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Contents
It is known that in the
life of a Torah child and family, the greatest happiness is often the
marriage of a child, especially a woman, who comes to the wedding with
exquisite gowns and jewelry. It is appropriate for a woman to feel special
about the marriage day. The gemora and the poskim tell us that a man must
love his wife as he loves himself and honor her more than himself.[1] A good marriage is about a husband constantly
thinking of ways to honor his wife more than himself. The Torah tells us that
a man upon marriage should “make his wife rejoice.” Rashi and the Zohar[2]note that the command is not for the husband to
rejoice in marriage “with the wife” but to “make her rejoice” meaning, if it
is hard for the husband to give all to make his wife happy, he is doing
things properly. But if he goes about his marriage as a partnership,
and he is only willing to go so far in his kindness to his wife as she goes
for him, that is wrong, and the marriage is not going in the right direction.[3]
Thus, marriage, at least
the beginning of marriage, is ideally an opportunity for the wife to be the
center of attention, and the husband is careful to make her happy even if it
is hard for him. We have come so far talking about the beginning of the
marriage, the first day or so, and of course the first year is also special,
and hopefully, afterwards as well. If things go well the first day and the
first year, and the husband really trains himself to please his wife, and she
reciprocates his love for her, that is a winning combination. But the reality
is, especially today, that marriages are not always as smooth and lovely as
we wish. In fact, the topic of our discussion here is about when things go
wrong, and the marriage does not work out well. We are even discussing here
what happens when the wife is fed up with her husband, and yes, sometimes she
wants a divorce. But according to the Torah, the man has the power to control
giving the GET, or ending the marriage. If he does not give his wife a GET
willingly, she is not free of him.
If she finds some rabbi
who encourages her to get people to pressure the husband to give her a GET
against his will, that GET is invalid. If she remarries with it, an invalid
GET, and has children from the next husband, there is a problem of the
children born from an invalid GET to be mamzerim. But to stay married to
someone she cannot stand is also terrible. Thus, the situation with Kiddushin
can begin in a lovely matter, but it can end terribly. What is a woman to do?
Let us be honest.
Kiddushin is a problem for women, and it could be a problem even for men,
although we are emphasizing now about the problems for women. We know that
the majority of Orthodox women marry with Kiddushin, maybe nearly all of
them. But what happens when the marriage sours? Rather, is there any way to
avoid the crisis of a woman desperate to leave her husband when he is not
interested in her leaving? One idea is for the husband to promise to divorce
her at a certain time, but he could change his mind, and there is nothing she
can do about it. She could refuse to marry at all, but what kind of life is
that? It is even a sin to refuse to marry, because people have biological
forces that cause sins in one not married. No, the truth is, that Kiddushin
is a major problem, with all of its glitter and glory. Increasingly, people
find the worst problems from Kiddushin.
There is, however, a
solution. But like many solutions, you have to think slowly and carefully
into this solution. It may be for you and it may have problems. The solution
is to marry without Kiddushin that gives the man the power to control the
marriage and the wife’s happiness, and to marry with something known as
Pilegesh. Pilegesh is a marriage discussed in the gemora Sanhedrin 21A and
the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 26:1 in the beginning of the laws of
Kiddushin. The Ramban[1] enthusiastically
embraces Pilegesh, and says that the Rambam also accepts it, as long as the
couple marries in a serious manner, that is, not as zenuse. A couple
committed to marriage, even one without Kiddushin, but as Pilegesh, are
married in a kosher matter. It is not only kosher, but it saves the problems
of Kiddushin, because the husband and wife, if they see the marriage as a
problem, can simply end it, with no penalties at all.
I know some women who
married as Pilegesh and they were happy with it. Some had big problems with
Kiddushin and were advised that the next marriage should be Pilegesh, and
they were very happy with Pilegesh.
And yet, there is
definitely a negative feeling in marrying with Pilegesh, at least, in some
people. What I say to these people is to understand that if there is a
Kiddushin marriage and it fails, and the woman goes to a “rabbi” who violates
the Torah and forces the husband to divorce her, her next children will be
mamzerim. Now, can Pilegesh be worse than mamzerim? No. That usually
convinces people, but not all people.
I have actually dealt
with people who feel that better mamzeruth than Pilegesh. Well, the children
born from the Kiddushin marriage that produces mamzerim will not agree, not
after they become mamzerim. So how can anyone believe that Pilegesh is worse
than mamzeruth? Again, Pilegesh marriage, assuming it is a true marriage and
not zenuse, is a completely valid thing, backed by gedolei hadorose, such as
Ramban and even Rambam if there is no zenuse but a real marriage. Pilegesh is
discussed in the very beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin in the Shulchan
Aruch. The Vilna Gaon there quotes the gemora in Sanhedrin 21A that Pilegesh
is without Kiddushin and without Kesubo, but it is a viable marriage, again,
as long as it is a real marriage.
I know people who had
problems with Kiddushin, men and women, and who are interested in Pilegesh.
But it is a new thing and few people do it today, so that itself is a problem
for many people. I understand that. What I don’t understand is the people who
tell me strongly that when I promote Pilegesh they are at war with me. But
when I tell them about Kiddushin making mamzerim, they are not at war with me.
What world do they live in? Pilegesh is not a sin and mamzeruth is a sin and
the worst pain for a child and for the parents. Who can feel that Pilegesh is
worse than mamzeruth? But I repeat that somebody who thinks carefully, will
realize that making mamzerim from your children is much worse than marrying
with Pilegesh.
I also maintain that a
woman who marries with Kiddushin, must realize the danger she is in. Perhaps
the husband will not be what she wants, and maybe he will refuse to divorce
her willingly. If so, there is no escape other than the death of the husband.
Of course, she could find a “rabbi” who tells her to disobey the Torah and
force the husband to divorce her. But if she does that, children born from
her second marriage will be likely mamzerim.
I want to make it clear
that a woman who marries with Kiddushin must be aware of the potential
problem if the marriage doesn’t work out well. In earlier generations when
great Gedolim like Reb Aharon Kotler and Reb Moshe Feinstein were actively
involved in all kinds of issues, nobody would dream of doing what so many
people do today, to go to a “rabbi” and violate the Shulchan Aruch by forcing
the husband to give a GET against his will, which will produce mamzerim if
the wife remarries with such an invalid GET. Surely nobody would go further
and do what “rabbis” throughout the world are doing today, to tell a woman to
leave her husband and remarry with no GET at all. But today, without the
giants of yesteryear, people including “rabbis” are not afraid to do what
they want to do, and they know how to convince women to force the husband to
give a GET or to even leave the husband with no GET. This is a major reason
that I suggest Pilegesh today, because Kiddushin does not carry a guarantee
that the woman will honor it and if she does not honor it, it could produce
mamzerim. Surely better Pilegesh than mamzerim.
We have thus concluded
the first section of our discussion of Pilegesh. The next section will be
about the laws of Pilegesh and how to arrange a Pilegesh marriage in
practical terms.
Pilegesh in
Halacha
We begin with the
gemora in Sanhedrin 21A quoted by the Vilna Gaon in his commentary to the
beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin in Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 26:1. A
Pilegesh has no Kiddushin and no Kesubo. What then are the laws of Pilegesh?
A major source to permit
Pilegesh is from the Ramban. The Ramban is found in the volume of the
Teshuvose of the Rashbo entitled “Responsa of the Rashbo that seem to be from
the Ramban.” Let us explain what this means. The Rashbo has many volumes as
he was one of the greatest codifiers and poskim. One of those volumes is
known as Meyucheses meaning, it is included as a volume written by the
Rashbo, but actually, it is from the Ramban. Let us explain this a bit. The
volume called Meyucheses is classified as being from the Rashbo, but at least
two teshuvose are clearly not from the Rashbo but from the Ramban. These are
responsas number 283 and 284. Both of these teshuvose are clearly marked as
being not from the Rashbo but from the Ramban. Many other teshuvose in this
volume are not marked as being from the Ramban, and they are generally
included with the other responsas of the Rashbo, although at least two of the
Teshuvose ascribed to the Rashbo are definitely from the Ramban and not the
Rashbo, as stated before. Again, the other of the 288 teshuvose in this
volume are not clearly marked as being from the Ramban, which would seemingly
indicate that they are not from the Ramban, but from somebody else, maybe the
Rashbo. But the two responses that are clearly marked as being from the
Ramban, these two are surely from the Ramban. Responsa 284 is about Pilegesh.
Let us see what the Ramban says about Pilegesh.
It is a long teshuva but
let us take a few passages that clarify somewhat what Pilegesh means and what
Kiddushin means. It seems that Kiddushin means that the woman the husband
marries with kiddushin becomes his wife, as if he has acquired her. The
Pilegesh does not have this aspect, and she is not acquired by the husband.
Thus, in Kiddushin, since the wife is acquired by the husband through the
Kiddushin, she may not leave him without his permission, unless he gives her
a GET willingly or dies. Pilegesh, on the other hand, does not confer upon
the husband the right to claim that the woman is acquired by him. She can
therefore leave whenever she wants, as can the husband.
The second law the Ramban
discusses about Kiddushin and Pilegesh is that in Kiddushin the woman is
sanctified by the Kiddushin and becomes forbidden to everyone other than her
husband unless he dies or gives her a GET willingly. The Pilegesh married to
a man her husband is forbidden to be with other men, as this is zenuse. But
the Pilegesh husband doesn’t have power over the wife as does the Kiddushin
husband. The Pilegesh husband does not “acquire” the Pilegesh wife.
A Pilegesh does not have
this acquiring in the sense that the husband acquires her and has power over
her. Now a Pilegesh surely is forbidden to go with men not her husband as
long as they are married. But it is not because the husband acquires her as
he acquires a Kiddushin wife. It is rather because a Pilegesh must be careful
not to turn her relationship with the husband into Zenuse, or prostitution.
If the wife of the Pilegesh husband goes around sleeping with other men she
has violated the sanctity of marriage for Pilegesh, and Rambam would consider
her a sinner because she acted with zenuse.
The third level discussed
by Ramban is that Pilegesh is not Mekudesh [sanctified with Kiddushin] as is
the woman who is sanctified with Kiddushin. It is not clear what this means.
Possibly, it means that a woman who accepts Kiddushin is somewhat sanctified
by it, but Pilegesh has no sanctity similar to Kiddushin. She and he her
husband must honor their marriage and not run around with zenuse, but she has
no sanctity bordering on Kiddushin. What we gain from this is that a
woman with Kiddushin must deal with her elevated status of holiness not to
leave the husband without his permission, etc., but the Pilegesh lady is not
“acquired” and can leave her husband whenever she wants to.
The Ramban then says that
even though the Rambam in the Laws of Kings says that Pilegesh is permitted
only to a king, the Ramban says this means that if one takes a woman as
zenuse without marrying her, that is forbidden for somebody who is not a
king, but one who takes a Pilegesh to marry her, Rambam agrees that a
Pilegesh is permitted. Possibly a king who marries a Pilegesh does not fear
that she will commit zenuse, because once the king takes her as a Pilegesh
and surely if he has relations with her, nobody will go near her for zenuse,
nor will anyone violate her marriage with the king out of fear of the king.
Another major backer of
Pilegesh is Rav Yaacov Emden, son of the Chacham Tsvi. See his Teshuva sefer
Shaalas Yayvetz II:15. At the end of the lengthy teshuvo there, he writes how
to do Pilegesh properly: “The husband must designate a room in his house for
his wife the Pilegesh, and to warn her against ever being alone with any
other man, and if he ever discovers that she sinned and was not careful, that
he should immediately send her out of his house, and also he should command
her to go to the Mikva regularly, and he should notify her that there is
absolutely no shame in this. Also, he should clarify for her that children
born from him are kosher children just like the meyuchesdika children in
Jewish homes, so long as she guards her covenant and will be faithful to this
man her husband, but not if she goes with other men to have zenuse with them.
Because then her children are the products of zenuse. And she is a Kedaisho
prostitute who deserves a punishment for every biah that she has with this
man or any other man.”
In Pilegesh marriage the
wife must be faithful to her husband. But the husband may have more than one
wife, or the Pilegesh wife and another wife. Nowadays it is rare to find a
man with more than one wife but I am referring to the laws of Pilegesh. There
the woman must be faithful to her husband but the husband is allowed to marry
other women. Today, marrying more than one wife is a problem but in ancient
times men did have the right to marry more than one woman. But the woman
never had the right to marry more than one husband.
We have covered basic
halochose of Pilegesh. And now we come to understanding in practical terms
the proper halacha applications and status of a Pilegesh marriage.
Proper
Halacha Application and Status of a Pilegesh Marriage
Until now I have quoted
various sources to explain why Pilegesh is permitted, and we have touched on
various aspects of living as a Pilegesh. But now we want to go into a new
area, so let me explain what it is.
As I mentioned above,
most people marry with Kiddushin and few people marry with Pilegesh. This
itself is a problem for those who marry with Pilegesh. For instance, Mr. A
marries Mrs. B. as a Pilegesh. They live together for several years, and have
children, but then decide to break up the marriage, which for a Pilegesh is
basically simple. No GET is required. Permission of the husband is not
required. Okay.
Now, let us imagine that
Mrs. B. decides to leave her husband. One day somebody comes to her and asks
her if she is interested in remarrying. She replies that she wants to know
who the man is. So she is told who the man is. Then the shadchon asks the
Pilegesh lady, “Can you show me a paper that you received a proper GET?” Mrs.
B. never got a GET, because a Pilegesh doesn’t need a GET. But if she replies
that she is a Pilegesh and doesn’t need a GET, people may not accept that.
Very few people do become Pilegesh. So what does the Pilegesh lady do?
Another Pilegesh problem
is mentioned in the section of the Shulchan Aruch that begins the laws of
Kiddushin. One of the problems of Pilegesh is that she may be embarrassed to
go to the Mikva to be cleansed of Nida. In fact, there is an opinion that
forbids marrying a Pilegesh because she may be embarrassed to go to the Mikva.
But if she is prepared to go to the Mikvah, which may have some embarrassment
for her, she is permitted. But let us make a mental note of this, that if you
are in a community with thousands of people who have Kiddushin and maybe five
people have Pilegesh, some people, including the Pilegesh, may not understand
or perhaps they will understand too well that they should be embarrassed! If
we talk about people married with Pilegesh, we must deal with these issues.
We don’t want women refusing to go to the Mikva, and we don’t want women
attacked because they have no GET when they are Pilegesh who don’t need a
GET.
Recall that our title of
this section is Proper Halacha Application and Status of a Pilegesh Marriage.
I want to present the following here: Proper Halacha Application and Status
means dealing with Pilegesh people as human beings who are protected from
problems that crop up when somebody is different than most other people. This
is especially true in something as sensitive as marriage and having children.
So, what do I suggest?
One, I suggest that a couple
that wants to marry as Pilegesh be trained by a rabbi who is prepared to
explain all of the possible difficulties, and who is willing to work hard to
find solutions to those problems.
Let us talk about the
problem of going to the Mikva. Whose problem is this? It is the problem of
the Rov who manages the couple who are Pilegesh. The Rov must find the proper
Mikva. I know somebody who is very interested in Pilegesh and told me about a
person who paid for an expert in constructing kosher Mikvas, even for ladies,
and built such a Mikva. Now men use that Mikva during the day and women at
night. Of course, there have to be men on duty by day and women on duty by
night. But if the owner of the facility is willing to cooperate, it can be
done.
Another solution is to
find somewhere a place to build a Mikva, perhaps one for ladies. If the
proper expert can be found, and be told that it is for ladies, who require a
much more professional Mikva than the one for men, and he agrees to keep it
kosher for ladies, we have achieved something. Of course, money is needed to build a Mikva.
But many good things require money. At any rate, there are always things that
crop up and the Rov who helps out the Pilegesh people in his area has to be
ahead of the game, but it can be done.
The Practical
Rules of a Pilegesh
What do we mean by The
Practical Rules of a Pilegesh? What it means to me is as follows: There are
from the senior rabbis of the generations various teachings about being a
Pilegesh. I personally would not want to utilize some of their ideas. I want
a Pilegesh family to act like a very conservative family that will try to
avoid anything that could somehow be construed as too liberal for people
making a family.
Originally, I thought
that a person who chooses Pilegesh must tell me that they are not confident
that they could keep the laws of Kiddushin, which means essentially to give
up one’s hopes for a normal marriage if the marriage sours and the husband
won’t give a GET willingly. But if there is any doubt in the person if they
would last a lifetime with no happiness in the marriage, then I would accept
them as Pilegesh. And furthermore, if the person would tell me that if they
take Kiddushin they feel they could give up their lives, but they nonetheless
fear that maybe, if certain rabbis tell them to force a GET maybe they will
listen and make a GET that is invalid and maybe make mamzerim, if they fear
this, I would also give them Pilegesh. That is how I once thought. But today,
when I see the great decline in the rabbis and how they encourage things that
are plainly forbidden by the Torah, I see that encouraging Pilegesh must be
done even for somebody who won’t fear Kiddushin. Why? Because I fear it. And
daily, things get worse out there with the rabbis. Very recently a prominent
Rov called me from a far-off country about people in his area who are
marrying women without a GET. The same thing was publicized in the name of a
senior rabbi in a European country. It just keeps getting worse, HaShem
Yerachem. So I feel that marrying with Pilegesh takes off a lot of fear and
makes a lot of sense.
Anyone who wants to marry
with Pilegesh would have to be trained in the laws of Pilegesh and how to
behave properly. They must know the difficulties, such as what happens if the
local Mikva doesn’t want to permit a Pilegesh to come there. I am not sure it
won’t happen. At any rate, we must anticipate all of the potential problems
and hopefully find solutions for them, before they marry as Pilegesh.
Ideally, if I was
accepting people to become Pilegesh, I would prefer that several people, let
us say me and two others who understand people, and the three of us would
talk to the people involved and make sure that they are emotionally and mentally
ready for Pilegesh. We would also have to find people who can do the
detective work necessary to find out whatever we have to find out about the
couple involved. Were they married before with Kiddushin? Did they have a
kosher GET? Do they plan after their Pilegesh marriage to live in a
neighborhood where Orthodox Jews live? This is a problem because these
Orthodox Jews may assume that they are married with Kiddushin. To avoid such
a problem the rabbi who takes care of the Pilegesh family would want to notify
the rabbis in the community that this family is Pilegesh. And we would want
to establish classes for them in laws of Nida, kashruse, Shabbos, etc.
Marrying with Pilegesh doesn’t exempt a person from keeping the Torah.
Making classes and having
a Mikva could run into money, and when the first few people become Pilegesh
in a community it may not be practical to have to spend a lot of money. We
can, however, only do what we can. And if we can find some people who realize
the crucial need for Pilegesh, we may succeed. The difference between
Pilegesh and Kiddushin is the difference between mamzerim and kosher Jews.
Isn’t that worth something?
[3] Rashi and the Zohar are as stated before to
make the wife rejoice, not himself. Rashi
notes that ViSeemach [Seemach with a chirik] ess eeshto is translated “and he
will make his wife rejoice” not himself. However, if the phrase would be “and
he will rejoice with his wife” it should say, “Visomach [somach with a
komets] ess eeshto” meaning, he will rejoice with his wife meaning both together.
The problem is that the Targum Yonoson translates, “and he will rejoice with
his wife.” The gemora in Succa
28A says that Hillel had eighty students and that the greatest student was
Yonasan ben Uziel and the most minor of the students was Yochanan ben
Zackai. Yochanan mastered the Torah as mentioned there, but Yonasan was
greater. When he taught Torah, a bird that flew over him was burned by the
fire of his learning. See Tosfose there. Perhaps we can refer to the gemora
above that one should love his wife like himself and honor her more than
himself. Perhaps if we refer to one’s love for his wife it should be equal,
but he honors her more than himself. Thus when referring to love it is equal
as he loves her as he loves himself. But when it comes to honor, he honors
her above himself. Rashi thus can be talking about honoring the wife where he
honors her more than himself. But Yonasan is talking about love, that they
love equally.
1) a
women who had a kosher divorce and remarried a second husband with a pe
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
Questions;
1) A woman who (married with Kiddushin) had a (Kosher GET) divorce and remarried a second husband with a pilegesh marriage. Is she allowed to remarry her first husband if the second one died (or "divorced") her?
Dovid
Eidensohn – A Kiddushin married and divorced woman who then marries again
somebody else with Kiddushin and gets a GET may not return to her first
Kiddushin husband. This is a specific law for a woman who married twice with
Kiddushin, but if she married once with Kiddushin and then with zenuce or
Pilegesh, she may go back to her first husband. Here are some sources of
these laws.
See
Even Hoezer 10:1 in Ramo and Bahare Haiteev 2: A Pilegesh leaves her husband
and marries with Kiddushin, is divorced and then returns to husband. This is
permitted. See there Even Hoezer 10:1 – A woman is married with Kiddushin, is
divorced, and then is mezaneh. She may return to her husband. But if she
marries a second husband with Kiddushin, she is forbidden to return to the
first Kedushin husband. Beis Shmuel explains that the Torah forbids a woman
who was divorced from her husband after Kiddushin, and then married a second
husband with Kiddushin and got a divorce from him, to return to the first
Kiddushin husband. But if she had Kiddushin and a GET and was mezaneh she may
return to the first husband. The reason is that the sin to return to the first
husband if the wife was married twice with Kiddushin is because she had two
Kiddushin husbands. After the second husband’s GET she may not return to the
first Kiddushin husband. But this is only forbidden if there were two cases
of Kiddushin. But if the first husband was zenuse and the second husband was
Kiddushin who gave her a GET, she may return to her second or Kiddushin
husband. The question is, what if there was Kiddushin and Pilegesh and then
she wants to go back to the husband? Pilegesh is not Kiddushin, but it is a
real marriage, otherwise, it would be zenuse. But the Bahare Hayteev there
says that if there was first Pilegesh and then Kiddushin and then a GET from
Kiddushin, she may return to the Pilegesh husband. In other words, Pilegesh
and zenuse are the same, even though Pilegesh is a real marriage, it is not
Kiddushin, and והלכה והיתה לאיש אחר
means only two husbands equal with Kiddushin, but not if the first one was
Pilegesh. It would seem likely that if the second husband was Pilegesh and
the first husband was Kiddushin, that she may also return to the husband,
because there was no והלכה והיתה לאיש אחר
meaning the second husband was the same as the first husband, both had
Kiddushin but if one was kiddushin and the other zenuse or Pilegesh she may
return to her other husband. Again, probably as long as both husbands were
not kiddushin but zenuse or Pilegesh, she may return to either husband she
happens to be divorced from or removed from. It would seem from the Beis
Shmuel and the Bahare Hayteev that as long as there are not two husbands with
Kiddushin she may go back to the Kiddushin husband. וצ"ע. See also Pischei Teshuva #1 there in the
case where a Kiddushin husband gave his wife a GET posul dirabonon. She was
then mezaneh. May she return to her husband who gave her the GET posul? He
quotes it seems Birkei Yosef that she may return to him.
2) Would a kohen who married using a pilegesh marriage be allowed to stay with his wife if she was lo alanu raped.
Dovid Eidensohn – This is an interesting question.
First, see Even Hoezer 6:10 – If the wife of a Kohen who is married to him
with Kiddushin is slept with even if it was forced she is forbidden to her
husband the Kohen. 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 anyone 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. Thus, we have a source
to forbid the wife of a Cohen who was raped if she was married with
Kiddushin. The question is if that holds true even if she is Pilegesh. And
this question suggests another question. If a Pilegesh wife is raped, does
she become a zonah and is she forbidden to her husband the Cohen?
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 sleep with
another man during her marriage of Pilegesh she would violate Pilegesh
marriage even in rape, and become a zonah. If so, she is forbidden to her
Kohen husband. But if a raped Pilegesh woman would not become a zona despite
the fact that her Pilegesh marriage is a real marriage, because the status of
zona does not, for any reason, apply to a Pilegesh as it applies to Kiddushin
marriages, then we have a question.
3) Would
the children of a pilegesh marriage of the father being a kohen be considered
kosher kohanim? Dovid Eidensohn – Yes, see Even Hoezer 3:9 that if ten
Cohanim stand together and one steps out and sleeps with somebody and has a
baby boy, that boy is a Cohen. However, even one who is really a Cohen, if he
was born with zenuse, and we are not really sure who the father is, even
though we know he was a Cohen, we silence the child when he wants to publicly
perform as a Cohen. It would, however, seem that if we know who the father
is, such as if people are married properly with Pilegesh, there is no problem
as we know who the father is. וצ"ע.
4) Would a man be allowed to marry more than one wife with a pilegesh marriage? Dovid Eidensohn – See Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 1:10 that Rabbeinu Gershom forbade a man to take two wives. However, the Shulchan Aruch says that this lasted only to the end of the fifth thousand years of world history, which is about 777 years ago. However, the Shulchan Aruch quotes most communities who have on their own established a sin of marrying two wives. See Even Hoezer 1:10 in Ramo and 1:11. Whether these communities made Pilegesh with two wives a sin has nothing to do with anyone other than those communities who made rules for themselves. Rav Yaacov Emden seems to permit marrying in Pilegesh two wives, but only for very urgent reasons, such as when the first wife cannot have children and the husband has a choice of divorcing his wife of many years or marrying Pilegesh. I personally feel that Pilegesh is such a revolutionary thing in most people’s eyes that to start with two wives might destroy Pilegesh. But I do not say that as a general rule, but as a preference in the difficult effort to get people, anybody, interested in marrying with Pilegesh. Once we start permitting strange habits such as having two wives, we threaten the success of Pilegesh so I would prefer not to encourage such things, although some people have sources and rabbis who permit it. 5) Would a women who married by pilegesh marriage and "divorced" be allowed to marry a kohen? Dovid Eidensohn – There is no “divorce” in Pilegesh, so the question is only if somebody wrote a document of divorce on his own and gave it to a Pilegesh. It has no religious value, and is surely not considered to be a real “GET” which only is given for Kiddushin. However, there are habits among Kohanim to be overly strict and so such a question must be asked of somebody who knows all of the extreme positions of Cohanim especially as it applies to a specific 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 pilegesh marriage?
Dovid Eidensohn – You are
completely right. But people who run the Mikva can have standards that they
invent and these things do happen. The fact is that a lot of people are very
nervous about the concept of Pilegesh which they think is some kind of bad
thing, because they don’t know what Pilegesh is. But it is in the Shulchan
Aruch and there the Vilna Gaon Even Hoezer 26:1 quotes a gemora in Sanhedrin
21A that obviously accepts Pilegesh and the Shulchan Aruch talks there about
Pilegesh, so it does exist.
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? Dovid Eidensohn – Yes. Kiddushin requires the husband
to give the woman a GET or die. But if nobody knows if the husband is alive
or dead and nobody knows where the husband is, the wife is stuck. But
Pilegesh ladies and men are never stuck. They simply tell the other spouse
they are leaving and the marriage is over, just like that. Of course, if I
had to deal with an actual parting of the ways, I might prefer to have
something in writing and by a Beth Din.
8) Would this mean that the wife’s earning in a pilegesh marriage belongs to her?
Dovid
Eidensohn – I know of a Pilegesh couple who sit down every year and write up
the rules for their marriage. That makes a lot of sense. Kiddushin assigns
great powers to the husband who has “acquired” the wife. This does not exist
in Pilegesh. There the ideal is for the two spouses to sit down regularly and
decide how to run their lives financially and other such matters.
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
marriage was real and not zenuse. 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, because Pilegesh can save many people from sins
and problems.
My great fear today of women stuck in marriages
done with Kiddushin is rooted in the reality that today many “rabbis” 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!
Of course, the RCA and other Modern Orthodox rabbis
came out with a prenup but many people feel that the prenup is an invalid
document that will make mamzerim. Senior rabbis in Israel feel that the RCA
prenup and other such prenups will greatly damage Judaism and make mamzeirm.
My great fear today of women stuck in marriages
done with Kiddushin is rooted in the reality that today’s rabbi in general are very weak on
knowing the laws of Gittin. Thus, they 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!
The
Opposition to Pilegesh
Kiddushin forces women to remain married with their husband
unless he gives her willingly a GET or dies. Some “rabbis” teach these
Kiddushin women to force a GET from their husbands. Such forced GETS are
invalid and children born from the next marriage will be mamzerim. Recently,
a new idea has been invented by “rabbis.” A woman just leaves her husband
with no GET. This is happening all over the world. The desperate situation of
some women trapped in a Kiddushin marriage is the catalyst for this violation
of the Torah. Yes, people want to violate the Torah in order to help
desperate women. But what about the fact that a woman who remarries with an
invalid GET, such as one forced on the husband, has no GET at all? Thus, her
children born from the next marriage will be mamzerim. Why don’t people worry
about the children/mamzerim? And is this a normal thing to do to destroy
children out of concern for their mother? Will the mother really be happy if
she had mamzerim children?
All of this is completely true. And yet, amazingly to me, there
is, among the senior ranks of our Torah scholars and experts in Gittin,
tremendous opposition to teaching women about Pilegesh. And yet, not only are
many senior rabbis teaching women to force a GET from their unwilling
husbands, but now the style has become to teach a woman to leave her husband
with no GET. Throughout the world, this is becoming the style. I know it
happened in America and there was a huge outcry. But it also happened
throughout the world. I received a call from the senior rabbi in a section of
Brazil about this, and at the same time, there were articles about a senior
French rabbi who permitted a woman with no GET to remarry without a GET at
all. So, I say, firmly, without Pilegesh we will have, in a short time, many
mamzerim. Now, who can tell me that Pilegesh is worse than mamzerim? And yet,
when I talk mamzerim, people are quiet. When I talk about Pilegesh these same
people hang up the phone, or ridicule me, and when I talk about mamzerim they
think it is funny. It isn’t funny. At least, the helpless mamzerim whose
children will be mamzerim with no cure forever, are not laughing now and will
never laugh. And the mother of this mamzer who learned from a “rabbi” to make
mamzerim, is she going to laugh when she hears her child’s bitter tears? Now
nobody will ever marry him, and he will be shunned more than a person with
leprosy. And these people I talk to are just full of fun. Why?
When I grew up, there were great Gedolim who had control of the
Torah community. Nobody would think of defying the great ones like Reb Moshe
Feinstein, Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev, Reb Aharon Kotler, and others who were
the mighty giants of that generation. In a world like that everyone married
with Kiddushin, and nobody said a thing about Pilegesh. Now, it did
occasionally happen that a rabbi here or there would see the misery of a
member of his shull and advise that the next marriage will not be Kiddushin,
because the woman has suffered enough. But after the senior rabbis would hear
the suffering of the woman in Kiddushin, and the local rabbi advised
Pilegesh, they said nothing. If a woman suffered so much from two bad
husbands, if she remarries with Kiddushin for a third time, it is quite
likely that she may just quit with the Torah chas viShalom. Why are things
today so different that “rabbis” begin hanging up the phone and saying the
worst things when I mention Pilegesh? The answer is, that today is different.
When Reb Moshe or Rav Elyashev or Reb Aharon had power in the community, the
occasional emergency to do Pilegesh would not get out of hand. But today
things are much different. Today there are no Reb Moshes or Reb Aharons or
Rav Elyashev. Let me tell a story I heard from a prominent Gittin posek.
This Posek held a certain way in a problem of Gittin, and he
wanted to solve it in his Beth Din, but it was something that required a
major Rov to agree to. He therefore went to a country that had a senior Rov who
was the accepted authority in that country. But the Rov refused to agree,
although he saw nothing wrong with the logic of the Rov who requested the
Rov’s backing. Finally, that Rov went to the senior Rov’s son. He asked why
his father who for many years did Pasken these questions regularly, refuses
to pasken now. Why?
The son replied, “When Rev Elyashev was alive, all Gittin
questions were brought to him by my father. Now he is not here, and nobody
took his place. My father cannot and never could assume responsibility to
pasken complicated Gittin laws. All he did was to ask the question to Reb
Elyashev, and Reb Elyashev is no longer with us.”
The poskim who snarled at me with tooth and nail about Pilegesh
were from the old school. They were raised in a time of great Gedolim, not a
time like today. Those great Gedolim are gone. Nobody has taken their place.
Today the major rabbis in the US and elsewhere are very, very different from
the past generation when I grew up, and when the rabbis who snarl at me grew
up. At that past time, the greats terrified the community so much that nobody
would imagine doing something with Pilegesh that is disruptive of the Torah
community. But today, this is no longer true. Now a person who makes Pilegesh
has nobody to control him, and people are terrified of the results. What
these people who mean leshaim shomayim to prevent at all costs Pilegesh don’t
realize that they are preventing Pilgesh, but their friends the rabbis who
make mamzerim are now free to make mamzerim, plenty of them. Now, somebody
has to get up and tell it like it is. There is nobody to control Kiddushin
ladies from making mamzerim. And the rabbis who encouraged making invalid
Gittin or leaving the husband with no GET at all, are free to do what they
want, as there is nobody to fear.
In such a world, my brother and I stood up years ago to fight the
“rabbis” who encourage forced Gittin, and we were, for a long time, the only
ones. Eventually I threatened senior rabbis, that if they do nothing to
attack Shmuel Kaminetsky who is making a woman leave her husband with no GET,
I will attack, not just Shmuel Kaminetsky, but the rabbis who are silent.
Then things started to pick up. Various prominent rabbis sent their protests
to my brother’s blog and it was eventually published elsewhere. And yet, that
woman encouraged by Shmuel Kaminetsky to remarry without a GET, is still
living with her new “husband” and nobody protests. In fact, when the
Philadelphia Yeshiva put out a journal celebrating a Kollel or something like
it, the two zonose in person bought an add and were published together in the
journal. This is the Yeshiva of Shmuel Kaminetsky. As for me, I will fight
for Pilegesh. There will be less mamzerim, and all of the prominent
authorities who insult me, hang up on me, and laugh at me, can hang up on me again
when I tell them about the latest mamzer. Because that is the halacha. When
we know that a mamzer is born in the community, we are obligated to publicize
it. But some authorities will just
say, well, it is not Pilgesh. Good for them. Let them explain in the other
world why they laughed at Pilegesh and ignored mamzerim. Will they laugh then
or be sent to a hot place?
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Sunday, October 15, 2017
Problems with Kiddushin and Hope with Pilegesh
RCA Prenup Makes Mamzerim Unlike Rav Ovadiah Yosef's Document that is Not a Prenup
The Problem with RCA Prenups
RCA
Prenups are promises the husband makes to his wife that if she demands a GET
from him for whatever reason he will either honor her request and give a
willing GET to her, or he will pay her the sum of $150 a day until he gives the
GET. We combine here two things. One is the claim of the RCA that their Prenups
are crucial for family, and the other is my refutation of what the RCA claims.
The text of the RCA is here in regular text and my comments are italic and
bold. Text that I single out from the RCA text to comment upon is underlined in
the original and in my comments. (In some situations where all text had to be
equal this does not apply.)
Another
issue is the claim some make that the Gaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef had a document
that was like the RCA prenup and that he accepted the RCA prenup. That is
wrong, as I will point out. The document of Rav Ovadiah Yosef is not about
forcing a husband to give a GET, but about making Shalom Bayis. Also, the RCA
prenup gives all power to the woman to force her husband to give her a GET, and
the document of Rav Ovadiah Yosef has all power in the issue in the hands of
the husband, who selects how much money he will pay her until they are united
once again by the Beth Din, and crucially, the husband picks the Beth Din. This
is completely different than the RCA prenup that assigns all power to the wife.
Furthermore, there is a clear Mishneh in Nedorim 90b that a woman must not have
the power to force a GET on her husband because we fear that she will use the
power to find another husband.
This
Mishneh is quoted by Rabbeinu Tam in Kesubose 63B in Tosfose. It is the source
of the law that a woman who claims that her husband is distressing to her
cannot force a GET, because we fear that she will have the power to divorce her
husband because she likes another man. The RCA insists that all married woman
have a prenup and the ability to force the husband to divorce her anytime she
wants, which is direct contradiction to this Mishneh and the basic laws of
limiting the power of a woman to force a GET.
RCA and Its Teaching about Prenups
followed by Dovid Eidensohn’s comments.
RCA Says
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 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 Tur Shulchan Aruch and Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer
Chapter 26 laws of Kiddushin is that a woman can be obtained in marriage in
three ways, each one of the three ways independently of the other. That is, a
ring without a marital document and without Biah creates a full marriage. But Gedaliah
Schwartz didn’t know that. There is tremendous ignorance of halacha among
people who have very high positions. That is how to make mamzerim. The woman
who was let off with no GET, if she remarries, will make mamzerim.
But somebody suggested that a husband who cannot have marital
relations for physical or emotional reasons may lose the entire Kiddushin made
between him and his wife. If so perhaps the husband who was not with his wife
for thirty days caused the Kiddushin made with the ring to disappear. But we
find in Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer chapter 76 paragraph 13 that a husband who
refuses to ever have relations with his wife must divorce her and give her a
Kesubo. A Kesubo is only given when there is Kiddushin, and the statement that
the wife is given the right to leave him means there was a GET. If so, in all
cases of Kiddushin where the man has a problem physically or emotionally or
just decides he wants no more intimacy, the husband must free his wife with a
GET and pay her a Kesubo. Not as Rabbi Schwartz did to let husband and wife go
without a GET and probably also no Kesubo. Both were errors.
Furthermore, the Shulchan
Aruch there Even Hoezer chapter 76 paragraph 11 says that one who is unable for
reasons of health or medical issues to be with his wife at least once in six
months must divorce his wife and give her a Kesubo. The husband with Rabbi Schwartz was with his
wife only one month. But even if he could be with her six months he must give
her a GET and a Kesubo. But Rabbi Schwartz simply told husband and wife to
leave without a GET. When a prominent scholar in Yeshiva University heard about
the woman just leaving he screamed at me, “Where is the woman?” I told him to
ask Rabbi Schwartz. But wherever she is, if she remarries for sure the child is
a mamzer, and the children’s children, for all generations.
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 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.
RCA Says
Traditionally,
rabbinical courts (batei din) have been charged with the responsibility of
overseeing the process of Jewish divorce, and ensuring that a 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 שאר כסות
ואונאה 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. Maharshal (above) also says that it
depends on how removed the Mumar is from Judaism and if he continues to
maintain proper marital requirements with his wife.
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.
RCA Says
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. Rabbo Eidensohn says, “This is completely
wrong. A Beth Din has no right to force a husband to give his wife a GET
against his will. See Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer chapter 77 paragraphs 2 and 3:
All commentators (Shulchan Aruch, Ramo, Vilna Gaon, Beis Shmuel, Chelkas
Mechokake) say clearly that it is forbidden to force a GET, and the Chazon Ish mentioned
above( Even Hoezer Noshim Gittin 99:2) says that a Beth Din has no power to
order a GET unless the husband is clearly listed in Shulchan Aruch as one who must
be forced to give a GET. Otherwise, the GET is botel from the Torah.
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.
RCA Says
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 somebody 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. חיישינן שמא עיניה נתנה באחר. This is also quoted in Tosfose Kesubose 63b by Rabbeinu Tam.
RCA Says
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. Her
mother spent a large sum to have Aharon Friedman beaten and kidnapped after he
delivered the baby to his wife in Philadelphia. That is just fine with the
feminists. When did the RCA protest this?
RCA Says
There are at least four reasons to sign The Prenup:
1.
It is an act of kindness to prevent suffering.
2.
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 prevents 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.
RCA Says
3.
It is a pragmatic document.
4.
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 שמא עיניה נתנה באחר 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.
RCA Says
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?
RCA Says
5.
To protect yourself.
6.
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.”
RCA Says
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 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. The case in Nachalas
Shiva is about a husband who probably caused the wife to leave the house and he
has to pay her for her food until the Beth Din meets, and the Beth Din will
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 of money 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. Well, Rabbi Willig is
perfectly safe saying these things because if he found a proof for prenups in
the story of the woman who fled the house and gets paid for her food why can’t
he just stretch things a bit more and say more baloney? Who is going to check
him out besides me? Takanas Shume is mentioned many times in Nachalas Shiva and
it talks about people making agreements, signing them, and then somebody dies.
Does the money promised get cancelled or just what happens?
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. This is a pure fine to force a GET from the husband. Forcing
the GET is invalid and the children from the woman from her next husband are
mamzerim. 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 is mistaken and has 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.
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?
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 from a husband who is not a candidate for a
forced GET produces a GET that is בטל מדאורייתא
for two reasons?
And can
Rabbi Willig tell me exactly where he found proof for the RCA Prenup in Nachalas
Shiva and where he found in Takanas Shume any hint about the RCA Prenup and its
obligation to pay the wife $150 a day until the husband gives a GET.
RCA Says
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Below is an article
by Harry Maryles that Israeli rabbis have strongly attacked the RCA Prenup. He
also writes that the Gaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef zt”l approves the RCA Prenup, which
is a false statement. I have studied the RCA prenup and the document of HaGaon
Rav Ovadiah Yosef, and one has nothing to do with the other. The RCA prenup is
a terrible document, it violates a Mishneh in Nedorim 90b and many other
things. It is a terrible sin for somebody to sign that prenup. Rav Ovadiah
Yosef has a totally different approach and it is not a prenup. Number one, the
RCA prenup gives all power to the woman and she can force the husband to pay
fifty thousand dollars a year for not giving her a GET. Rav Ovadiah Yosef’s
document is not a prenup. It is a document perhaps similar to the Nachalas
Shiva chapter nine, first document, where a husband had a falling out with his
wife and she fled the house and went to her father. The law is that the husband
must pay 12 gold coins a month to the wife to pay for her food in her father’s
house. Beth Din is summoned and they will straighten out the husband for the
way he treated his wife and get the wife to return to the house and the couple
will find Shalom Bayis.
The document of the
Gaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef is the opposite of the RCA prenup because it is the
husband’s document through and through where the wife is invisible for most of
it. The husband has the power to summon the Beth Din that he wants. He writes
in the amount of money he will pay the wife until the Beth Din settles things.
The Beth Din will rule between the husband and wife and if the wife defies the
Beth Din, then the husband has no more obligations in the matter. There is no
question about violating the Mishneh in Nedorim 90b because the wife has no
power period. She is only able to accept or reject the Beth Din, and if she
rejects the Beth Din, the husband owes her nothing.
Again, the RCA
prenup is completely treifeh and makes mamzerim. The document of the Gaon Rav
Ovadiah is the husband’s summoning the Beth Din that he chooses and they will
make peace in the house and hopefully the wife will return and find Shalom
Bayis. How can anyone think that the Tsadik and Gaon Rav Ovadiah backs the
treifeh RCA Beth Din? Note below the many prominent Israeli rabbis who claimed
that the RCA prenup is completely treifeh and makes mamzerim.
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Rabbi Eidensohn says: Below is an
article by Harry Maryles that Israeli rabbis have strongly attacked the RCA
Prenup. The article claims that Rav Ovadiah Yosef approves the RCA Prenup,
which is a false statement.
Again, the RCA prenup is completely
treifeh and makes mamzerim. The document of the Gaon Rav Ovadiah is the
husband’s summoning the Beth Din that he chooses and they will make peace in
the house and hopefully the wife will return and find Shalom Bayis. How can
anyone think that the Tsadik and Gaon Rav Ovadiah backs the treifeh RCA Beth
Din? Note below the many prominent Israeli rabbis who claimed that the RCA
prenup is completely treifeh and makes mamzerim.
One
prominent Israeli rabbi wrote: Are RCA Rabbis Orthodox?
In
what can only be called a shocking development, YWN reports that 44 rabbinic
leaders in Israel have declared invalid the RCA prenuptial agreement. That
document requires a recalcitrant husband to pay a hefty support payment in
cases of unresolved divorce. And if used the Get (Halachic divorce) is
void. It is considered a get Me’usa – a forced divorce. Halacha dictates that
for a divorce to be valid, it must be given willingly by the husband. If he
is forced to give it – then he obviously is not doing it willingly. Which
voids the Get
The RCA
prenup as I understand it requires that in
cases of a divorce, if the husband refuses to give his wife a Get, he is
required to pay her support payments of $150 per day. That would make most
recalcitrant husbands more than likely to grant their wives a Get.
This
prenup takes seriously the plight of Agunos - women who cannot remarry
because they are still considered married. No matter whether there is a civil
divorce; No matter how long they have been separated. The RCA does not
consider it a Get Me’usa because the husband, if he chooses, can pay her the
fine and not give the Get. If used extensively - the incidence of chained
women will be dramatically reduced.
The
RCA prenup has
its detractors here in America. Some rabbis have objected to this and
consider the hefty fine a form of force that might make the Get void. But I
have never heard any of them make the kind of hard core declaration the
Israeli leaders have. Not to mention the fact that the Prenup has its share
of legitimate supporters.
Respected Poskim of high stature are listed that include
Rav Ovadia Yosef, Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg, Rav Gedalia Dov
Schwartz, and Rav Asher Weiss. The RCA now requires all of its members that
officiate at marriage ceremonies to use the prenup. Crafted 25 years ago by
Rabbi Mordechai Willig. Rabbi Eidensohn says that this is not true. The
document of the RCA is completely different than the document of the Gaon Rav
Ovadiah Yosef zt”l. The document of the Gaon Rav Ovadiah Yosef zt”l is not a
prenup, it is a settlement between the husband and wife who had a fight, and
then the Beth Din makes Shalom Bayis. The RCA prenup destroys the family by
forcing a GET on the husband. How can anyone compare a treifeh thing that
makes mamzerim with the kedusho of the Gaon Gadol HaDor Rav Ovadiah? End D.E.
Now the comments of the writer above continue.
And
yet the declaration signed by these prominent Israeli rabbinic leaders is
sharp in its rejection. They say that children of those women that remarry
based on it are Mamzerim. Which according to Halacha may not marry into Klal
Yisroel. And whose offspring for all time may not do so either.
Those
who signed this declaration include respected rabbinic leaders of both
Charedi and Religious Zionist camps. They were not reticent in their
condemnation. From YWN:
In
a document obtained by the Srugim website, signed by dozens of rabbonim,
including chareidim such as Eida Chareidis Ravaad HaGaon HaRav Moshe
Sternbuch Shlita, Rabbi Avraham Auerbach and Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Machpud, they
attack the agreement and write about it among other things: “The truth is
that this marriage agreement represents the destruction of religion truly,
and leads to a fear of ‘eishes ish’ and mamzerus”.
HaGaon HaRav Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita has also penned his
objections, citing a rav who permits signing such an agreement is not an
Orthodox rav and one should (not) rely upon his halachic
rulings.
Former
Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba Rabbi Dov Lior Shlita concurs, stating
the document negates halacha and may chas v’sholom lead to serious issues of
‘get me’usa’, mamzerus, and the destruction of the kedusha of the family. He
adds Chief Rabbis have and remain opposed to it and a document was released
during the tenure of HaGaon HaRav Avraham Kahana Shapira ZT”L and HaGaon
HaRav Mordechai Eliyahu ZT”L.
I
have to wonder what the motivation behind this was to come out with this
declaration now. Where were they years ago when the RCA first adopted it? Why
now? I also have to wonder why the widely respected (from right to left) Rav
Nebenzahl has virtually declared the entire RCA membership not Orthodox?
Especially after the Charedi controlled Chief Rabbinate were so willing to
accept their converts? This is quite the contradiction! You can’t be
denied your Orthodox status and right to Paskin and then be told your
converts are legitimate.
I
am not making any accusations here. The Israeli rabbinic leaders do not make
frivolous declarations. They are sincere Poskim. Sincere Poskim make
declarations based on Halacha. Not politics. And if there is one thing that
is known about Rav Nebenzahl - it is that he is 100% L’Shma.
(I removed two paragraphs that were just thoughts not
necessary for us now.) D.E. We now continue
with the above speaker or commentator.
The
question is where do we go from here? What if anything is the RCA going to do
about this? How will they respond? And what happens to all the women that got
divorced using this prenup and remarried and had children. These are serious
questions that demand answers.
*New Update
Upon further research it has become apparent to me that Rav Ovadia Yosef does indeed support the RCA prenup. His signature on a Hebrew version of the prenup - is legitimate. Sorry for the confusion
Rav
Dovid Eidensohn says that the above comments are wrong. Rav Ovadiah never
approved the RCA prenup. See above explanations.
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