Profile Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Monday, December 28, 2015

Another women freed without a GET - Gedaliah Schwartz - Some more mamzerim


Someone sent me a copy of a letter from the Chicago Beth Din signed by Rabbi Gedoliah Schwartz dated September 22, 2004. This is also listed in the letter as the seventh day of Tishrei, 5765. So, three days before Yom Kippur, when people are probably ready to give a GET at least lichumro to save from making even possible mamzerim, we have a new approach to mamzeruth, Make them and blame it on something that nobody ever heard of. The excuse in this letter is "It is quite evident that this marriage is not halachically valid. This is due to the fact that there was no consumation of the marriage and there is evidence to that effect." Translation, since Rabbi Gedaliah Schwartz has determined that there was never Biah, the marriage never took place. That is what he says, and he once told me this orally. I then asked him how he knew that there was no Biah. He told me the doctor said so. I asked him how the doctor would know if there was a Biah that did not tear anything, such as anal intercourse or neshika, just a touch. No answer.

But the real problem with this "pesak" is that the Shulchan Aruch clearly states that Kiddushin comes about for three reasons: The husband gives his wife a ring or something of value, the common type of kiddushin, and a Kiddushin made with a special document of the couple agreeing to marry, or, a third way, Biah. But the first two approaches are completely valid without Biah. But maybe Rabbi Schwartz never got to that section of the Shulchan Aruch. So let me quote it to him.

Even Hoezer chapter 26 paragraph 4: A woman is married in three ways, with a value of silver [such as a ring, the common way of marrying] or a document or biah." The Shulchan Aruch says that one who marries with Biah is given a beating, but the marriage is still valid. But GS tells a couple married like all marriages with something of value that they are not married because somehow he decided that they had no Biah, something that I challenge him to prove, if he knows the laws of Biah. But since he doesn't know the laws of marriage, why should he know the laws of Biah?

I recall some years ago that a major Rov told me about a couple that went to Rabbi G. Schwartz for a GET and he told them there was no need.  I asked him why no GET was needed and he told me because there was no Biah.

I just want to add that the seforim of the poskim are full of men going to a woman and giving her some money and telling her that she is married to him. Nobody ever said that the marriage is no good because there was no Biah even though in nearly all of this questions there was nothing more than a quick giving of a ring or similar value. But Rabbi Schwartz would make it easy on all of those people and just tell them that if there is no Biah they don't need a GET. If that is different than what the great rabbis of all generations paskened, it just goes to prove that GS has a different Torah than the one Moshe brought down from Sinai.


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