The Moral Weight of Testimony
A recent public court filing in the long-running abuse litigation involving Yeshiva University High School for Boys indicates that two senior institutional figures (the university’s general counsel, Andrew J. Lauer, and RIETS Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Hershel Schachter, among the most senior and influential rabbinic figures) are expected to provide sworn testimony during the discovery phase of the case.
For many former students following this litigation, the significance of those forthcoming depositions is not difficult to understand.
The university’s general counsel is not merely a present-day administrator reviewing decades-old allegations from afar. He belonged to the same generation as many of the plaintiffs and was himself a student during the same era in which many of the alleged abuses occurred. Survivors have long believed that meaningful institutional testimony requires individuals to speak not only to present-day policy, but to the culture, atmosphere, relationships and decision-making environment of that period itself.
Rabbi Schachter’s significance is different, but no less profound. For generations of students and rabbis, his name and signature have carried immense religious and moral authority within the Modern Orthodox world. Filed lawsuits and prior reporting have alleged that complaints of abuse were brought to his attention decades ago, and have documented his later public comments regarding the handling of abuse allegations within the Jewish community.
Readers unfamiliar with the broader history of the litigation are encouraged to review the publicly available original complaint and prior investigative reporting for fuller context. The allegations and narratives contained in those materials are extensive, painful and deeply unsettling.
There are moments in the life of an institution when legal proceedings cease to feel distant or procedural, and begin to carry deeper moral and historical weight.
For many former students following this long and painful litigation, the news that these most senior figures are now expected to testify under oath marks such a moment.
Not because depositions themselves determine guilt or innocence. They do not. Courts operate through procedure, adversarial process and competing narratives. But for survivors who have now spent decades carrying memories, confusion, shame, silence, fractured relationships and prolonged litigation, this moment is about institutional conscience, accountability and memory.
Many of us remember first encountering Yeshiva University and Yeshiva University High School not through lawsuits or headlines, but through admiration. We attended open houses with our parents. We were recruited as students. Some of us were visited in our elementary schools by educators we trusted completely — individuals who would later become the source of profound pain and disorientation in our lives.
At the time the school represented belonging, aspiration, religious purpose and community. None of us imagined that years later we would find ourselves estranged from an institution that once helped shape our identities — or that some would come to feel regarded less as wounded former students than as threats to a reputation painstakingly built over generations.
Some former students say they tried to speak years ago and felt ignored. Others recall fears — explicit or implicit — of the consequences of challenging revered authority figures or pursuing legal action. It’s therefore difficult for many survivors not to experience a profound sense of emotional dissonance when, after years of procedural battles over statutes of limitation and other legal doctrines, the question raised in court effectively becomes: Why did you wait so long?
The answer, for many survivors of abuse everywhere, is neither simple nor unique. Children rarely possess the language, confidence, standing or emotional clarity to confront powerful institutions or trusted adults. Silence often becomes its own form of survival. Over time, silence calcifies into distance, grief, confusion and shame.
Now, 13 years after federal litigation first began and seven years after Child Victims Act claims were filed, many survivors find themselves increasingly conscious not only of memory, but of time itself. Some aging parents who once walked us proudly through school hallways are no longer alive to witness these proceedings. Some former students are themselves no longer in good health. One survivor has died. Litigation unfolds according to institutional and legal calendars. Human beings live according to finite ones.
That is why this moment feels consequential.
Not because anyone should rush to judgment before testimony is given. Not because legal defense is illegitimate. And not because depositions, sealed or otherwise, are themselves public verdicts.
Rather, because sworn testimony carries moral weight beyond procedural necessity. Communities listen not only for factual answers, but for seriousness, honesty, compassion and recognition of human pain.
Many survivors are not looking for spectacle or triumph. They are looking, after so many years, for moments of candor, acknowledgment and moral seriousness equal to the gravity of what has been alleged and endured.
During the Yamim Noraim, Jewish liturgy includes the words: “ki lekha levad eineinu teluyot’’ — “For our eyes are directed toward You alone.”
In moments such as these, that language resonates differently. Not as spectacle and not as vindication, but as a reminder. There are times when institutions, like individuals, are called upon to confront difficult truths with humility, honesty and moral clarity rather than reflexive self-protection.
Whether this moment ultimately leads toward deeper understanding, contrition and healing — or merely years more of painful process that some survivors may not live to see — remains uncertain.
But many people will now be listening carefully — not merely for answers, but for words that carry genuine moral weight.
Mordechai I. Twersky (YUHS ‘81, YC ‘85), a veteran journalist, essayist, strategic media consultant and community and social activist, is the lead plaintiff in Twersky v. Yeshiva University.
Photo Caption: Yeshiva University
Photo Credit: Yeshiva University
