Profile Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Friday, February 26, 2016

Rabbi Herschel Schechter Says to Beat and Even Kill Husbands Who Withhold a GET

See my brother's blog daattorah.blogspot.com of Feb 26,'16. It is about Rabbi Herschel Schechter's opinion that a husband who refuses a GET may be beaten and elsewhere, on tape, he is recorded as saying the husband may be killed. This is a refutation of this from the Shulchan Aruch and poskim. Interestingly enough, Rabbi Schechter has no source in the gemora or rishonim for what he says, and his "proofs" do not impress me. But we are here going to bring sources to show that the Shulchan Aruch and the major poskim and rishonim disagree with him completely.

HaGaon Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev zt"l told me that any Beth Din that violates the sin of coercing a GET is not a Beth Din, and any woman divorced from it must get another GET as this GET is not recognized. That is, a kosher Beth Din must look into the matter to see if there is any way of proving that the GET is kosher, and if not, she needs another GET and may not remarry with the GET from a non-Orthodox Halacha Beth Din.

R. Herschel Shechter has called for beating and even killing husbands who won't give a GET any time the wife wants out of the marriage. Any GET that he gives is invalid, as he is not recognized as an Orthodox posek or rabbi. The same is true of "rabbi" Gedliah Schwartz who told me clearly that he sent away a couple who wanted a GET because he felt they didn't need one because although there was a proper Kiddushin and Chupa there was no Biah, a statement that shows he is a complete ignoramus and does not know that a woman is considered married without Biah but with either kiddushin using a valuable such as a ring, or a marital document. (Shulchan Aruch EH Kiddushin 26:4) Such people invent the Torah and they are not true rabbis but wicked deniers of the Torah. Anyone who gets a GET from Shechter or Schwartz, and possibly from the entire RCA, must ask a kosher Beth Din what to do.
I spoke to gedolei haposkim about this and it is clear that anyone who humiliates a husband to force a GET has made an invalid GET. This is brought down in the new Sefer Mishpitei Yisreol in the beginning with signatures of Reb Chaim Kanievsky Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner and many of the Israeli Gedolim. They also say that a GET from a Beth Din that violates the Halacha re: coercion of a GET is invalid.
See Rashbo in teshuvose VII:414 that a woman who demands a GET because the husband cannot be a man we do not coerce the husband "we do not put him in Nidui, we do not humiliate him, and we do not make for him physical pain." This Rashbo is quoted by the Radvaz IV:118 word for word. The Chazon Ish brings the Bais Yosef EH 154 who quotes the Rashbo, and the Chazon Ish adds it to his commentary and then rules that this is the Halacha See EH in Chazon Ish 108:12 .
And yet there are those who are desperate to twist and turn and invent and they change the words of the Rashbo "we do not humiliate him" to "we do not hit him." But the problem with that invention is that the Rashbo says three things, "we do not put him in nidui, we do not humiliate him which they change to we do not hit him, and we do not hurt him physically." Now, if the Rashbo already said we may not hit him, why does he repeat "And we do not hurt him physically." At any rate, the Rashbo that we have, the Radvaz, the Beis Yosef and the Chazon Ish all say clearly that it is forbidden to humiliate him. Furthermore, Rabbeinu Yona in Shaarei Teshuva par 139 says that humiliation is like murder. He quotes Chazal that one who humiliates another in public goes to Gehenum and never comes up. Thus, humiliation is an extreme coercion and invalidates the GET.
The Rashbo there talks about two husbands. The first husband is a regular husband and  the wife does not say that he is not possible to be a husband. Rather she says that she cannot tolerate living with him. In that case the Rashbo says, "We never coerce such a husband to divorce his wife, but if he wants to divorce, he divorces, and if he does not want to divorce, he does not divorce." This language means that no coercion or pressure is possible. Rabbeinu Tam quoted in Shita Kesubose says that it is even wrong for Beth Din to advise him that it would be a good thing to give a GET, as this is pressure of some kind. However, Rashbo talks about a second husband, who is not a man, cannot please his wife with intimacy, and is commanded by the Talmud to divorce his wife. But since it does not say in the Talmud to beat him, or coerce severely, the Rashbo says "we may not put him in Niduh, we may not humiliate him, and we may not cause him physical pain." But other milder coercions are permitted, such as telling him that he is wicked for disobeying the gemora.
The Shulchan Aruch EH in hapter 77 talks about a woman who demands a GET because her husband is disgusting to her. The Shulchan Aruch, Ramo, Gro, Beis Shmuel and Chelkas Mechokake all say there in par 2 and 3 the words of the Rashbo, "If he wants to divorce he may divorce and if he does not want to divorce he does not have to divorce." They interpret this to mean that no pressure may be put on him to divorce. If so, a woman who has a GET obtained from ORA has an invalid GET because it was pressured, and not just pressured, which is forbidden for all divorces, but was produced with humiliation, which is forbidden even for somebody who is not a man and is commanded by the Talmud to divorce.

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