Exhibit number one of mistakes:
"Ironically, this type of
agunah, the one whose husband is very much present but refuses to give a get, is a relatively new phenomenon.
According to halachah, though it is the husband who gives his wife the get, a woman too may demand a divorce
if she can prove that the husband is neglectful, repulsive or abusive. In such
an instance, the halachah is
unequivocal:
"One
who is halachically required to divorce his wife and refuses to do so, a Jewish beth
din – at any place
and at any time7 – corporally punishes him until he
says, 'I wish [to divorce].' The get is then written and it is a kosher get."8
In short: the beth din is
empowered to use any and all methods at their disposal to compel the husband to
"agree" to divorce his wife. This includes imposing sanctions on
having casual or business dealings with the noncompliant husband, and even
using brute force if necessary
End quote
This is completely wrong. Beating a husband and forcing a
divorce is only permitted in extreme cases that almost never occur in real
life. A husband marries a woman forbidden to him, even dirabonon, is coerced
even with beatings to divorce his wife. But a regular divorce case, where the
wife simply claims that she hates her husband, she surely cannot have him
beaten to give a GET. Nor can she have Beth Din make any coercion, period.
There is an in between level, between an absolute mitzvah to
coerce the husband even with beatings, and the prohibition to coerce at
all, at any level, that operates in most cases of divorce. And that is a husband who is not a man. In such a case the
Talmud demands a GET. However, the Talmud does not specify the pressure, if
any, that is permitted to make to force the GET. Therefore, in practice, we do
not beat the husband. We follow the Rashbo, Radvaz, Beis Yosef and Chazon Ish
and others that we may not put the husband in cherem, we may not humiliate him,
and we may not hurt him physically. But a husband who is a normal person and
surely one who had children with the wife cannot be forced with a beating and
surely not with cherem, humiliation or physical pain. Furthermore, coercion
with great financial pressure is also grounds to invalidate a GET.
Beth Din does not have any power to force a GET other than
the exact cases taught in the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch. These cases usually
have nothing to do with the vast majority of marriages, unless the wife starts
to lie and gets others to agree with her. Even then, a reliable Beth Din doesn’t
pretend that it accepts everyone’s claims in a Din Torah and the truth will
out. The Chazon Ish writes that if a Beth Din told the husband that the halacha
is that he has to give a GET but this was not true in the husband’s case, then,
if the husband issues a GET, it is invalid even by Torah law, because it is
coerced and because the husband was in error when
he gave it. Had he known the truth, that he was not obligated to give the GET,
he would not have given it. So the giving was a mistake and worthless.
