Interested in a Divorced Lady, How to Proceed

Question:

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

I'm a single Shomer Shabbos Jewish man. I recently met a divorced Jewish lady whom I'm interested in.

I'd like to determine whether the lady I met received a kosher GET, without damaging my relationship with the lady.
What do you suggest I do to investigate the GET? At which point in the relationship should I investigate the GET?

Thanks for your advice. 

Answer

This is an extremely important question. It is and has always been important. But in earlier generations, every city had its own Beth Din of very prominent rabbis and people relied upon their Gittin. But today we have private people springing up all over the place, and they call themselves a Beth Din and give Gittin. Especially today, when we have no great Gadol like Reb Moshe who can call out people who don't deserve to give Gittin, it is very difficult to know who to trust.

The first question is who gave the GET. Does the person know the laws of Gittin? Who trained him to be a GET producer? In some cities, there are prominent rabbis who will attack anyone who starts up with Gittin who should not do that. But in many cities nobody controls things, and all kinds of people give Gittin. We had a case not longer ago when an FBI agent went to the largest Beth Din in America and received a document from them that a husband, who didn't exist, was being summoned and pressured to give a GET. That Beth Din is still busy giving Gittin, despite the fact that a major player in that rabbinic organization is sitting in jail for hideous sins. So today, who knows what a Beth Din does?

Thus, to marry someone with a GET we have to know some things:

One, we want to know the name of the rabbi who gave the GET. We have to contact him or have somebody contact him who can clarify his situation. If he lives and works in a city, usually there are people there who know him and his qualifications. Where did he learn? Who gave him semicha? Who else received a divorce from hiim?

Any papers issued by that rabbi or Beth Din should be examined.

The husband or ex-husband of the divorcee should be contacted. If he claims that he was coerced into giving the GET or has other nasty things to say, this must be clarified, because these things do happen today.

It might be important to find out if the marriage of the divorced woman was a true Torah marriage or maybe it was Reform marriage or something similar so that the divorce was not so necessary.

It is not fair to date a  divorced woman and get her interested in you and then you investigate her GET and find there is a problem. You should first  ask about the GET, find out the divorcing rabbi, and perhaps a few people who know about her and her divorce, and get to the facts.