Profile Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Showing posts with label WHY MAKE INVALID GITTIN?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WHY MAKE INVALID GITTIN?. Show all posts

Monday, November 24, 2014

WHY MAKE INVALID GITTIN?

Why Make Invalid Divorces?

There are people working hard to make invalid divorces. The invalid divorces mean that when the woman remarries with her invalid divorce, her new children will be mamzerim, or doubtful mamzerim. So why do so many people even rabbis work so hard to force invalid Gittin? Even when they are confronted with open sources in Shulchan Aruch, Rishonim and Acharonim, they continue. These are Orthodox people, even rabbis. Why?

A Jew once did something so terrible that nobody heard of a Jew doing such a thing. A rabbi was asked how this could be and he replied, “I don’t know why. But one thing I know. He did it leshaim shomayim.” He did it to serve HaShem. When a person steals because he needs money, he knows it is wrong, so he tries to minimize his sin. But when somebody steals because he feels it is a mitzvah to rob a rich man to feed himself, a poor man, there is no limit. Again, when a person is excited about doing a mitzvah but it is an evil thing, he will do any anything. And if he is convinced that the right thing to do is to free a woman from a bad marriage, he will make an invalid GET.

This is one way of looking at it. But this is true for people who are not scholars. But how do the rabbis and the scholar do these things? And what about people who are told clearly the exact places in Shulchan Aruch where it is forbidden to coerce a GET in the vast majority of cases? Why do they continue to coerce divorces?

I spoke to a major Rov who was a backer of people who coerced divorces. I asked him how he could do this against the sources that I mentioned. He told me that he had a source. It was brought in Ramo in the laws of Gittin, that if a man is not able to be a man with his wife, he must  give a GET. But we may not beat him or put him in cherem. We may only do minor things, such as telling him he is wicked for doing this and disobeying the Talmud. Ramo mentions also that we can ostracize the man in a passive manner, as long as he can leave the community and save himself their ostracizing. In this case itself, of the man who is not able to perform in marriage, the Rashbo, Radvaz, Beis Yosef and Chazon Ish and others say clearly that it is forbidden to humiliate him. And yet, this Rov sponsored rallies outside of the house of the husband to force him to give a GET. He reasoned that if it was permitted to tell a man who is not able to function in marriage that he is wicked for not giving his wife a GET, then any case, any man, who refuses a GET for whatever reason, may be humiliated.

And although the Ramo permits only passive ostracizing, this major Rov permitted open active tormenting of the husband with public demonstration that could make him and his family, especially older parents, sick, and terrorize little children. Why? When you want to do a good deed the Satan has you. There are no boundaries. The Ramo says coerce a man who is told by the Talmud to divorce, because he is not a man. So  you coerce every man who will not give a GET, even if he had children with the wife. The Ramo says that we  ostracize the husband only in a passive manner, but the major Rov permitted humiliating the husband in an active manner. Why? You are doing what you think is a good deed. So you invent sources and excuses for it, even though it produces mamzerim.

How can a major Rov cause great pain to completely innocent people? Because the “Agunah” people have demonized men who won’t cough up the GET on demand. The fact that such a lady is the ultimate child molester and will have mamzerim for children is not the issue. People don’t demonize the wife even if she remarries without a proper GET. They demonize the husband.

It is time for men to copy the ladies. Organize, and have your public say. Our blog will allow both men and women to say their piece, without mentioning any names, just in general what their complaints and suffering are. I hope it can be done in a positive way, so that people know that suffering in a broken marriage includes everyone, especially children. And we have to stop working hard to break up marriages. A letter from HaGaon Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlit”o is circulating about a prominent Beth Din that he criticized for breaking up marriages. This has got to stop.

Therefore, if anyone has a comment to make about the divorce situation, male or female, and from my experience I know that such things exist, I will consider putting it on my blog. No names. Just send me an email at dddeid@verizon.net. I don’t take comments easily on my blog, so please email me. If you email me you can say your name, and you can call me also. But the blog usually will not quote a person’s attack on another with using a name or names.

Thank you.