Tel Conf EH #18 Older Singles and Marrying from Pressure

Tel Conf #18 Sept 2 9:30 PM – call 605-562-3130 then code 411161#

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn/845-578-1917/eidensohnd@gmail.com

Older Singles and Marrying from Pressure

Okay, Get Married. So why are there so many singles? The Shulchan Aruch beginning of Even Hoezer tells that in early generations a man past twenty who was not pursuing marriage properly was brought to Beth Din and instructed to get married.

Now, this can make a lot of problems. Let us say that in a certain town an older man can only marry people he doesn’t want to marry. Can he be forced to marry someone against his will?

We had a case like this with the brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov. Reb Gershon Kitover. In his older years he went to live in Israel, in Jerusalem, where the Orach Chaim HaKodosh, considered the greatest saint of his time, was the Rov. The Orach Chaim honored him with being the Baal Tefila for Rosh HaShana. But then Reb Gershon was told that the rule in Jerusalem was that nobody was allowed to live there as a single. There are letters that Reb Gershon wrote about this, and he asked, How can I marry somebody from a different world? It is not known what happened. But this kind of a problem surely existed in earlier generations. And when people were forced to marry without wanting their partner, only problems could result.

The problems were so strong that the Beth Dins eventually surrendered and did not force people to marry. Some offered proofs that today we don’t force marriages. But others disagreed and said we must have marriage. But if by so doing the Beth Din will create a constant ruckus that destroys the Honor of the Torah, it may be prudent to refrain from this forcing of marriages. Still others maintained that even today marriage should be coerced.

Reb Chaim Palagai, the great Rov of Iraq, wrote in his sefer Chaim ViShalom II:112 that when a marriage is completely broken with no hope of repairing it, the couple must be divorced. If the husband refuses to divorce his wife after eighteen months, he is beaten until he says, “I want it.” The Tsits Eliezar asks how a husband can be coerced to give a GET, which is against the teaching of the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 77 paragraphs 2 and 3 and all of the poskim. This is a very strong question.

But the Ben Ish Chai was a world-class Rov and the head of a country. His word was law. His Beth Din had the power to do what it says in Shulchan Aruch in the beginning of Even Hoezer, that a Beth Din forces marriage when people reach the age of marriage such as a man of twenty. I think that the Gro agrees to this. If so, the custom not to do this is because the more modern Beth Dins did not have the respect of the community to force marriages or divorces. But Reb Chaim Palagi did have the power, and he used it, and everyone obeyed him. This was not a beating to force a divorce because the wife demands a GET. The wife perhaps said nothing. But the Beth Din had the obligation and the power to force marriages. The same power could possibly be used to force a GET if the Beth Din was not motivated by the mere complaints of the wife but by the damage single people could do in their community. A single of age is a menace to a community’s kedusho. But this applied only to earlier Beth Dins that had the respect of the whole country or at least the whole city as the Torah leaders deserving of obedience. But today there are very few great rabbis and we don’t find too many with wide powers of authority such as Reb Chaim Phalagi had or the official Beth Dins of an entire city such as the Beth Din of Brisk of Vilna.

About a hundred years ago the Rov of Jerusalem ruled that speaking Hebrew was forbidden. Reb Yosef Chaim Sononfeld was on the Beth Din and a major Torah personality, a Gadol HaDor, and he spoke Hebrew at least to the Sefardic Jews. He was asked how he could do such a thing to defy the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. He explained that the rabbi created this law without the agreement of the Beth Din. Thus, even the Chief Rabbi has limitations. Surely what we have today that this and that person make a private Beth Din, surely it has little power to force people.

We do not force marriages or divorces today in general even if somebody is older. But that is because the community will not tolerate such things or the Beth Din has some leniency not to do this. But the obligation to marry is there. This is a very important point.

True, we do not coerce a GET just because the wife says her husband is a terrible person. But if the husband knows that it is true, he has a clear obligation to force himself!

We may not force husbands to marry at twenty. But the husband should force himself.

And if the wife has bitter complaints about her husband, and the Beth Din cannot force the husband to give a GET because of them, if the husband knows it is true, he should force himself. He will be judged for causing the pain and not giving a GET.

Rambam says that a woman is not to be chained as a slave in a marriage she hates. Rambam therefore rules that the demand of the woman is honored by Beth Din and the husband is forced to divorce. But we do not hold like this. We pasken like Rabbeinu Tam, the Rosh and the Rashbo and others, that the word of the wife is not enough to force a GET.

But the principle stated by Rambam, that a woman is not a slave to be forced to remain married to somebody she hates, is true. If the Beth Din does not force the GET, perhaps because to give all women the power to just complain and leave their husbands would create a destruction of families, nonetheless, the husband who knows he is at fault will be judged for this and for the sin of treating his wife like a slave.

Again, Beth Din today cannot always force things the right way in marriage and divorce. But the couple involved in the marriage and know what is happening, must answer to HaShem. And they should better get on with their lives before they have to answer to a Beth Din that has no fear of antagonizing anyone.