture is displayed at intervals of every few feet in the organization’s offices. It completely rubbed me the wrong way.

People asked how the interview went, and I responded, ‘There are way too many pictures of Rabbi X’. It was said in jest, but I was dead serious (Perhaps the greatest lesson my father ever taught me was that there need not be any tension between jesting and being serious).

By contrast, in all of Tzohar’s informational literature, the personalities involved in the organization (and there are some wonderful personalities involved – R’ Yuval Cherlow is probably the best known) are never even mentioned.

It’s all about the movement, the goals, the vision – never about the personalities and their charisma.

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The Problem of Charisma


So that I'm not accused of piling on, read what I wrote 3.5 years ago (refers to the 2006 article quoted above)about monolithic and monologic charismatic strains of Judaism in general, and about an experience that I had when interviewing at a particular organization.

The organization that I interviewed with in March 2006 was Mibreishit, and the rabbi whose portrait, placed at intervals of every few feet, wierded me out was the recently disgraced Motti Elon.

I don't know what Rav Elon did, if anything. I trust the signatories of the letter (a very diverse and extremely well respected group of mainstream Religious Zionist leaders, including Rav Lichtenstein and Rav Ariel). I do not know if Rav Elon is a criminal, a sinner, or none of the above.

I do know that Rav Elon is extremely charismatic, and I do not trust charismatic rabbis. Not a single one. Moreover, I believe that God does not like charismatic teaching, and that this is His critique of Eliyahu ha-Navi in Melachim I:19 - the path to God does not lie in earthquake, wind, and fire, but in the still, small voice. And the path to God never, ever, leads through an individual human being.

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[www.haaretz.com]
The crucial role Rabbi Elon played in my life

A friendless bookworm, my attachment to such a turbine of charisma filled me with energies that almost wiped out my identity.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Feb. 18, 2010 | 2:47 AM


It is almost impossible to put in words what Rabbi Mordechai (Moti) Elon meant to me and still means for thousands of youngsters and grown-ups who learned from him and took his advice at every step of their personal lives.

Someone who has not experienced in his youth a deep attachment to a magnetic personality, charming and wise, who served as a friend, guide, father-confessor and surrogate father and sculptor of identity at a crucial time of life, cannot conceive of the central place Rabbi Elon held in our lives.

When you are 14 or 15, a bookworm without friends, incapable of finding a common language with those around you, parents and teachers, and think no one can understand or appreciate you, then a grown-up who treats you as an equal, takes an interest in you, invests time in you and enriches your knowledge, becomes the center of your existence.

Rabbi Elon was such a life friend for thousands of teenagers (like me), while meteorically becoming a major public figure, perhaps the most revered in the religious community. We, his close students, who knew him almost from the beginning of his educational and rabbinic career, felt the public's adulation of him reflected on us and made us more special than friends who didn't study at Yeshivat Horev.

He was party to all our dilemmas. We told him about our first girlfriends, arguments with our parents, problems during military service and plans for the future.

We introduced him to our fiancees, and he danced at our weddings, holding us close. We would wait for hours on the steps to his office to get a few minutes of personal time with him, or we would go to his home, sometimes at 2 A.M., the only time he had left over from running the yeshiva, preparing and giving lessons, meetings and lectures.

Spiritual experiences

We shared with him our most uplifting moments, on trips to the extermination camps in Poland, when he announced the death in battle of a yeshiva alumnus and on nature hikes, which he always transformed into a spiritual experience.

Like when he told us to switch off our flashlights in the depths of the Haritun Cave and began singing and dancing with us in the dark. We grew up with him and with his children. We never understood how he found time for everything. I have no idea whether the allegations against him are true. He gave my friends and I thousands of kisses and hugs but never did we feel there was anything untoward about that. I will be very happy if the allegations prove false.

But if I had been asked yesterday, before the story broke, how I felt (supposedly as a grown-up) about our decade-long relationship, I would have had to admit it was problematic.

My attachment to such a turbine of charisma filled me with energies that almost wiped out my own identity, which had barely begun to emerge, and set me on paths that - with hindsight - I regretted. I did not reflect on who I really am.

We complain today about the lack of role models in the Israeli education system.

A dark side

But there is also a dark side to charisma and admiration, especially when they suffocate the natural rebellion of youth and individualism. This problem isn't only in yeshivas. From reading biographies, I know that the youth of the old kibbutz movement, pupils in Catholic schools worldwide and the boys sent to public school in Victorian England experienced the same magnetism of strong charismatic figures.

Very often there followed painful disappointment and awakening.

A high incidence of sexual abuse is just one result of life in such a closed and intense environment. But the issue of generations of young men (women are more resilient) with uniform views and personalities, who only much later, if at all, begin to form their own identity and inner spiritual world, is a less recognized but no less painful part of it.

As a father, the only lesson I can impart to my children from my years close to Rabbi Elon is while they have a duty to respect their teachers, never suspend your critical faculties toward figures of authority; do not become dependent on objects of admiration; and beware of charisma, as if from fire