Male and Female: Are Women Superior?

The Torah Teaches the Superiority of Woman

Rav Dovid E. Eidensohn - 845-578-1917 – eidensohnd@gmail.com

The gemora in Berochose 17A says, “Greater is that which HaShem promised to women than what He promised to men,” as it is said (Yeshaya 32) “Confident women, rise up and hearken to my voice; daughters who trust, hearken to my words.” Rashi explains that when the prophet called out to women and said that they were trusting and confident, it meant that this was a special quality of women. The gemora thus learns that women were greater than men in trusting and confidence in HaShem.

A man has power and does not need so much to trust and be confident in HaShem, but the woman does. This level of the woman requires her to trust in HaShem  and to maintain a confidence in Him even when this world is not hospitable.

This quality is crucial. People who have everything and don’t need to trust and be confident because they are already happy with their lot are missing out on the great level of trusting Hashem and being really confident in Him even when such seems remote. Thus, the Jewish people are always getting exiled and killed and who knows what. But even in the darkest moments, they turn to HaShem. So many stories are known about Jews in the camps of Hitler. One said he felt the years in the camps that it was one long Yom Kippur. I prefer the regular Yom Kippur, but his level is a trust and confidence in HaShem that powers him to a totally new dimension. I always say, “When I come to the Other World they will say, ‘What did you bring here? What great deeds did you do?” And I will say, “I ate two bowls of cholent every Shabbos.” And they will say, “Well, how does that match up with so and so who was tortured for four years in the camps and he hid his tephilin and wore them regularly?”

Yes, the people who are ready for the other world are those who are completely removed from it. They saw Gehenum in this world, and the next world will be the opposite. And those who had pleasure in this world, what can they expect, two pleasures for both worlds, for what?

Israel – the Founding Family Man and Wife

The greatest Jews were the first three who founded the Jewish nation, Avrohom, Yitschok and Yaacov. They all married. Who was greater, Avrohom or his wife Soro? Who was greater, Yitschok or his wife Rivka? Yaacov or his wives Rochel and Leah?

Beraishis 21:12 features an argument between Avrohom and Soro regarding Avrohom’s son Ishmael from Hagar. Soro wanted him expelled from the family and Avrohom wanted to keep him. HaShem intervened and told Avrohom, “Everything that Soro tells her hearken to her voice.” Rashi explains, “Hearken to her voice, to her Ruach HaKodesh. We see from this that Soro was a greater prophet than Avrohom.” What would have happened to the Jewish nation if Avrohom would have kept Ishmael? We would be a nation of Arabs. Soro realized that but not Avrohom.

Now we come to Yitschok and his wife Rivka. Who was greater? Yitschok and Rivka had twins. Rivka had great pain from them before they were born. She went to ask the prophet Shem to explain and he told her that she had twins, two brothers who will quarrel about who will control the Jewish nation. He concluded, “The older son will serve the younger son.” The two sons were the oldest Aisov (Esau) and the younger Yaacov. Would the Jewish nation be led by Aisov, a wicked person whose wives were pagans, and who attacked women, or Yaacov who spent his time learning Torah?

When Yitschok became very old and weak, he decided to assign Aisov, Esau, his eldest son who was very careful to honor his father, as the leader of the Jews. But Rivka knew that the prophecy from Shem was that the younger son, or Yaacov, would lead the Jewish people. So she commanded Yaacov to trick his father and get the blessings, which he did. Now, what would happen to the Jewish people if Esau, the rapist, whose wives were pagans, would control the Jewish people? Rashi in Beraishus 26:34 tells us that Aisov raped women for forty years and then married a woman who was a pagan. What would happen to the Jews if Aisov would have been the leader of Israel? But Rivka saved us from this, even after Yitschok tried to bless Aisov. Who was greater?

Yaacov had various wives, mainly Rochel and Leah, but there were also two other wives of lesser stature so that Yaacov had four wives. His main and most beloved wife was Rochel, and he was tricked into marrying Leah and he was unhappy with her. The Torah says that he hated her. (Ber. 29:31) Eventually, Yaacov by mistake caused the death of Rochel who had only two children, and most of his sons, the major ones, came from Leah.  Levi and Yehuda, the tribe of priesthood and monarchy came from Leah, as did the Torah tribes of Yisoschor and Zevulun (Yisoschor studied Torah and was supported by Zevulun who went to foreign countries to make the money to support him and Yisoschor.) (Ber.29) So who built the Jewish people? Rochel who had two sons, or Leah, who had the major tribes of Levi and Yehuda, the tribes of priesthood and monarch, and Yisoschor, the tribe of Torah, and Zevulun.

It is important to note that Leah was hated. The hated person ends up the mother of the tribes of monarchy, priesthood and Torah. The beloved Rochel is cursed by Yaacov mistakenly and dies. That is something to notice. Yes, men have power and glory and women don’t. But what does that mean? What does it really mean?

Another point: The hideous story of Joseph being sold by his brothers was clearly caused by Yaacov, who treated Yosef very specially and created great envy from the other brothers. But let us leave it at that. We have established that the first and founding generation of Jews succeeded despite the men and because of the women. That says a lot.

The Jews were led out of Egypt by Moshe and they crossed a water that dried up for them and then the water returned to kill the Egyptian army chasing the Jews. When that happened, the women took music instruments and danced with joy, but the men did not dance and they did not play musical instruments. The men took weapons from Egypt and the women took musical instruments from Egypt. The women were led by Miriam. Moshe led the men in reciting a song of praise for G-d’s miracle, but we don’t find that they danced, or had musical instruments.

This was Miriam whose father divorced his wife and Miriam told her father, “Pharaoh has decreed on Jewish boys to kill them. But you decree no marriage and thus no children, not boys and not girls.” Her father remarried her mother and Moshe was born. Who saved Moshe when he was cast into the river in a tiny boat? It was Miriam who approached the daughter of Pharaoh and arranged for Moshe to be a ward of the daughter of Pharaoh. Here the men went backwards and the ladies went forward. Who was greater?

Another thought. Many great prophets and judges rose up to serve the Jewish people. But only one had a perfect record. It was Devorah, a woman, who was the judge, the leader in war, and the head of the Jewish people.

To jump forward a bit, I grew up in Baltimore where my mother’s family lived. I recall that somebody in Baltimore once said, look at the difference between men and women, meaning, in Baltimore. This means, the non-Orthodox Jews. It seems that when men wanted to join an organization and meet new people, they would join a gentile club. But the woman would join a club serving Israel or another Jewish service. We have established from the above that women are superior to men in many ways.

The Kabbala of Male and Female

We will now enter a Kabbalistic study of male and female, and the teachings of the Ari z”l and Reb Moshe Chaim Lutsato, known as Ramchal, a very great Kabbalist.

Let us take a look at Shir HaShirim, Solomon’s Song of Songs. The work is very hidden. We know however that it is about love of a man and a woman. The second passage is “Let him kiss me from the kissings of his mouth.” Strangely, we have no idea who “him” is. He has not been introduced.

Passage three “The scent of your good oils, your name is poured oil. That is why the young lasses love you.” This is very strange. A woman who seems to be in love with a man tells him that the young lasses love him. Why should she, a woman in love, tell her lover of others who love him?

Perhaps we could answer that “The scent of your good oils” is an ordinary thing, because oil is supposed to give off a lovely scent. But “your name is poured oil” is something else. A name is poured oil? What does poured oil off have to do with a name? But the woman in love tells her lover that his power is such that his name itself arouses strong feelings in all of the young lasses. Furthermore, she tells this to him without fear that he will leave her and find a young lass. Her love is strong and his love is strong, so there is no fear of either one looking for another person to love. But the woman arouses her husband’s love for her by letting him realize that her love is perfect because his love is perfect, and that his level is so elevated in that regard that young ladies swoon at the mention of his name. This is surely a wonderful love for any man. But to have his female partner mention this tells us something special.

The fifth and sixth passage have the woman describe herself as black, and various shades of black. That is, passage 5 has the woman describing herself as black. Passage six has her calling herself extremely black, and she calls out, “Do not see me as I am extremely black, for the sun has blackened me…”  She begins a complaint about how “the sons of my mother caused this to me, and they made me guard the vineyards but my vineyard I did not guard.” Can it be that a mother would allow one of her children to be blackened and disgraced? And those who did this to blacken a sister, do they have no feelings for a sister?

Note that a mother is a female. The black lady is a female. Those who created the blackness are men. And the men make sure that they have a slave, the daughter of the mother. So powerful are the men children of the mother that the mother can do nothing to protect her daughter from turning black with the slavery imposed by the men sons of the mother.

The next passage, 7, introduces the male, the lover of the female who is black. He ignores her problems and speaks lovingly to her. He begins his remarks, “Tell me, she who loves my soul, how do you pasture, where do you crouch in the afternoon, because why should I be as one who goes from place to place to the flocks of your fellows?” There is no trace of anything but love. There is no trace of anything negative. What happened to the travail of blackness?

Who is this male? Why does he ask her for her address so that he doesn’t have to travel all over to find her? Doesn’t he know where she lives already if he is greatly in love with her?

See the commentary of the Ari z”l on the second passage in Shir HaShirim, “Let him kiss me from the kisses of his mouth.”  It seems that the Shir HaShirim is a story of the love of HaShem and the Schechina, which is the love of HaShem and Klal Yisroel. And yes, the Schechina suffers “blackness” and other things, and yet, this does not disrupt the love of HaShem and the Schechina, nor does it disrupt the love between HaShem and the Jews. Furthermore, just as the Schechina in this song of Solomon suffers blackness and other suffering, so do the Jews. They are a people of suffering. But the Shechina suffering and Klal Yisroel suffering are still united closely with HaShem, with all of the pain they endure.

The Schechina is a divine property, very close to HaShem, higher than any mortal can be. And yet, the female level of divinity suffers terribly. We discussed before her cries that she is black and even very black. Understand it or not, she is Schechina and suffers. The Jews are also a holy people very close to HaShem, and they, the holiest nation, suffer more than other nations. It seems that the female level of high holiness and the Schechina, and also the Jewish people, have a role in great holiness but that role is somehow connected to suffering. We turn now to the Kabbalist teachings of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lutsato.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lutsato is not only one of the greatest Kabbalists, but his book on simple improvements to our behavior is a very famous classic that is owned by nearly any Torah Jew. This is what he says about our topic, the fact that a holy female Sefira seems to have much suffering. See in his Kabbala classic Adir Bamorom (in my volume it is on page 119) he writes, “You must know that all things found in this world must have a source in the Sefirose, and even the deeds of mortals, otherwise they could not exist.” If so, if this world is comprised of male and female, and there are male and female Sefirose, we assume that one is rooted in the other. Thus, if the female Sefira of Schechina is the source of females in this world, both of them likely share how women relate to men. We know in this world men seem to be the powerful and famous gender and the women are weaker and tend to suffer more than men, and this matches exactly what we see in Shir HaShirim about the misery of the Schechina who is blackened and complains bitterly.

Having said that, we must continue with the Shir HaShirim and its passages about the male and female Sefrose, or sacred worlds that relate directly to the male and female of this world. The Kabbalistic female is the lowest world or the Sefira of MALCHUSE. The Kabbalistic male are the holy worlds above MALCHUSE.

Passage seven in Shir HaShirim is the end of the many passages of the problems of the female and her relation to the one she loves. Now the male talks and he knows nothing about her problems and her blackness, only love for her. It seems he can’t locate her and wants her to tell him where she is, otherwise, he will have to skip and jump here and there to find her. Now, if the male is a sefira, which is a very holy even divine property, why can’t it locate the Schechina or MALCHUSE who is also a divine property?

Here we see a very important revelation about the heavenly and this world relationship between male and female. Even in heaven, in the realm of holy Sefirose, the male suffers because his love, the Schechina, is somewhere he cannot locate. He needs her to tell him where she is. Does she call him up or send him a telegram? It doesn’t tell us that. But for our purposes, we have established the suffering of the higher sefirose as both male and female. And as Rav Moshe Chaim Lutsato already told us, that what happens in this world and what happens in the Sefirose are similar, because this world cannot exist without the forces that come to it from the sefirose. Thus, this world and the sefirose are similar. The female of the Kabbala as a Sefira called MALCHUSE suffers and so do women in this world.

Now we are at a point where we must know exactly what the situation is with the male and female in the higher world of sefirose, because they are the source for what happens in this world. We turn once more to the work of Rav Moshe Chaim Lutsato, Adir Bamorome, on the same page we are previously, page 119 in my edition.

We come to an incredible teaching. We know that there are ten stages in Kabbala. The highest level is KESER and the lowest level is MALCHUSE or Schechina. There are also ten Sefirose. There are higher and lower levels in both. We assume that number 10 comes first and is next to level 9, which is close to level 8, down to the bottom. If so, Malchuse or Schechina is at the bottom of the count, the farthest from the highest worlds. But Rav Moshe Chaim Lutsato turns everything upside down. He says that Malchuse, the bottom female level, is quite close to KESER the highest level. Keser is such a holy level so close to HaShem that we are not allowed to describe it and we cannot understand it at all. How could such a super holy sefira be very close to Malchuse?

The problem is worse than that. It seems that KESER number 10 is remote from Chochmo father, number 9, because he is afraid of Keser. But it seems that the bottom level which is Malchuse is not at all afraid of KESER. See on page 3 of Adir Bamorome an explanation of this: “HaShem wanted a connection between the higher lights and people in this world. So that the deeds of people can reach to the higher worlds. And for this to take place HaShem created the MALCHUSE with the power to rise and fall according to the deeds of people.”

Thus, if we assume as before that mortal women of this world and the female of higher worlds are similar, and we accept that MALCHUSE was designed to be a conveyor of mortal deeds to the higher sefirose, even to KESER, we see that MALCHUSE and KESER are together. This is stated clearly on page 119 of Adir Bamorome, namely that there is a deep relationship between KESER and MALCHUSE. He writes, “The MALCHUSE rises to the high KESER, and the secret of the matter is that KESER is only the higher lights that rests upon the lower…and behold, the connection for KESER is with the MALCHUSE, and this is a great secret with the covert statement of ‘I am first and I am last.” (Yeshayeh 44:6) …The power of the higher lights to rest upon the lower creations is with the hidden power of MALCHUSE. And this begins with the very beginning of reality. Afterwards is revealed that which is necessary to sustain the MALCHUSE. And when Malchuse comes down she is the secret of KESER itself. For from her goes forth all of the rest [which is necessary for the lower worlds]. And the hidden level of this is KESER MALCHUSE.”

This means as follows: The MALCHUSE receives the deeds of mortals, good and bad. It sends them to the higher world and to KESER. At that point, the very highest world of AIN SOFE is aroused and pours down into the lower holy worlds and this finite world a response to those forces sent earlier to the higher worlds above MALCHUSE.

We conclude our study of male and female with the following:

1)    The Talmud and the Written Torah make it clear that women historically, in biblical times, were superior to men. We explained this above, such as the Rashi that says clearly that Soro the wife of Avrohom was superior to him in prophecy.

2)    The Talmud makes it clear that greater is the trust of women in HaShem than the trust of men. This is also discussed above with the source.

3)    In our Kabbalistic study we find that the female level of Schechina was designed to have all of the deeds of mortals organized to be shot up to the higher holier worlds. They reach to Keser and beyond, to the world higher than Keser which is AIN SOFE. The AIN SOFE then takes the deeds of mortals, the good and the bad, and sends them down to the bottom of the Sefirose, or MALCHUSE. From MALCHUSE the deeds are distributed to this world. 

4)    The female MALCHUSE has much evil in it because it is where the deeds of people good and bad are deposited and then shot up to the higher worlds. The MALCHUSE has evil and suffering, and this is the “blackness” of Shir HaShirim, among other sufferings mentioned there.

5)    Since the levels of this world and the levels of the higher worlds are equal, when women suffer in Kabbala in the higher worlds, as MALCHUSE or SCHECHINA does suffer, we must therefore understand that women in this world also suffer. And just as MALCHUSE suffers and yet because of her suffering she ends up shooting the affairs of this world to KESER and above KESER to AIN SOFE, and because AIN SOFE shoots these lights back down to MALCHUSE, we see the greatness of the female in this world and the next. We do not find that the male levels such as Father or the six levels above MALCHUSE are close to KESER. Only MALCHUSE is. Thus, the female suffers but this brings her to a level higher than the male, as the gemora says, “Greater is the trust and confidence of women than that of men.” They belong in the highest worlds, not the men. This is based upon the reality that women are DIN or justice and men are CHESED or kindness. DIN has suffering but CHESED or kindness is the opposite of suffering.

How to Behave in Marriage: Laws of Marriage for Shalom Bayis

How to Behave in Marriage

Rav Dovid Eidensohn – Talmid HaGaon Reb Aharon Kotler, HaGaon Rav Moshe Feinstein, HaGaon Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev, all of them zt”l

Laws of Marriage for Shalom Bayis

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

We present here teachings from the gemora about Shalom Bayis in marriage. We begin with Yevomose 62b “He who loves his wife as he loves himself, and one who honors her more than he honors himself, and he who trains his sons and daughters to go in the proper path, one who marries off his children near the time of their coming of age for marriage, regarding him the Torah says, ‘and you will know that your tent is peaceful.’”

He who loves his wife as he loves himself is praised. But is this real love or an effort to love his wife? Or perhaps the effort in of itself does the job. After all, the Torah in parshas Tsaitsei tells us that, “and he shall make his wife rejoice.” Rashi and the Zohar says that it does not say “he shall make his wife rejoice together with him” but it says that he makes her rejoice even if he is not rejoicing and even if the effort to make his wife happy takes away his own pleasure. Because making his wife happy is the Torah’s command. A prominent expert in marriage says that marrying out of love is wrong because as people get older they change, and two people who once loved each other may change and the love may decline. The right path is to marry someone good for you and to commit yourself to remaining married no matter what. This commitment brings love, but love does not bring commitment. (From Mort Fertel)

What does it mean “One who honors her more than he honors himself?” This refers to monetary matters. It is winter and it is necessary to buy a strong coat. But there is money only for one strong coat. Who should get it, the husband or the wife? The wife. The Raishis Chochmoh page 266 says that a husband must always honor his wife with monetary matters and parnoso. Thus, he honors her more than himself, because he spends money on her that he cannot afford for himself. This is similar to what we say above that a husband must make his wife rejoice even though he does not rejoice. In fact, the act of making his wife rejoice may cost him some aggravation, but he is commanded to sacrifice his own happiness for his wife. Of course, a wife who sees her husband always trying to make her happy reciprocates. A marriage that is a partnership is a problem, because each partner feels they work harder than the other partner. But when one partner says I will assume the burden by myself and not wait for the other person, that is a higher level, and one that can bring peace into the home.

Raising children properly is not an easy task. Children are not mature people and need a lot of attention and ability to deal with minors. But one who deals with them in the proper path and does his best can merit heavenly help in developing fine children.

One must be very careful when raising children not to make the mistake of Yaacov who loved Joseph more than his other children and let everybody know it. This led to the brothers of Joseph selling him to Egypt. We have to know not to show one child more attention than the other children. We have to know to always encourage a weak child. We have to realize that a parent lives for the children, and that is a lifetime job, but it is at its height when they are very young. If then the parents sacrifice all and raise children properly, they may merit very special children.

When children come of age and the parents look for shidduchim, this can take up day and night. But the benefits are lifetime achievements.

What Moral Crisis Exists Today in the Torah World?

• If it is true that the fire of the netherworld is reserved for those neutral in times of moral crisis, what moral crisis exists today? The great moral crisis today is the "rabbis" who have decided they are greater than the Shulchan Aruch and the opinions of great rabbis back to the Rishonim. 
• Not long ago we had a trial in Trenton New Jersey of Orthodox people, including a Rosh Yeshiva from Monsey and other people known in their communities are prominent "rabbis," of people who were kidnapping Orthodox husbands who would not give their wife a GET, (something permitted and demanded by Halacha in many cases), then they would torture the husbands hideously until they agreed to give a GET and say it was given willingly. These GETS are worthless and the women marrying with them are having babies mamzerim. 
• The style of "rabbis" to demonize men and tell women to force a GET by going to secular court or by more primitive forcing like ORA is making more and more mamzerim. One day these mamzerim will grow up and want to go to Yeshiva. 
• Today increasingly women are simply told to leave their husbands with no GET and remarry. Such is the work of the Philadelphia Kaminetskies, who are reshoim gemurim, but most people don't like to do anything about it. And those who help these reshoim gemurim have a special room in the hot place. I mean Dovid Feinstein whose "beth din" hasn't gotten around to telling Tamar to leave her boyfriend because she is married to somebody else and has no GET. I mean Hillel David who told me that the Beth Din's decision that nobody knows about is not my business, and I should inquire about it from Shmuel Kaminetsky. Obviously, the Beth Din was made not to spare a child from being born a mamzer, but to remake Shmuel Kaminetsky back from a Rosho to a Gadol . Why? He needed them to repair his destroyed reputation when the senior rabbis attacked his lies and hideous hurting of Aharon Friedman so that Tamar could remarry with no GET.
•  Everyone other than Dovid Feinstein and Hillel David knows that the Kaminetsky ideas are pure treifeh, and whoever encourages these horrors to become the public "Gedolim" will answer in another world.
• And the gemora Shabbos says that anyone who can save others from sin but refuses to do it, is punished for those sins. The marriage of Tamar to a man not her husband with no GET is a terrible sin and if they have a child it will be a mamzer. But Feinstein and David don't care. Their political problems require making a Beth Din whose entire purpose is to enable a zona to sleep with a man who may produce a mamzer, as any child will be a mamzer.
• There are other 'rabbis' who tell men and women to remarry with no GET although this makes mamzerim for the woman who remarries with no GET. I have described some of them elsewhere. But here I just want to emphasize that we have nobody in America who fights these things, other than my brother and myself, and people know it, and women are encouraged by the Beth Din of Feinstein and David to force their husband to divorce which makes mamzerim or to remarry with no GET and make mamzerim.
• The only solution is for more people to learn the laws of Gittin so that the false 'rabbis' will be shame for their hideous mamzer making.

I am sad that nobody knows the Mishneh to refute the RCA prenup, and nobody defends the honor of Gadol HaDor Ovadiah Yosef from the fool who said he backed the RCA prenup.

From Daas Torah my brother's blog. The comments are mine.

What is wrong with the RCA's prenup? Even I know the answer to that. It is a Mishneh in Nedorim 90B quoted in Kesubose 36b Tosfose and Rabbeinu Tam. The Mishneh says that a woman has no power to force the husband to give her a GET, no matter what she claims or says. Therefore, when the RCA prenup is designed to empower the woman to force the husband to give her a GET, which is a clear violation of that Mishneh, as taught in the above Tosfose in Kesubose by Rabbeinu Tam, it is proof that the RCA Prenup is invalid.

Another problem. It seems that somebody has investigated and has assured everybody that the Gadol  HaGaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef, zt"l, supports the RCA Prenup, which is a pure lie. Why? How do I know? Nobody told me that. But I read the document and it is not a prenup, period. It is similar in many ways to the classic sefer Nachalas Shiva chapter 9 the first document, about a woman who fled her home because her husband mistreated her. The law is that such a husband must pay his wife twelve golden coins every month she lives with her father. Also, Beth Din is summoned and will settle things in the marriage and the wife will, hopefully, accept her husband now under control of the Beth Din, and there will be Shalom in the house.

The document of the Gaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef zt"l is similar to that. It also begins with a husband who sees his wife leave the house, probably his fault to some degree. He right away sends her some money, and pledges to send some more later, but the amount is up to him to sign. He then summons a Beth Din, that is, he summons the Beth Din, the Beth Din does not take over like the RCA Beth Din wants to do. And the Beth Din settles the problem in the marriage. And if the husband accepts the Beth Din's decision and the wife refuses it, she is out of the picture. This is no prenup like the RCA makes, that wipes out a husband and forces him to divorce his wife. Here the husband is in complete control. So how can anyone say, as Harry Maryles does, that he checked it out and Rav Ovadiah Yosef supports the RCA prenup?

Fact it, it really bothers me that nobody came up with the Mishneh that destroys the RCA prenup, and nobody had the common sense to check out the document of the Gaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef zt"l, and to protect his holy name from the ignorant idiocies of somebody who decided that Gadol HaDor supported the RCA prenup.

Refuting the RCA Prenup

Refuting the RCA Prenup - Text of the RCA prenup argument and my comments that the RCA prenup is forbidden for many reasons.

David Eidensohn <eidensohnd@gmail.com>

August 19.2017

Refuting the RCA Prenup

By Rav Dovid Eidensohn Monsey NY

Jewish Divorce and the Role of The Prenup

The Torah views marriage as a vital institution in Jewish life. But the Torah also recognizes that in some cases marriages do not work out and need to be ended. In order to do so, the husband must willingly give, and the wife must willingly receive, a Jewish bill of divorce, known as a Get. In the absence of a Get, the husband and wife are both precluded from remarrying. Later offspring of the wife may bear the stigma of mamzerut (illegitimacy).

Dovid Eidensohn comments: Later offspring of the wife may bear the stigma of mamzerut (illegitimacy). I feel it is important to be more specific about what makes mamzerut from a married woman. Mamzerut from a married woman comes about if she sleeps with another man not her husband. A woman who hates her husband may be easily tempted to sleep with another man not her husband. But what is happening today is that many “rabbis” have invented a new law, that a husband who does not give a GET willingly when the wife demands it, may be forced to give a GET. A forced GET is invalid and if the woman remarries with an invalid GET her children from the new husband are mamzerim. The sin of forcing a GET is a Rashbo in VII:414 and it is quoted by all five poskim in the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer Laws of Kesubose 77 par 2 and 3. The Vilna Gaon there says that everybody agrees to this. Everybody, except the RCA and its “Gedolim.” But what I just said is really a bit old fashioned. The new style, pioneered by a certain Rosh Yeshiva in Philadelphia, is to tell a woman she doesn’t need a GET, but she can just leave her husband. That surely makes mamzerim. But we have a case in Philadelphia where the woman who left without a GET is living with a strange man and both of them have bought an ad on the Yeshiva Kollel dinner. This shows you where the world is going when you invent the new Torah.

 This is also something done by Rabbi Gedaliah Schwartz and I spoke to him about it and he said that he allowed two Orthodox spouses to leave when they wanted a GET because they didn’t need a GET. I asked him why they didn’t need a GET when they were Orthodox, the witnesses were Orthodox, the woman got a ring from the husband and they lived together for a month. He replied “Because there was no Biah.” The halacha clearly taught in the Tur Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer laws of Kiddushin chapter 26 is that there are three ways to acquire a woman in marriage. One is giving her a valuable. One is giving her a marriage document. And another way is Biah. Thus, either one of these three acquisitions suffices; it is not necessary to combine two or three together, and if a man gives a woman a valuable or money that is enough, no Biah is required, and no marital document is required. This is a clear teaching in the Tur Even Hoezer in the beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin, but the senior expert in Gittin in the RCA did not know this. What else don’t they know in the RCA? Are we going to have a prenup made for all RCA people when the senior rabbi of the RCA doesn’t know the first law of Kiddushin and sends a man and woman away without a GET although they asked for a GET?

The Tur Even Hoezer 76 and the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 76 paragraph 11 say that a husband who does not fulfill his obligation to give his wife marital satisfaction may, at times, not be able to stay married to her and must give a GET. This applies to the husband who is unable to be with his wife in marital terms due to his physical condition that he is sick or weak. If the problem lasts more than six months the husband is obligated to give his wife a GET, unless she specifically forgives him. In paragraph 13 the Shulchan Aruch deals with a man who simply refuses to have relations with his wife, period, not now and not later and not ever.  Such a person must give his wife a divorce if she demands it. I mention this because in the case of Rabbi Gedaliah Schwartz sending two Orthodox Jews who married with a rain in an Orthodox ceremony with Orthodox witnesses, etc., why did Rabbi Gedaliah Schwartz refuse to give them a GET when they asked for it? He told me he did that because there was no Biah. But we showed before that the Shulchan Aruch and the Tur clearly teach that the ring is enough to acquire the wife in marriage, not Biah is necessary.

Somebody suggested that perhaps the fact that the husband was unable to perform somehow created a situation where the Kiddushin were negated and there was no marriage and thus no need for a GET. But the Shulchan Aruch we quoted and the Tur in chapter 76 clearly state that a husband who cannot, physically, satisfy his wife, or who refuses to ever give his wife marital satisfaction, is obliged to give a GET. The exact words are “He must divorce her and give her a Kesubo.” Now, surely, somebody who has to give a Kesubo, which could be a large sum of money, only does that when there is a valid Kiddushin. So if there is a Kesubo, surely there is a valid Kiddushin. But the husband must give a GET to release his wife from living without intimacy. What Rabbi Schwartz did to send husband and wife away with no GET is completely wrong.

 End comment D.E.

RCA says

In some cases, spouses have purposely withheld a get even where their marriages have functionally ended. Some spouses have refused to participate in the get process in order to extract concessions in divorce negotiations, in order to extort money, or simply out of spite.

Dovid Eidensohn: It is true that not all husbands willingly give a GET because the wife demands one. The above comment is true, but we are left with the question of why the author did not write a bit longer to explain two things. One, that the halacha in Even Hoezer 77 par 2 and 3 as taught by all five poskim there, the Shulchan Aruch, the Ramo, the Gro, the Beis Shmuel and the Chelkas Mechokake say clearly that a husband must not be pressured to give a GET. If the GET is pressured, it is very possible it would be invalid, and the woman using it to remarry would have a problem if her children are kosher children. The Gro there has a very long discussion of this and says that everyone agrees with this not to force the husband to give a GET. The PRENUP, of course, is simply a device to force a GET from the husband. The RCA wants to make it standard so that all woman can force their husband to give a GET whenever they want out. This is forbidden by a Mishneh Nedorim 90B that although originally, we believed women in their stories that required a Beth Din to force the husband to give a GET, this practice stopped when it became a problem because a woman could possibly use her stories not because they were true but because she found a cute fellow she wants to marry. This is the halacha and the basis for not believing women who demand a GET from their husband because he is disgusting to them, as taught by Rabbeinu Tam in Tosfose Kesubose 63b.

        If it was permitted to force the husband to give a GET, if the husband loves his children and the wife wants to take them to a distant place, why should he just fork over the GET? Is he a human being or a creature for the woman to control? But let us keep to the point. The halacha is that a husband may not be forced to give a GET and may not be pressured. The Shita in Kesubose says that one may not tell the husband it would be a proper thing to give a GET.

Traditionally, rabbinical courts (batei din) have been charged with the responsibility of overseeing the process of Jewish divorce, and ensuring that get is not improperly withheld.

Dovid Eidensohn: The Chazon Ish says Even Hoezer Noshim Gittin 99:2 that any force on the husband can ruin the GET. He says that a Beth Din that requires the husband to give a GET and the husband is not one of those very few people in Shulchan Aruch required to give a GET, then the GET is invalid for two reasons. One, it is a GET given by the husband with force, because a Beth Din that forces has the status of ONESS, unless the Shulchan Aruch says clearly that it is a mitsvah to force the GET. Secondly, if the husband would know that the Beth Din made a mistake to force him because the Shulchan Aruch does not consider him to be a person who may be forced to give a GET, he never would have given the GET. Therefore, the GET is invalid for two reasons, ONESS and error, and is on both counts botel min haTorah.

      To show just how delicate all of this is. The Shulchan Aruch has a discussion about a husband who is a MUMAR, he changed his religion and no longer believes in the Torah or practices Judaism. Can he be forced to give a GET? The Yam Shel Shlomo discusses this in the sefer of teshuvose of Maharshal, Ramo, and Maharam Lublin: See Maharshal teshuvo 41. If the Mumar can maintain marital relations with the wife ??? ???? ?????? even if he has changed religions and doesn’t keep the Torah we don’t force him to give a GET. Maybe the wife will influence him to change back to being a Jew. The Maharam is quoted by Maharshal that we don’t force a Meshumed to give a GET. In Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 154:1 we have an argument if a Mumar can be forced to give a GET.

       The idea that Beth Din can just order husbands to give a GET or suffer is not based on the Shulchan Aruch and it ignores the Chazon Ish. Again, the statement by the RCA that a Beth Din of the RCA can control whether a GET should be given is completely wrong.

However, in modern society batei din frequently lack the authority to do so. The Prenup is a document entered into by a man and woman prior to their marriage. It provides that in the unfortunate event of divorce, the beit din will have the proper authority to ensure that the get is not used as a bargaining chip.

Prenup essentially contains two provisions:

1.     Each spouse agrees to appear before a panel of Jewish law judges (dayanim) arranged by the Beth Din of America, if the other spouse demands it, and to abide by the decision of the Beth Din with respect to the get.

Dovid Eidensohn: The RCA wants everyone to sign a prenup and this would require everyone to come to the RCA Beth Din. But the RCA Beth Din has members who are not great believers in the Shulchan Aruch and Poskim especially when it comes to demonizing husbands and protecting women. Therefore, no husband should ever sign a prenup that forces him to go to a RCA Beth Din.

2.     If the couple separates, the Jewish law obligation of the husband to support his wife is formalized, so that he is obligated to pay $150 per day (indexed to inflation), from the date he receives notice from her of her intention to collect that sum, until the date a Jewish divorce is obtained. This support obligation ends if the wife fails to appear at the Beth Din of America or to abide by a decision of the Beth Din of America.

Dovid Eidensohn - If the couple separates, the Jewish law obligation of the husband to support his wife is formalized, so that he is obligated to pay $150 per day (indexed to inflation), from the date he receives notice from her of her intention to collect that sum, until the date a Jewish divorce is obtained. “If the couple separates” means that the wife walks out of the house. If so, the husband is obligated immediately to start paying her $150 a day. This is called by the RCA “the Jewish law obligation of the husband to support his wife.” Where does it say in Jewish law that the wife who walks out on the husband must be paid $150 a day or anything? See Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 70 the obligation of the husband to feed his wife and children. The sums there are about a wife who lives in the house not one who ran away.  And the sums there are nothing like $150 a day. This prenup is pure blackmail to force a GET whenever the wife wants it. And that, specifically is forbidden by the Mishneh in Nedorim 90B, because if a woman has the power to force a GET she can just decide to remarry and find someboy cuter than her husband. Therefore, the Mishneh clearly says that we don’t allow a woman the power to force a GET, ever. If Beth Din or proper witnesses can testify that the husband is somebody who must be forced to give a GET, that is one thing. But the wife herself cannot force a GET, period. This is because we fear she wants to change husbands. ??????? ??? ????? ???? ????. This is also quoted in Tosfose Kesubose63b by Rabbeinu Tam. Again, the statement that Jewish law obligates a husband to support his wife when she demands a GET and wants to leave the house is completely wrong. Also, forcing the husband to pay “the Jewish law obligation” is wrong because there is no such Jewish law. And forcing the husband to pay $150 a day to force him to give her a GET has nothing to do with Jewish law and is forbidden completely by Jewish law according to the Mishneh in Nedorim 90B.

3. Each of these provisions is important to ensure that a get is given by the husband to his wife in a timely manner following the functional end of a marriage. The first obligation grants authority to the rabbinical court to oversee the get process. The second obligation provides an incentive for the husband to abide by decisions of the rabbinical court, and give a get to his wife once the marriage is over and there is no hope of reconciliation.

Dovid Eidensohn: there is no hope of reconciliation. On my brother Daniel’s blog daattorah, there was, a year or two ago, a war between husband and wife and everyone thought that it would surely end quickly. Well, one day we had a picture of the two lovie dovies and to my knowledge that is the latest status. Anyone who says that “the marriage is over” is probably a feminist who wants to demonize men and support women. Incidentally, the horrible war against Aharon Friedman had the RCA ORA people in full throat to demonize him, and have him thrown out of the Washington shulls, but the wife, who ran away with their baby, is ignored. Now she left the husband with no GET, remarried a strange man, and by the RCA and its feminists, that is fine. She and her new boyfriend recently both signed up an ad for a Yeshiva affair in Philadelphia.  So the Washington rabbis and other RCA and feminist people hate Aharon Friedman, a person who followed exactly the instructions of the Baltimore Beth Din, and they love Tamar Epstein, who ran away with their baby and then left her husband and shacked up with a strange man with no GET. She is a zona but the Washington rabbis and the RCA and the feminists never criticize her.

There are at least four reasons to sign The Prenup:

1.     It is an act of kindness to prevent suffering. 

People follow the examples of others. Even if you are sure that the plight of the agunah (a woman whose marriage is functionally over, but whose husband refuses to give her a get) will never be your own, you should sign The Prenup as part of an effort to make The Prenup a standard part of every Jewish wedding. If our collective actions can bring that about, we will have played an important role in solving one of the great crises of Jewish life in modern times, and we will prevent other people from suffering.

Dovid Eidensohn – Does the Prenup present kindness and prevent suffering? Is the man who must divorce his wife and leave his children and maybe get kicked out of his house suffer? Well, that doesn’t count. RCA are feminists. But even feminists must realize that some of the children who will suffer from the divorce of the father may be girls. Is the RCA sure that all girls are thrilled when their father is forced to break up the family?

2.     It is a pragmatic document.

Aside from the inherent emotional trauma of a divorce, divorces often result in prolonged and expensive battles over finances and custody. In some cases, adding the issue of the get, and when and whether it will be given, can serve to add mistrust and emotional upheaval to a process that is already very painful. By signing The Prenup, couples ensure that if the tragedy of divorce ever befalls them, the get will not become an issue of contention.

Dovid Eidensohn- As we mentioned earlier, the RCA neglects to mention that a clear Mishneh in the Talmud, 90b in Nedorim, clearly forbids a woman to be able to say something and force a GET. But who cares about a Mishneh if you are a feminist? And incidentally, the teaching of the Mishneh, that when a woman demands a GET with the strongest reasoning in the world she can’t get it, because we suspect her of saying things to get rid of her husband so she can marry somebody else ??? ????? ???? ???? is also mentioned in Tosfose Kesubose 63B. But the RCA is so busy inventing a new Torah it has no time for Mishnehs and Tosfose.

3. It is an opportunity for a couple, on the eve of their wedding, to demonstrate their respect for each other.

The Prenup is a commitment between husband and wife that even in the very worst scenario, even if their relationship falters unimaginably, they will not harm each other and will treat one another with respect and basic dignity. There is no better way to start off a marriage than to say to your partner: Even in the very worst circumstance, even if this union should end, Heaven forbid, I will not allow myself to act indecently toward you.

Dovid Eidensohn – A wife who forces a husband who is struggling financially to fork over every day $150 is concerned about respect for each other?

4. To protect yourself. 

Marriage is an act of trust. Most often we trust that our marriage will be successful, and that the person we are marrying would never do anything to harm us. There are no guarantees in life, and it is important to take safeguards to protect ourselves from harm in the future.

Dovid Eidensohn – Yes, the RCA has revealed to us that when the husband signs over his life to his wife who threatens to rip his pants off financially, and she then takes the GET and kicks him out of the house, this is because the RCA has declared that “marriage is an act of trust.”

The Prenup was drafted by Rabbi Mordechai Willig, Sgan Av Beth Din of the Beth Din of America, and a Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, in consultation with halachic and legal experts. The concepts contained in The Prenup predate 1994, when it was introduced. In 1664, Rabbi Shmuel Ben David Moshe Halevi, the rabbi of Bamberg, Germany, published a compilation of Jewish legal forms called the Nachalas Shiva. One of the forms in that book is a version of the tana’im, a Jewish wedding document, with a provision that is very similar to The Prenup. In a footnote to that provision, the Nachalas Shiva cites some authorities who held that the provision dates back to the Takanos Shum, the authoritative communal enactments adopted in the early Middle Ages by the leaders of the German communities of Speyer, Worms and Mayence.

Dovid Eidensohn: The concepts contained in The Prenup predate 1994, when it was introduced. In 1664, Rabbi Shmuel Ben David Moshe Halevi, the rabbi of Bamberg, Germany, published a compilation of Jewish legal forms called the Nachalas Shiva. One of the forms in that book is a version of the tana’im, a Jewish wedding document, with a provision that is very similar to The Prenup.

When I heard once the RCA claim that the source of the prenup was the work Nachalas Shiva I found in chapter nine the first document whereby a wife was mistreated by her husband and she fled to her father’s house. The Beth Din was summoned but it will take time for it to get organized to hear the case. Therefore, on the document prepared for just such a problem, it says that when the wife flees the house of the husband and stays with her father, the husband must pay for her food on a regular basis until the Beth Din will deal with the case and hopefully restore the marriage. This is not a prenup. A prenup is about breaking a marriage and forcing the husband to pay money until he gives a GET. That case is about a husband who forced the wife to leave the house and he has to pay her for her food until the Beth Din meets, and will surely make sure that the husband learns to behave in the house. If so, this is not a prenup that breaks up a marriage, but a sum to keep the wife in food until the Beth Din can restore the marriage when the husband is told how to behave in the house with his wife. Also, the RCA prenup is designed to break the husband financially to pay $150 a day until he gives her the GET. This is about fifty thousand dollars a year. The story of the woman who fled her house has the husband paying once a month for her food, nothing more.  How can Rabbi Willig compare these two things and say that the story of feeding his wife for a month or so is the same as his prenup that forces every husband to spend fifty thousand dollars a year or give a GET? I also checked out his claim that the Nachalas Shiva presents something like a prenup calling it similar to Takanas Shume. I checked out the statements in the Nachalas Shiva and Takanas Shume, and there are many references to Takanas Shume. But what I saw of the references are about a wedding when each side pledges money to the other side. If the wife is pledged valuables and she dies, what is done with the money? That is the Takana of Shume, and what to do with a dead wife’s property has nothing to do with a prenup. There are also other Takanas to take care of problems that arise in the marriage similar to the death of the wife I mentioned before.

Bottom line: The RCA is doing a terrible sin by presenting Prenups. The Mishneh in Nedorim 90B clearly forbids giving a woman the power to force a GET on her husband in any circumstances. We fear that she merely wants to find a new husband. This is repeated in Kesubose 63b in Tosofse. The incredible amounts of money the husband has to pay, about fifty thousand dollars a year, have absolutely no source anywhere in the Torah. The halacha of how much a husband has to pay for his wife’s food is a tiny, tiny fraction of that. See Even Hoezer chapter 70.

The RCA prenup is a document that is designed for all families that belong to the RCA to sign upon their marriage. A person who refuses to sign it or a similar document is considered an enemy of women which in the RCA is a very serious crime. Therefore, we ask a simple question. Let us take me as an example. I marry a woman. Fine. But assume that I am part of the RCA and get told that all RCA people are to sign prenups. If I resist I am looking for trouble. I am defying the entire RCA that has made the prenup the solution for all problems women have with Kiddushin. Now my wife is urged to really let me have it and force me to sign the prenup. At this point, if I refuse, I am starting off my marriage on the wrong foot. This could be real trouble. Maybe if the rabbis in the RCA get to my wife there will be a real GET. So, what can I do? Either I break my marriage and give her a GET, or else get ready for a rocky life. This is ONESS, a force done by the RCA that pressures husbands to sign a prenup. Any husband who signs such a document gets absolutely nothing out of it other than the distinct possibility that at any juncture in his marriage the wife can threaten him to do something or else. This is a terrible ONESS or threat and it certainly has all of the ingredients, not of a prenup, but of a forced prenup, and a forced prenup is only for one purpose, to create a forced GET. That GET is very likely forced and invalid, and if the wife gets a divorce with such a prenup, her next children will be most likely mamzerim.

Furthermore,  in Choshen Mishpot we have great emphasis in chapter 2007-208 about ?????? when somebody performs a monetary act that he is not really interested in keeping. An ??????  can often be invalid. This prenup is an ideal candidate for ??????. It is an ideal candidate for a woman having the power to get rid of her husband whenever she wants and find another husband. This is known as ??? ????? ???? ???? maybe her eyes are set on another man to become her husband. Here we have serious problems with the prenup. And the statements of Rabbi Willig that he found similarities to prenup in Nachalas Shiva is pure baloney. Interestingly enough, he doesn’t tell us where those similarities are in that book, as I did. He just said things that are as far as I can tell are completely wrong.

Bottom Line: Any man  who signs an RCA prenup is signing away his life. And all of the reasoning quoted here from the RCA to show how the husband benefits from signing away his life, are completely ridiculous. They are also violations of the Mishneh in Nedorim 90b and the Mishneh in Kesubose 63b that we do not allow a woman the power to switch husbands ??? ????? ???? ????. The prenup is also likely to be ?????? which is a commitment a person makes but doesn’t really mean it. What can be more of an ??????  than a man signing an RCA prenup?

The Chazon Ish we mention above says that a Beth Din that orders a husband to give his wife a divorce and the husband is not one of the very few people that the Shulchan Aruch says must give a GET to his wife, that the GET is invalid by the Torah because the Beth Din ordered it which is in the category of ONESS or force, and the GET is botel min haTorah. Also, if the husband would have known that the Beth Din are mistaken and have no right to order him to give a GET, he never would have done it. Two reasons why the GET is botel by the Torah when the RCA Beth Din requires a prenup.

I feel I have presented effective reasons why I oppose Prenups. The question is only when the RCA succeeds in making many men write prenups, and they divorce their wives as per her request, and then the wife remarries, and people like me think it is a question of mamzeruth for her new children, what happens then? At this point, I am probably going to say it like it is. I think those babies born from those prenup ladies who forced their husbands to give a GET are probably mamzerim. I say probably because there are various halachic aspects besides the basic questions that I presented. If the husband assumed that his wife would not demand a GET, does his agreement to sign the prenup become asmachto, an insincere obligation, when she does demand the GET? And if the prenup is asmachto or invalid, how can the RCA force the husband to honor the prenup which he now knows is an insincere signing of a document. A prenup is the ultimate document signed with insincere reasons or doubts and it is probably invalid. But the RCA is not troubled with this or the Mishna or the Tosfose or the Chazon Ish. It just wants to save the world with prenups, an act will surely produce many mamzerim.

Question: If the husband knew his wife would live with him a few years, have a few children, and then kick him out of the house, would he have signed the prenup? Of course not. If so, the entire signing is asmachto.

But for now I want Rabbi Willig to explain to me why his Prenup is permitted based upon the Mishneh in Nedorim 90B. And does he dismiss the Tosfose in Kesubose 63b that we suspect a woman of saying something to get a GET so she can remarry with a new husband? And is he sure that the Chazon Ish is wrong when he says that a Beth Din that demands a GET produces a GET that is ??? ????????? for two reasons? And I want him to perform the impossible by showing me a real proof in the Nachalas Shiva that prenups are kosher and acceptable.

2016 Resolution: Requiring the Use of Prenuptial Agreements for the Prevention of Get-refusal 

Adopted by direct vote of the RCA membership.

Click here for press release.

Sep 22, 2016 -- Whereas our tradition celebrates married couples living together in peace and harmony, in love and devotion all of their lives; and,

Whereas the Torah recognizes that some marriages cannot be sustained and therefore provides procedures for the termination of those marriages; and,

Whereas in some unfortunate instances a husband or wife refuses to cooperate with the appropriate instructions of a beth din regarding the termination of their marriage with a get, thereby preventing their spouse from building a new family life; and,

Whereas the prenuptial agreement of the Beth Din of America (BDA) has obtained the approval of dozens of leading rabbinic authorities and remains, in the eyes of both activists and scholars, the single most effective solution to the agunah problem; and

Whereas even those members of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) who follow rabbinic authorities who rule differently than those of the BDA can use a different prenuptial agreement that meets the requirements of their rabbinic authorities

Therefore the Rabbinical Council of America declares that each of its members must utilize, in any wedding at which he is the officiant (mesader kiddushin), in addition to a ketubah, a rabbinically-sanctioned prenuptial agreement, where available, that aids in our community's efforts to ensure the timely and unconditional issuance of a get.

A PRENUP IS FORBIDDEN BY THE MISHNEH IN NEDORIM 90B

The Mishneh in Nedorim 90B is about a woman who tells her husband she slept with another man. The Beth Din believes the woman and forces the husband to give her a GET. But times changed, and women were suspected of lying in order to find a new husband. Then the halacha was changed that no woman has the power to force the husband to give her a GET. That is stated clearly in the Mishneh. In Kesubose 63b Tos אבל אמרה says that a woman is not believed to force her husband to give her a GET when she says מאוס עלי because she is suspected of lying in order to find another husband. Thus, whether the woman claims to be forbidden to her husband to force a GET or a woman claims to hate her husband to force a GET, we fear that she wants to find another husband and don't believe her. A prenup that allows a woman to demand a large sum of money to force a GET is also the same, the rabbis do not allow a woman to force a GET as they fear she is lying and just wants another husband.

Someone wants to prove that a prenup is permitted from נחחלת שבעה in my edition page 33 chapter 9. There it is talking about a man who abused his wife and she ran away to her father. The Beth Din will soon gather to judge the man and force him to behave with his wife. But in the interim, say a few weeks, the wife stays with her father and the husband must pay for her food  the sum of ten pieces of gold every month until the Beth Din settles the case and the husband behaves. This is not the prenup whereby the husband must sign an obligation to give the wife a huge sum of money or give his wife a GET, because that is designed to force the husband who cannot afford such as monetary loss to give his wife a GET.  There the purpose of the money is to force a GET. In the Nachalas Shiva the purpose of the money is to prolong the marriage, so that husband will pay for the wife's food before the Beth Din can deal with the case, and then the Beth Din will force the husband to behave and they will hopefully live happily ever after.  

Again, the prenup is forbidden and this is an open Mishneh in Nedorim 90B. Anyone who permits a prenup is somebody who can't read a Mishneh and denies a Tosfose in Kesubose 63b.

Dovid Eidensohn 845-578-1917

Rabbi Knofler curses me that I should be bitten by a snake for choosing Pilegesh over mamzerim. My response.

R Knofler's curse on me which he sent to all of my recipients of my blog that פורץ גדר ישכנו נחש that R Knofler cursed me to be bitten by a snake, requires me to  respond to him. I called him up and protested his cursing me. He thought it was a big joke. I told him that when I respond to his remarks, he won't think it will be a big joke. Anyone who publicly states such a thing, besides it being a curse, shows that he is a complete ignoramus, which is not a rare thing among today's Gittin rabbis. There are many of them who think that forcing a GET is wonderful way to help ladies who take Kiddushin and can't get the husband to give them a willing GET. And then we have those rabbis such as Gedaliah Schwartz and Shmuel Kaminetsky who are known to tell women to remarry with no GET. I personally spoke to Gedaliah Schwartz about this and he was honest enough to admit it. The bottom line is that today in American and throughout the world, women are leaving their Kiddushin husbands without a GET or with a forced GET. Such a forced GET and surely no GET means that when the woman remarries with an invalid GET or no GET her children from the new husband are mamzerim. I say, better Pilegesh than mamzerim. We find in Shulchan Aruch then when a mamzer is born and people know about it, which includes all of the women who had no kosher GET but an invalid forced GET, or who had no GET at all, because people do know who they are, it is an obligation to publicize that such a person is a mamzer. Only if there is a whole family with maybe one person a problem we don't have an obligation to publicize it other than a rabbi to a few people. 

The discussion about Pilegesh is in Shulchan Aruch in the very beginning of Laws of Kiddushin chapter 26:1. There we find that if a Pilegesh fears to go to the Mikva it is a terrible problem. But if she goes to the Mikva the first shita in the Ramo is that a Pilegesh is permitted, of course, if she goes to the Mikva. The Vilna Gaon there says that the opinion that Pilegesh is permitted is an open gemora in Sanhedrain 21A, that Pilegesh is without Kiddushin. Meaning that Pilegesh is a real form of marriage. The Ramban says clearly in Mehuchesses of the Rashbo which contains certain teachings clearly labelled as not the Rashbo but the Ramban, we find the Ramban very strongly backing Pilegesh, and he says that the Rambam himself, if the couple marries a real marriage which is not Zenuce, approves of Pilegesh. I feel that with all of the rabbis who don't know hilchose Gittin and are encouraging women to remarry with invalid Gittin or no Gittin, and these women will make mamzerim, and it gets worse all of the time, it is better to do Pilegesh which is permitted by an open gemora than to do Kiddushin and make mamzerim. The Yaavets also strongly backs Pilegesh. But nobody backs mamzerim. 

Thus somebody who curses me for choosing Pilegesh over mamzerim, and then he laughs at the curse when I call him up, has a very interesting way of showing how a head of a Gittin Beth Din is supposed to behave.

I DO NOT FORGIVE HIS CURSE AND I DON'T FORGIVE HIS LAUGHING AT ME WHEN I ASKED HIM ABOUT IT. 

 LET HIM EXPLAIN WHY HE IGNORES THE MODERN VIOLATION OF HALOCHO WHERE MANY WOMEN ARE TAUGHT BY RABBIS TO FORCE THE HUSBAND TO GIVE A GET EITHER BY GOING TO SECULAR COURT OR OTHER WAYS OF FORCING OR AS SOME DO THEY JUST LEAVE THE HUSBAND WITHOUT A GET. DOES HE BELIEVE THAT THESE WOMEN WILL HAVE MAMZERIM? DOES HE BELIEVE THAT FORCING A GET IS A MINOR SIN? LET HIM LOOK IN EVEN HOEZER KESUBOSE 77:2 IN THE GRO #5 WHO SAYS THAT EVERYONE AGREES THAT A GET MAY NOT BE FORCED AND HE REFERS TO TOSFOSE KESUBOSE 63b IN RABBEINU TAM WHO SAYS THAT THERE IS A CLEAR GEMORA IN NEDORIM 90B THAT IN EARLIER GENERATIONS WOMEN WHO SAID CERTAIN THINGS MERITED THAT BETH DIN FORCED THE GET BUT IN LATTER GENERATIONS THIS STOPPED BECAUSE WE ARE AFRAID THAT SHE JUST WANTS TO MARRY ANOTHER MAN SO SHE SAYS LIES ABOUT HER HUSBAND TO FORCE HIM TO GIVE A GET. IF SO THIS IS A LAW FROM THE MISHNEH THAT TODAY NO WOMAN CAN BE GIVEN THE POWER TO FORCE HER HUSBAND TO DIVORCE HER. ON THE SAME PAGE WITH THE GRO IN KESUBOSE 77 THE SHULCHAN ARUCH AND THE RAMO AND THE BEIS SHMUEL AND THE CHELKAS MECHOKAKE ALL AGREE, AND THEY QUOTE A RASHBO VII: 414 THAT THE HUSBAND MAY NOT BE PRESSURED TO GIVE HIS WIFE A GET. 

questions about the Laws of Pilegesh from Deena Tova

marriage be allowed to remarry her first husband if the second one died (or "divorced") her?
Questions about the Laws of Pilegesh from Deena Tova on my blog torahhalacha.blogspot.com.

Deena Tova

Questions;
1) A women who had a kosher divorce and remarried a second husband with a pelegesh marriage. Is she allowed to remarry her first husband if the second one died (or "divorced") her?
2) Would a kohen who married using a pelegesh marriage be allowed to stay with his wife if she was lo alanu raped.
3) Would the children of a pelegesh marriage of the father being a kohen be considered kosher kohanim?
4) Would a man be allowed to marry more than one wife with a pelegesh marriage?
5) Would a women who married by pelegesh marriage and "divorced" be allowed to marry a kohen?
6) Why would there be a problem about a lady going to a regular mikvah? Who has to know if it is a marriage by kiddushin or by pelegesh marriage?
7) Would this solve problems if a husband dies but it can't be proven, or he disappears, that the wife could somehow get remarried?
8) Would this mean that the wife’s earning in a pelegesh marriage belongs to her?

Thank you very much for your really excellent questions. First of all, when somebody wants to know what the halacha is in a specific case, there are two kinds. One is a case, such as is a food kosher, or what we may do on Shabbos, which is something taught in many books easily available, and is well known to the various rabbis who work in these areas regularly. Then there is a question about Pilegesh. Who today is involved in these questions? There are here or there somebody married as a Pilegesh, but I don’t know how many rabbis are experts in the halacha of Pilegesh.

Second of all, when I suggest somebody marrying with Pilegesh, it is mainly because I have a terrible fear of Kiddushin. For most women, when the marriage sours, they will find a “rabbi” who will tell them to force a GET from their husband, and some of them, all over the world now, just tell a woman to leave with no GET! Children born from an invalid GET or surely from no GET are mamzerim. Thus, when I trumpet how important Pilegesh is, it is because most women today cannot be trusted to spend their whole lives with a husband they don’t like. People like that should not marry with Kiddushin in the first place. For them Pilegesh is preferable. Whenever she wants, she just leaves. And the gemora in Sanhedrin 21A, quoted by the Vilna Gaon in the beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin in Shulchan Aruch, clearly states that people may marry a Pilegesh without making Kiddushin.

Thus, I would not necessarily tell a woman who is positive she can maintain her life with a bad husband forever, with never violating the Torah and making an invalid GET or no GET, to marry not with Kiddushin but with Pilegesh. Having said that, another side of me says that today things are bad, and in ten years, they will be much worse, and in twenty years, very, very bad. That is what is happening today. If so, I would really be happy if no woman marries with Kiddushin, because who knows?

We have two major poskim who strongly suggest marrying with Pilegesh. One is the Ramban and the other is Reb Yaacov Emden, son of the Chacham Tsvi. The Ramban states clearly that Pilegesh is permitted, period. He even claims that the Rambam agreed with him.  The other person is Reb Yaacov Emden, who is very strong about encouraging Pilegesh, but for different reasons. He maintains that many people need the freedom to marry a Pilegesh, for various reasons. His approach is that Pilegesh can save many people from many terrible sins and problems.

My great fear today of women stuck in marriages done with Kiddushin is rooted in the reality that today major rabbis, the biggest names, are encouraging many women to remarry without a kosher GET and thus have children who are mamzerim. The count of mamzerim is going to rise more and more and the only hope is Pilegesh. Pilegesh is the only way to solve the problem of making mamzerim with invalid Gittin. Unless the husband dies!

Now let us get to the excellent questions. Some questions can have a strong answer and some a doubtful answer, but at least, let us try to answer as well as we can. That is, when we have to answer a question we like to find sources that say clearly what the answer is. But in Pilegesh there are very few sources that tell us clear answers, and even the ones who do tell us various things don’t do it in the clearest fashion. So, some questions here will be answered one way and some the other. I will do what I can bli neder.

Let me add another important thing. The laws of Pilegesh are much more lenient than the laws of Kiddushin. People today are accustomed to Kiddushin and yet, to avoid mamzerim, we encourage people to think about marrying with Pilegesh. And yet, if we talk about the leniencies some rabbis have in Pilegesh, we will lose respect for those who considered marriage in conservative terms. I am very strong in that. Meaning that I believe that somebody who wants to marry Pilegesh must only do it with a rabbi and preferably a Beth Din backing them. This Beth Din, I feel, must prepare for the Pilegesh people the ability to leave the marriage at any time, to avoid the terror of Agunose. But to go into the leniencies some rabbis may have for Pilegesh can spoil people’s appreciation or acceptance of Pilegesh. Therefore, I want to present Pilegesh mainly as a regular marriage with a conservative bent, the exception being that the Pilegesh people can leave at any time with no penalty. The answers I supply here reflect this latter conservative belt.

Questions from Deena Tova;
1) A women had a kosher divorce and remarried a second husband with a pelegesh marriage. Is she  allowed to remarry her first husband if the second one died (or "divorced") her?

Answer from Dovid Eidensohn

Questions from Deena Tova;
1) A women had a kosher divorce and remarried a second husband with a pelegesh marriage. Is she  allowed to remarry her first husband if the second one died (or "divorced") her?

Answer from Dovid Eidensohn

If the first husband gave her kiddushin, as it seems from the question, and then made a kosher divorce, that husband still has a connection with the divorced lady, from Kiddushin. If so, if the lady married previously with kiddushin then married with Pilegesh, whereby the husband does not acquire here and there is no compelling the woman to refrain from this or that husband, and no kiddushin that can interfere here, it would seem that she should be able to return to the first husband who does have a connection with her from his kiddushin. It makes no difference if the second Pilegesh husband died or “divorced” her, because Pilegesh doesn’t have the problems of Kiddushin, only basically to honor marriage with faithful dignity.

See also Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 12:7  “A Pilegesh is married to a man, and she decides to leave him and marry somebody else, must wait 92 days [as taught in the entire chapter there that people who may be pregnant must wait 92 days and some include even those who cannot have children, etc.] The Chelkas Mechokake there #6 who says, “We are talking that she became pregnant  in error, and yes, if a Pilegesh becomes pregnant from her [Pilegesh] husband and then she goes and takes Kiddushin marriage from another man, and then is divorced from him with a kosher GET, she may return to her first husband [married with Kiddushin], just as a woman married with Kiddushin who was divorced from him with a proper GET may remarry her Kiddushin husband, because a Pilegesh goes with the name of the first husband [who had Kiddushin].

2) Would a kohen who married using a pelegesh marriage be allowed to stay with his wife if she was lo alanu raped?

Answer: See Even Hoezer 6:10 – If the wife of a Kohen is slept with even if it was forced is forbidden to her husband. See Beis Shmuel there 22 that the wife is forbidden to her Kohen husband because she is a zona. Thus even if the rapist was a Yisroel or a gentile the wife becomes a zona because we rule that any one who is forbidden to marry the woman and sleeps with her in sin whether willingly or forced she becomes a zona and is forbidden to a Kohen. If the woman and her husband were Pilegesh  recall that the Ramban says clearly that Pilegesh marriage does not give the husband acquisition like Kiddushin, it does not forbid marrying somebody else as Kiddushin does, and it does not convey a holiness as Kiddushin does, and that holiness can make problems but only in Kiddushin, as it does not function with Pilegesh. On the other hand, Pilegesh is certainly a marriage, otherwise the Torah does not permit men and women to be together with Kiddushin or Pilegesh marriage. If Pilegesh is a marriage even if it has less strict laws than Kiddushin, it is still a marriage. And if it is a real Torah recognized marriage (see Sanhedrin 21A and the Gro in the beginning of the laws of Kiddushin in Shulchan Aruch) and if the woman would leave her husband and go down the block to sleep with somebody she would violate Pilegesh marriage, it is quite possible that the wife would even in rape, become a zonah. If so, she is forbidden to her Kohen husband. However, there is no open source for this and those who talk about Kiddushin and a woman who becomes a zona for sleeping with somebody forbidden to her, do not talk about Pilegesh. So I cannot be sure, because even the Ramban never said that Pilegesh is not a marriage. Because if it is not a marriage, is it from the street? If so, why is Pilegesh not forbidden if it not really a marriage?

3) Would the children of a pelegesh marriage of the father being a kohen be considered kosher kohanim?

Answer. Rav Yaacov Emden the son of the Chacham Tsvi in his sefer שאילת יעקץ  II:15 at the end says that “(in a Pilegesh marriage) the husband should explain to her that a child born from their Pilegesh marriage will be כשרים כשאר מיוחסים בישראל.” Pilegesh is a real marriage and the children are full Jewish children. If the father is a kohen and the marriage is Pilegesh his marriage is one כשאר מיוחסים בישראל. Thus, we would assume that the child is a Cohen. The exception might be in earlier times when Kohanim invented for their own pride higher standards for marriage. Most Jewish marriages give a woman two hundred zuz, but some Kohanim insisted on four hundred zuz. If, for some reason, the family didn’t want Israelites or Levites but only Cohanim, although this has nothing to do with halacha, the non-Kohen may not be welcomed, but not because she is Pilegesh, but because of the invention of higher standards which is a privilege of the priesthood, Kehuna at least in earlier times when people did these things. I don’t know if there are people today who do these things, I just don’t know.

4) Would a man be allowed to marry more than one wife with a pelegesh marriage?

Answer: It would seem from the Gaon Rav Yaacov Emnden at the end of his teshuva on Pilegesh II:15 that a Talmid Chochom had no children from his wife and therefore got permission to marry a Pilegesh to have a child, and this Rav Yaacov Emden praises and says that Pilegesh can save people from problems such as that. But that was an urgent problem and he doesn’t say that people can just go around marrying two or ten ladies with Pilegesh. Also, I personally would have nothing to do with people who marry with Pilegesh and then marry with such marriages, because it will destroy respect for Pilegesh. Right now there is a very strong push against Pilegesh, and to do these things just makes it worse. I tell people that Pilegesh is better than mamzerim, and that many rabbis permit forced marriages or no marriages for a woman with Kiddushin who wants to leave her husband even if that makes mamzerim. But these same “rabbis” may be against Pilegesh! And some people accept what I say because they know it is true. But if we start with these leniencies, I don’t know if people will tolerate it and it could bring Pilegesh crashing down chas vishalom, and then the mamzerim…

5) Would a women who married by pelegesh marriage and "divorced" be allowed to marry a kohen?

Answer: Rav Yaacov Emden quoted above says that a child from a Pilegesh marriage is כשרים כשאר מיוחסים בישראל. If so, I see no reason to forbid a Pilegesh woman from a Kohen. There were times when Kohanim made up higher standards for themselves than others, but I don’t know if today they do these things. Thus, such a question really belongs to the Kohen. Is he from such a group or family of Kohanim that feels denigrated by taking somebody who is not a Kohen or other such higher standards, and maybe, in that grouping, is a negation of Pilegesh. But if the Kohen himself has no such custom in his family, and the Yaavetz says as mentioned before that the child she will have from Pilegesh are like the מיוחסים בישראל I don’t see why there should be a problem. But again, this depends on whether the Cohanim themselves will accept this, and the one to ask is the husband she wants to marry, or perhaps a Rov who deals with Kohanim.

6  Why would there be a problem about a lady going to a regular mikvah? Who has to know if it is a marriage by kiddushin or by pelegesh marriage?

Answer: This is an area where the people who run the Mikva can make the rules. We had before about a Pilegesh marrying a Kohen. I said that some families of Kohanim have higher standards than the Shulchan Aruch about who they marry. The same is true about people who control the Mikva. They make up rules appropriate for their understanding. I was in Israel once talking to a Gadol HaDor and the Mikva lady came over and said that somebody wants to  use the Mikva, and it was a person that had a problem. The Rov thought a moment and then said let her enter. Yes, it is a mitsvah to go to the Mikva, but on the other hand, there may be, from the people running the Mikva, standards they feel are appropriate.

This is why it is important for people marrying with Pilegesh to work with a local Rov who will point out to them areas that could be a problem. A Mikva is one of these areas. Not because there is any kind of sin for a Pilegesh lady to go to the Mikva. This is clearly taught in the Shulchan Aruch beginning of laws of Kiddushin. If the Pilegesh goes to the Mikva, of course, they should do that. But the smart way is to have their supporting rabbi talk to those in charge of the Mikva so there won’t be problems. The case I mentioned above about a Gadol HaDor who was approached by the Mikva lady was also a case, as I recall, that the Rov was not satisfied that she had received the full education of something, but not to go to a Mikva, if so, that will be much worse. Of course, the proper thing is to make sure that such a lady gets the right teaching and training, like all Jewish ladies, and that should be the job of the Mikva people. Just to refuse somebody to enter a Mikva is not proper, because if somebody doesn’t know where to go to get lessons on Mikva, why not get somebody to teach them instead of expelling them?

7) Would this solve problems if a husband dies but it can't be proven, or he disappears, that the wife could somehow get remarried?

Answer: Yes, the wife could just declare that she breaks the marriage and what happened with the husband will in no way negate that. She is free to remarry.

8) Would this mean that the wife’s earning in a pelegesh marriage belongs to her?

Answer: A Pilegesh marriage is about two married people who have to work things out. Pilegesh does not have a Kesubo as Kiddushin does. It is a marriage, but that marriage is best organized in all of its aspects between the husband and wife. I spoke to a lady who married with Pilegesh and every year she sits with her husband and makes up a list of what to do that year with this or that. She has a wonderful marriage and has been blessed with fine children. But every year they sit down and discuss about next year and their goals.

Thank you very much for your really excellent questions. First of all, when somebody wants to know what the halacha is in a specific case, there are two kinds. One is a case, such as is a food kosher, or what we may do on Shabbos, which is something taught in many books easily available, and is well known to the various rabbis who work in these areas regularly. Then there is a question about Pilegesh. Who today is involved in these questions? There are here or there somebody married as a Pilegesh, but I don’t know how many rabbis are experts in the halacha of Pilegesh.

Second of all, when I suggest somebody marrying with Pilegesh, it is mainly because I have a terrible fear of Kiddushin. For most women, when the marriage sours, they will find a “rabbi” who will tell them to force a GET from their husband, and some of them, all over the world now, just tell a woman to leave with no GET! Children born from an invalid GET or surely from no GET are mamzerim. Thus, when I trumpet how important Pilegesh is, it is because most women today cannot be trusted to spend their whole lives with a husband they don’t like. People like that should not marry with Kiddushin in the first place. For them Pilegesh is preferable. Whenever she wants, she just leaves. And the gemora in Sanhedrin 21A, quoted by the Vilna Gaon in the beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin in Shulchan Aruch, clearly states that people may marry a Pilegesh without making Kiddushin.

Thus, I would not necessarily tell a woman who is positive she can maintain her life with a bad husband forever, with never violating the Torah and making an invalid GET or no GET, to marry not with Kiddushin but with Pilegesh. Having said that, another side of me says that today things are bad, and in ten years, they will be much worse, and in twenty years, very, very bad. That is what is happening today. If so, I would really be happy if no woman marries with Kiddushin, because who knows?

We have two major poskim who strongly suggest marrying with Pilegesh. One is the Ramban and the other is Reb Yaacov Emden, son of the Chacham Tsvi. The Ramban states clearly that Pilegesh is permitted, period. He even claims that the Rambam agreed with him if the Pilegesh marries as husband and wife, not zenuce chas vishalom.  The other person is Reb Yaacov Emden, who is very strong about encouraging Pilegesh, but for different reasons. He maintains that many people need the freedom to marry a Pilegesh, for various reasons. His approach is that Pilegesh can save many people from many terrible sins and problems.

My great fear today of women stuck in marriages done with Kiddushin is rooted in the reality that today major rabbis, the biggest names, are encouraging many women to remarry without a kosher GET and thus have children who are mamzerim. The count of mamzerim is going to rise more and more and the only hope is Pilegesh. Pilegesh is the only way to solve the problem of making mamzerim with invalid Gittin. Unless the husband dies