Chapter 3

ASSISTING THE GUILTY

Halakhic Considerations

Clifford E. Librach

As a modern American rabbi serving in a suburban metropoli­tan congregation,’ I have been routinely exposed to the delicate problems of individuals, some of which involve criminal behav­ior. Specifically, my experience as a congregational rabbi and advisor to colleagues has brought to me the following personal crises of people whom we have served in the past. One individ­ual revealed and confessed criminal complicity in a scheme to harbor an illegal alien and thereby to defraud federal and state authorities, participating in a criminal scheme of misrepresenta­tion; another individual sought spiritual guidance during the course of which he revealed his own criminal culpability in a complicated enterprise of bank fraud involving real estate sales to middle income households; and, in perhaps the most difficult case, I was faced with the evident confession by a father to the routine physical abuse of his children.

In this paper, I propose to address the halakhic considera­tions involving an appropriate professional response to these

Notes for this section begin on page 42.