Telephone conference EH #15 Wed night 9:30 Aug 12 – Call 605-562-3130 then enter code 411161#

Call 605-562-3130 then enter code 411161#Telephone conference EH #15 Wed night 9:30 Aug 12 – Call 605-562-3130 then enter code 411161#Wars Between Rabbis Make: Mamzerim, Doubtful Mamzerim, and Laaz about Mamzeruth
By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

This week a prominent Posek called me and said he wanted to come over to my house. He came and we spent a long time on a case where a woman is planning to remarry without a GET. For a long time I was the only one publicly protesting this in my blog www.torahhalacha.blogstpo.com. However, when the rumor began circulating that the woman was ready to remarry, and that a prominent Rosh Yeshiva was encouraging her, I began attacking prominent rabbis who were silent and threatened them with being put in cherem if the woman remarries. Then some prominent rabbis did get involved and did some real things including signing a letter that the woman was still married and could not remarry without a GET. Some of these prominent rabbis would call me up and thank me for protesting, but they did not protest.

The rabbinical world is split. The major Gedolim stay with the Shulchan Aruch, but others break with it. They want to help “Agunoth” by coercing husbands to divorce their wives even when not permitted by the Shulchan Aruch. Some states in America and Canada have passed laws forcing husbands to give  their wives a GET when the wife demands it. Major rabbis consider this GET invalid and the children born from it to be mamzerim or doubtful mamzerim.  But some rabbis are silent or feel that pressuring the husband is a good deed, in defiance of the Shulchan Aruch Poskim and Gedolei HaDor.

In the recent trial of rabbis who tortured husbands to force them to give a GET, the defense was that some rabbis felt that torturing a husband to force a GET is a mitzvah. But they had no source for this to violate the Shulchan Aruch and the major Poskim and Gedolim.

Thus, in the next generation, people from Torah and Haredi homes will become engaged, and somebody will find out about the GET the mother had;  then people will decide if they want to marry somebody considered to be a mamzer by Gedolei HaDor who stick with the Shulchan Aruch, such as Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav  Shmuel HaLevi Wosner, or maybe they should allow the marriage that will produce more mamzerim, generation after generation.

In our previous telephone conference the topic was What Beth Din is Kosher? Forcing a GET is permitted only with the permission of Gedolei HaDor according to a letter from Gedolim including Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner zt”l. But many rabbis such as Rosh Yeshivas who don’t know halocho so well and therefore rule against the Shulchan Aruch, cannot be a Beth Din. If they coerced a GET the mother is considered as one who got a GET from an invalid Beth Din. The coercion is surely not valid. See Mishpitei Yisroel pages 5-12, with letters from Gedolim in Israel and America about coercing a GET and going to civil court.

Rabbi Moshe Heinemann openly advertises on ORA’s website to back coerced Gittin. He writes, "SO FAR O.R.A. HAS HELPED FREE OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY WOMEN WHICH IS A TREMENDOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT...I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE THE SUPPORT OF THIS IMPORTANT ENDEAVOR."
Rabbi Heinemann obviously does not know that the Rashbo VII:414 states that even a husband who is commanded by the Talmud to divorce his wife may not be humiliated. The Radvaz and Chazon Ish agree with this. But Rabbi Heinemann congratulates an organization that produced 150  coerced and probably invalid GITTIN and who knows how many mamzerim!

We thus see how bad the situation is. Rabbi Heinemann those who violate the Rashbo, the Radvaz and the Chazon Ish, the Shulchan Aruch 77 par 2 and 3 and all of the poskim there, and the Gedolei haDor in Israel such as Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner and Rav Chaim Kanievsky, as quoted in the work Mishpitei Yisroel. That means 150 women who probably have invalid Gittin, and 150 women who may have children from other husbands who are mamzerim. And Rabbi Heinemann rejoices at this.