The scale and range of individuals who had regular interactions with Jeffrey Epstein reveal much about an elite slice of society and perhaps even more about our culture in general. Epstein’s circle of friends included presidents of countries and of universities, princes, CEOs, billionaires, and cabinet secretaries. The latest round of released documents revealed that influential Canadian author and longevity researcher Peter Attia expressed an interest in “visiting [Little Saint James Island] some time.” Attia joins many from such diverse fields as education, philanthropy, and business who have shocked those who looked up to them as role models.
It is hard to believe that powerful people who so strongly contribute to our world through achievements in charity, business, law, economics, politics, and the arts were knowing accomplices to Epstein’s crimes. They at best stood idly by at his abusive gatherings, and at worst were participants in the vile activities themselves.
Epstein was not unique. History has seen his kind with some regularity. Successful societies, when mature and at the peak of their power, seem to spawn islands or retreats of abusive indulgence. In Life of Tiberius, the Roman historian Suetonius chronicled the happenings at a retreat run by Tiberius on the isolated Island of Capri. It was so vile, it nearly defied description. Children younger than can be imagined were forced to cater to the emperor’s perversions, while others were forced to watch. Suetonius surmised that – unlimited Imperial power and protekzia notwithstanding – Tiberius created this retreat because Roman society would have been revolted if they saw what was happening on his island. Nevertheless, one gets the impression that it was an open secret as to the nature of the emperor’s activities on the island.
1,700 years later, at the height of the French monarchy, at the Palace of Versailles, King Louis XV ran a retreat that rivalled that of Tiberius. Contemporary accounts tell of girls as young as 13 being taken to a house a kilometre away in the Parc-aux-Cerfs [aka The King’s Birdcage] where they were kept for the king’s pleasure.
In Torah literature, there is a similar phenomenon described in the tractate Ketubot 3b: “Rabba said: The baraita [which assigns weddings to Wednesday corresponds to a period that a virgin who is married on Wednesday will submit to intercourse with the ruling prefect [hegemon] first.” The prefect’s realm, like those of Tiberius and of Louis XV, reflects the dangerous mix of power and the indulgence of desire.
In The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, Stanford historian Walter Scheidel argues that one predictable outcome of long periods of peace is the aggregation of power by people who can act with impunity. It is no accident that the height of Epstein’s crimes were 60 years after World War II, which coincides with the most peaceful and prosperous period in modern history.
The Torah is wise to this phenomenon. In Parshat Beshalach, we learn of the power that will be associated with the Children of Israel. The triumph over the Egyptian army at the sea left the peoples of the Levant in fear of the Children of Israel:
Now are the clans of Edom dismayed;
The tribes of Moab—trembling grips them;
All the dwellers in Canaan are aghast. (Exodus 15:15)
The ten commandments begin with a reference to this: “I am the Lord your Gd who took you out of Egypt.” Yet, it closes with the following counter-balance to the awesome power associated with the liberation of the people from Egypt. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox or donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” This is the counter-balance afforded by emotional regulation. It is the space created by a legal system which is so concrete and operational that it tells one exactly which day to rest, what kind of food one may eat, and which fabric blends are forbidden.
Effectively, the law is saying don’t even think about exceeding the boundaries of what you own or your obligations to respect others. Reflecting on the excesses of those with unrestrained wealth, these words ring even more true today.
It is easy to preach about the ills of Jeffrey Epstein, Louis XV, the emperor Tiberius, and the prefect in Ketubot; we can rationalize about how different they are from us in our pedestrian lives. However, our comforts, amenities, and culture today incubate the same dangerous mix of power and indulgence of desire. It is worth reflecting on the Torah’s wisdom on moderation and its lesson of pleasure within limits. We have become accustomed to pleasures that would have seemed unlimited even to Louis XV: abundant goods in packages that arrive the next day, credit cards that allow us to spend beyond our means, AI that can synthesize any fantasy imaginable, no matter how lurid, violent, or sycophantic. While decadent elites reign on their islands of depravity, we on the mainland of our everyday lives are subject to the same enticements.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rosenblatt with Dr. Terry Neiman
