Thursday, August 25, 2005

Now here's a truly modern dilemma

What do you do when your community rabbi is charged with possessing marijuana and driving while his ability was impaired by drugs?
Congregation Sons of Israel, for example, suspended their rabbi on full pay (!!) for a month. Lucky guy. Could have been worse, considering he could have killed someone.
I don't know the congregation at all, but a fair bet would be that they couldn't/wouldn't fire him 'cos a large proportion of them smoke pot regularly themselves...'cos for reasons that readers can speculate on by themselves, there is not much sympathy in public opinion for pot-smoking to be regarded as a criminal offence. Of course, the fact that he was driving 'under the influence' and a danger to others is a different issue. How would a congregation react if a rabbi was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol?