“Marc has a lot of Shakti,” Mr. Wilber said, using a Sanskrit word for energy. “I don’t think he understood the impact it had on people.”

Mr. Gafni was born Mordechai Winiarz to an Orthodox family in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1960. His family moved to Ohio, and he attended an Orthodox Jewish high school in New York City. “He was one of the most brilliant students I have ever taught,” said Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who ordained Mr. Gafni but later rescinded the ordination.

After high school, Mr. Gafni stayed in New York to study. In a 2004 article in The Jewish Week about Mr. Gafni, a woman said he repeatedly sexually assaulted her, over a nine-month period, beginning in 1980, when she was 13. “He told me that if I told anyone, I would be shamed in the community,” The Jewish Week quoted the woman as saying.

Mr. Gafni was quoted saying they had been in love. He added, “She was 14 going on 35, and I never forced her.” In a recent interview, the woman, who asked not to be identified, said that she stood by her account from 2004 and that the encounters were not consensual.

In 1986, when Mr. Gafni was working for Jewish Public School Youth, an outreach program, he was accused by a 16-year-old girl of climbing into bed with her naked while she was staying with him and his wife. “He stalked me for years afterward,” said the woman, Judy Mitzner, who recently wrote about the episode.

Mr. Gafni said that it was “a one-time event” and that Ms. Mitzner was “highly initiatory” and came on to him. Ms. Mitzner said that was not true. “I never initiated anything with him,” she said. No charges were filed in either case.

Mr. Gafni moved to Israel in 1988 and changed his name from Winiarz to Gafni — from a Polish cognate for vine, or wine, to a Hebrew one. He became a popular teacher and briefly had an Israeli television show.