Question - Can a Beth Din Force a Husband to Give a GET?

Question: Can a Beth Din Force a Husband to Give a GET?

Answer: A Beth Din has no power to invent an obligation to coerce a husband. However, if the husband is obligated by the Torah to give a GET or be coerced, it is a mitsvah upon a Beth Din to force the husband to divorce. However, the husband who are to be coerced to divorce are very few, such as a husband who marries a woman forbidden to him. Furthermore, a husband who cannot function in marriage is required by the Talmud to give a divorce. But if he refuses, the only coercion permitted is to tell him that he must divorce and if he refuses he will be considered wicked. But if somebody marries a woman forbidden to him Beth Din can beat him until he gives the GET and says, "I want it."

Therefore, the vast majority of divorces are when a wife tires of her husband for whatever reason, and demands a GET. In such a case, Beth Din is forbidden to coerce a GET. Furthermore, Posek HaDor Rav Elyashev zt"l ruled that such a husband has no obligation, no mitsvah, to give a GET in the first place. We discussed some of this elsewhere on this blog, about the rights of the husband.

The Chazon Ish in his work on Even Hoezer Gittin 99:2 writes, "When Beth Din demands that a husband give a GET but did not beat him with sticks, and thus obligated him against the ruling of the Torah [that does not require a coercion] does this constitute a forced GET [that is invalid]?"

The Chazon Ish writes that if a Beth Din demands a GET when the Torah or Shulchan Aruch does not demand a GET even if it has to be forced, then the GET given by the husband is invalid, for two reasons.
One reason is because the Beth Din is being forced by Beth Din, and the force of Beth Din, even the force of a mitsvah, invalidates the GET. That is, it is a mitsvah to obey rabbonim. But the GET must be given without any coercion. If the husband gives the GET because the mitsvah to obey rabbis coerces him, the GET is invalid.

Secondly, the GET is invalid because if the husband would have known that the Beth Din erred in demanding a GET, he never would have given it. He gave it because he does not know that Beth Din erred. Thus, the GET is gives is given by mistaken, and is invalid.

This is a very important point. Beth Din and Rabbonim cannot invent halochose. When the Shulchan Aruch clearly states that we do not coerce a GET and we do not pressure the husband to divorce, and rabbis and Beth Din say that husband must give a GET and coerce him with their ruling, this is a mistaken Beth Din and the GET is invalid according to the Chazon Ish.

I have spoken to prominent rabbis who have ruled about forcing husbands to divorce and I asked them their sources. It is obvious that the source was that they wanted a GET for the woman, but they had no source in the Shulchan Aruch for this, and there are plenty of sources tht say the opposite, such as the above Chazon Ish. This is a tragedy going on now that will produce in the next few years many mamzerim, HaShem Yerachem. The Gedolei HaDor for the past two generations have demanded that rabbis cease and desist with their inventions, and have demanded that coercing a GET must have the approval of gedolei Hador, but the rabbis who force divorces continue on their merry way. The children from their work will be considered mamzerim or possible mamzerim by all those who follow the Shulchan Aruch and the Gedolim.