My Brother Laces into Rav Dovid Feinstein's Beth DIn

from Daattorah.blogspot.com

Kaminetsky-Greenblatt Heter: The shameful reality is they think we are stupid

As mentioned yesterday, R Sholom Kaminetsky wrote a letter in which he acknowledged that Rav Dovid Feinstein had paskened that the heter was worthless and that he accepted this psak.

Some people felt that this was news worth celebrating - after all didn't the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil? The answer is no! The situation is much worse than before.

What was Rav Dovid Feinstein doing for the last 6 weeks? Apparently he was given one job and that was to decide whether the heter was good or not. Why did he do this? He apparently did this because the Novominsker and others convinced him that he was the only one that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky would listen to - as in fact Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky wrote to Rav Weiss when he asked him not to protest against the heter. 

Thus Rav Feinstein was paskening solely for the sake of Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky regarding the heter. He was not dealing with what Tamar Epstein should do, nor was he deciding whether Aharon Friedman should give a Get. He was not dealing with the corruption of the halacha in this case with a phony seruv issued by Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky. He was also not dealing with whether Rav Nota Greenblatt was wrong in paskening based on a flawed psychiatric report based solely on Tamar Epstein's biased views about a case where Rav Nota didn't bother to speak to both sides or even verify that the information he was spoon fed by R Sholom Kaminetsky was true.

In short - Rav Dovid Feinstein was used to save the hide of the Kaminetskys. With his psak about the heter he gave Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky and son a ladder to climb down from the branch that they were precariously hanging from that was being sawed off by the major rabbonim around the world who have explicitly condemned the heter.

That is why the heter was not announced publicly but was sent to R Shalom Kaminetsky. It was only his response that was published and that done through the strange publication in Matzav - not the normal channel for such an important notification. There is no written psak from Rav Dovid Feinstein and there is no official letter of response from Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky. It is simply smoke and mirrors. I was told that if there had been an official written psak, that the Kaminetskys would have been subject to direct criticism by the Rabbonim and  by the media and they would not have retracted. Rav Dovid Feinstein and the Aguda avoided this spectacle by making a virtual announcement. This way the Kaminetskys were allow to make it appear that they were innocent bystanders - without Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky actually saying anything. 

Ah but you are saying - but Rav Dovid did invalidate the heter. Isn't that progress? The answer is no. Primarily because Rav Greenblatt has not retracted his mistaken psak. Thus Rav Dovid Feinstein was suckered into making this a machlokess haposkim. It is now his view versus Rav Greenblatt. Tamar can simply say that she received the heter from a major posek and that the heter is still in place. Nothing has changed,

What needs to happen is that Rav Dovid Feinstein has to issue a written psak -  as has been done by major figures such as Rav Shlomo Miller and the Baltimore Beis Din. He needs to explicitly criticize the process of the heter - otherwise it will open a floodgate of phony heterim. Rav Dovid has done nothing to protect us from anyone with mail order smicha doing away with the need for Gittin.

He needs to write that Tamar needs to separate from Adam. Without addressing the status of Tamar and what she has to do - it remains simply a public relations move to save the Kaminetskys.

Finally Rav Dovid Feinstein needs to directly criticize Rav Nota Greenblatt for issuing the heter and trying to deceive everyone that he had nothing to do with the heter. He needs to make public condemnations so that no one in their right mind will think of doing this again. As it stands there is absolutely no downside of privately telling a woman he she doesn't need a get because if she had only known what she knows now she would never have married him. This is the Rackman mechanism - which has gained a foothold through this heter.

Bottom line, Nothing has been done to clean up the stinking garbage of corruption and trampling on our holy Torah. We need the restoration of Torah leadership - not more "leave it to the gedolim to decide" announcements.