I’ve written this story here before, but I’ll write it again now. Here’s how R’ Shmuel Berenbaum zt”l handled someone who was a bad influence on others.
When my Rosh Yeshiva was a bachur in the Mir, there was a guy who got involved in a shady gambling ring. He lost badly, and was deeply in debt to some very unsavory characters. To try and pay them, he got others from the yeshiva involved in it.
A group of older bachurim went to R’ Berenbaum zt”l and told him what was going on. They told him they felt the guy had to be kicked out of the yeshiva. After all, he wasn’t just doing it himself – he was actively encouraging others to join him!
R’ Berenbaum yelled at them! He said, “How can you ask such a thing? Do you know what a responsibility it is to throw someone out of a yeshiva? It’s not a decision that can be made lightly!”
R’ Berenbaum ended up not throwing the guy out. Instead, he spent extra time with him, one on one.After a while, the guy got out of the gambling thanks to R’ Berenbaum. My RY said the guy is no a well known and respected mechanech. For obvious reasons, he didn’t tell us his name, so I can’t post it here.
Throwing someone out of a yeshiva, even when the person is influencing others, is not a simple thing to do.