Struggles of a Tsadik in Our Times and Comments from Rav Dovid Eidensohn

Notice from Rav Dovid Eidensohn: When this was first published I received a call from a prominent Posek who pointed out that this troubled tsaddik that I quote had a lot of trouble with Torah Jews, and this can leave a negative impression on a lot of people that we have no proper Torah leadership. On the other hand, my blog torahhalacha.blogspot.com is filled with my bitter complaints against senior rabbis who make invalid Gittin and mamzerim. It is also filled with complaints that besides me and my brother Daniel we have a dearth of people who complain about senior rabbis who encourage women to remarry without a kosher GET. There is now a woman who remarried with the encouragement of senior rabbis with no GET at all, and almost nobody is telling her today to beware of mamzerim for children except me.

In fact, when this senior rabbi was finally attacked by major poskim for lying about the facts of the case and encouraging the woman to remarry with no GET and absolutely no logical Torah reason, a Beth Din of very senior rabbis was announced to deal with the problem, but guess what! weeks later nothing was done! I called up one of the major poskim on that Beth Din and asked him what the Beth Din decided. Should the woman remain with her new husband with no GET or not? The important posek then answered me, “This is not  your business. The Beth Din was made for the benefit of Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky. Ask him if  you want to know what the Beth Din ruled.” Then I realized that the very senior rabbis on this Beth Din were working for the very man who encouraged a woman with lies to remarry without a GET.

 The two names of people that I single out in the blog are Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, the Rosh Yeshiva of Tiferes Yerushalim, the son of Reb Moshe Feinstein, who created the entire fake Beth Din to invent protection for a first rate liar and mamzer maker, Shmuel Kaminetsky. And Hillel David, who told me it was none of my business, is somebody that I say to him, “It is my business. And if  you made a Beth Din with David Feinstein to support a mamzer maker, then you are a mamzer maker, and deserve to be denied the right to sit on any kosher Beth Din.”

Moshe Heinemann is a major mamzer maker, who advertises in the Internet that everyone should support Ora, the organization that forces husbands to give a GET and thus makes mamzerim. Rabbi Hershel Schechter, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University and the head of the OU Kashruth division and a major posek, has called for forcing husbands to give a GET and even to get violent with them. He is a mamzer maker. And then, there is Shmuel Kaminetsky, considered by Agudas Yisroel to be a Gadol who is a liar, a  mamzer maker, and when somebody asked him if he would continue to support the woman who is remarried without a GET, he replied, “It is an argument of the rabbis.”

Thus, I consider it my job to tell it like it is, and if people think that the above people are great tsaddikim, and the Agudah honors them as major speakers, etc, along with other organizations, let the world know, I am different, and I will continue to be different. I spent much time talking to Reb Aharon Kotler, and he once hinted to me that I understand his derech in gemora. I spent much time talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein, and he gave an haskomo on my halacha sefer: “Rabbi Eidensohn is known to me for many years as one who delves deeply into complex halachas.” Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner Rov of Bnei Braq wrote in his haskomo, “Words of truth are recognized” and “words are written Lishmo.” I have many more haskomose from the greatest Torah teachers of the past generation. I also have a very strong semicha from Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev zt”l, which includes his personal name to use for my Beth Din in Gittin. Now my chaverusa was furious with me that I asked the Rov for that, but when you are in my line and want to talk to the Gedolei HaDor, the only way is pure chutzpah, and I played it to the hilt.

 We now turn to the troubled tsaddik and his remarks. I believe he has suffered and is surely not the only one. Let us hear what he had to say, which is only his personal suffering and not the suffering of all Jews.

I am presently over 40 years of age, and see it as a chessed from Above that I continue to look and remain "young at heart" amidst all the trials and tribulations that I've undergone - first with the "erlich" society, and then with my seven and a half years of marriage with my ex-wife.

My parents [they should be well] are coming from the same time and place that you're from; only, they are both baalei teshuva from after their marriage in the 60's day and age. When I was 7 years old our TV broke, and they didn't bother fixing it. (My father was then listening to Rav Miller's tapes, and he hated TV.) A year later we moved from White Oak (Silver Spring area) to Baltimore, and I began 3rd grade in T.A. My parents had always encouraged us to increase in our yiddishkeit; only, socially we never really "clicked" with the community at large.

Seven years later made aliyah, and moved to Bnei Brak. if we didn't socially "fit in" with Baltimore, well... just try to figure what the "Bnei Brak move" was to us teenage kids!

I myself was 15 years old at the time we made aliyah, and I was left to my own devices to "break in" with my surroundings. My parents only saw positive in the "erlich" surroundings, and any dissention on our part was seen as a sign of "rebellious Americanism". [Little did I know then - it was totally inconceivable by any stretch of the imagination - that the main "beis din" there would some time later smear an individual hounded by his rebellious wife to give a GET (the infamous "Chaimsohn" case) - posting a "teshuva" from Rabbi Akiva Eiger well out of context; creating a GET MEUSEH, and allowing a married woman to the shuk!]

I myself went to learn in yeshiva here in Yerushalayim, finally finding myself "at home" with a more American crowd - but not for long. In the year 5749 the "olam" erupted in mahlokes over the "gimel vs. eitz" controversy, and I found myself in disfavor with those around me. I simply couldn't comprehend what was happening right before my eyes: Grown men, kollel yungerleit with beards and payos, distinguished rabbanim and roshei yeshivos had joined in the fray with extreme zeal - slamming and smearing all those who challenged them and their "daas torah"... They were clearly aware of the chillul hashem going on around them with 7 year old kids gleefully cursing out known Rabbanim who happened to side with their opponents. They claimed they were following Rav Shach... If they only cared a shred what Rav Shach REALLY wanted vis-a-vis the"Yated" model that they dressed him up to be. I did see it though, as a "siyata from Shamayim" the fact that we moved from Bnei Brak to Yerushalayim on Isru Chag (Tishrei) that year - the day that Bnei Brak erupted.

But the one thing that bothered me tremendously at the time was that at my yeshiva the one concept they attempted to "burn into us" bochrim was what they called "hisbatlus"; namely - we had to "nullify" ourselves before "daas torah" (strictly by THEIR definition). I simply could NEVER be led to believe that the typical "shtoddy" American bochur, clean-shaven with a Borsalino hat doubling his facial features, who smoked and talked politics in seder- that HE had a clear ticket to Olam Haba, merely because he "nullified" himself to his Rosh Yeshiva; while I simply could not. (To me this smacks of Christianity.)

Other than this I did feel, at the time, that I could yet "go with the flow", and that we all still had the same fundamentals in mind - serving Hashem, and growing in Torah.

When I got married I was close to 23 years of age - still living in this "bubble" thinking that we all had the same goals and ideals in mind. It took me several years of shaking up and rude awakenings to get me out of this thinking process. I was already aware then of the paradox of "top bochurim" selling themselves out to the wealthy in terms of shidduchim, and I myself would have none of it at all. I had begun taking to the teachings of the GRA some time before, and I recognized that for me there was no other way. At the time I naively assumed that this was basically the accepted approach in the yeshiva "velt" as well; I simply could not be led to believe that the modern day "daas torah" was off on a far different track altogether...

To talk about my marriage, which lasted 71/2 years, is a story in itself... At this point I'd rather not talk too much about it, but it started going REALLY sour after my wife began splurging money, and I told her that I wasn't going to bother her too much about this; rather I would simply leave kollel to go out and work. This really unnerved her, and she began smearing me hours on end behind my back. It was particularly an insult to one of the local rabbanim, whom she was closely connected with prior to our marriage, and had previously convinced her to get married with me in the first place. Even still, he wasn't chiefly the one who ruined our marriage - it was someone else (who signed his name "Rabbi ...", despite his haughty and greedy policies which had ruined other marriages as well). He's been dead for several years now; even still, I'll never forgive him - just to hear his name repulses me. But time itself reveals all that people try passionately to hide... my ex-wife who wanted so badly for me to remain in kollel - she eventually connected with a lawyer who had a similar story to mine, and subsequently proceeded to deplete his monetary resources.

My turbulent nature with present "modern chareidi" society (a paradox in terms like "warm ice") causes me to minimize any talk which is liable to create conflict, and misrepresentation. I definitely consider it obligatory to expose the treachery of modern day RA - banim who create "new faces" to our Torah which negate it entirely. The higher they are - the harder they must and will fall! I am afraid; however, to open up a can of worms which will be gleefully misused and distorted by nay-sayers and baalei machlokes, (who "are what they eat") to only further disgrace the Torah, and thereby do the opposite of what my intention is. Therefore, I jotted down in a single line the peirush of the GRA in Megillas Esther. There - he explains at some length how during the Ikvesa DeMeshicha the level of chutzpah will be so overwhelming - that even the gedolei hador will defect to the interests of the younger ones.

I hope that I've cleared up here any misunderstanding, and I fervently wish that you continue to make the TRUE voice of Torah resound in our midst - over the rattle and ramble of all the phony "daas torah" pervading the media today - which is actually "daas taavah/toaivah".

Thank you for listening!

Hatzlachah! May Hashem be with you always,

Post by Chaim Levin about money and learning comment by Rav Dovid Eidensohn

Chaim Levin
Comments below in italics from Rav Dovid Eidensohn

BS"D

Shalom uvrachah! Thank you for responding to my enquiry last night!

I received your follow-up e-mails. As I was going through your blogspot I saw it necessary to add the following comment, and the computer gives me problems trying to upload it directly: 

           

"Someone in Yeshiva could go for a few years on the sums of support demanded for marrying a Kollel fellow, and people were found who would pay it."

FUNDAMENTAL ERROR HERE!!!

The Shulchan Aruch (Even Ha'ezer 2) says clearly in the name of the Rem"a that one should not bicker over money in regards to this - as it is not "properly earned money". See the Biur HaGr"a 7 [regarding the apparant internal contradiction upon face glance in the Rem"a] that "if he would marry her anyway (without money) then he need not worry".

This is not a "technical issue" - it is fundamental! All of the raving and ranting against fraudulent Ra-bannim distorting Torah and divrei chaza"l - the "quiet defection" all began years ago when these "top talmidim" sold themselves to materialistic families in marriage; with the "holy" ideal of being able to "live and learn in peace and comfort without financial worries". It was ultimately this "peace and comfort" which caused them to slip and slacken from the duty and authority that the Torah will demand of them as recognized Rabbanim - aside from the obvious fact that there is nothing more lethal to a person's Yiras Shamayim than living together with a materialistic woman. This type of defection did not begin in America either - it was tragically prevalent in Europe as well.

The Chafetz Chaim told his son in his old age that all of his Torah is credited to his wife - from a poor and simple upbringing. He said, "What would have been with me now, had I not married your mother?". What would have become of me had I accepted then the offer of 10,000 rubles from a distinguished tycoon in Vilna?"

Yes - the Chafeitz Chaim worked for a living - writing and selling books. And this certainly did not detract from his Torah in any way!

END QUOTE FROM CHAIM LEVIN

Comment from Rav Dovid Eidensohn – [The Vollozhner Yeshiva had the world’s leading Torah scholars but they learned and did not earn. Top students there could eventually find rabbinical positions, some that paid well, and some found wealthy families that supported their learning in Kollel for some years. Some had little support but lived with little and relied on HaShem’s help. When I learned in Lakewood under Reb Aharon we stayed in Yeshiva because of Reb Aharon’s influence, and I don’t know how many people had big backing, but it was generally limited. There was a top student who learned by Reb Aharon but his father said if you learn in Lakewood you are not my son. Those were difficult times. When Reb Shneur took over Lakewood he realized he could not support the influx of students and was worried about taking over the Yeshiva which under his father had very little money especially for the students when they married. But Rav Yosher Ber Soloveitchik saw that Lakewood was at risk that it may close down, and he ordered his students, the YU rabbis, to support Lakewood. Other factors such as President Johnson’s war on poverty where huge sums were disbursed for the poor, and who is poorer than a Lakewood Kollel person? made a difference. There were various American Kollel students, and I don’t think it is fair to lump them all together. Some I know were worried that the influx of money was detrimental to the Yeshiva, and some welcomed it. But still some where tsaddikim and not interested in money per se, and some were interested. But I don’t think there is a rule to just dismiss everyone who had some money to be considered a spiritual failure.]

Joe Orlow talks about Chaim Levin’s complaint that a Beth Din accepted a GET from a man who was a vegetable. Comments from Rav Dovid Eidensohn.

 A report about a Bais Din in Eretz Yisrael has been brought to my attention. The Bais Din was petitioned by a wife seeking a divorce from her husband. The husband is in a state where he is uncommunicative. Let me expand here for a moment why I use the term "uncommunicative". There are cases where people come out of comas after years. A while back there was an article about a normal boy who was "missing" a part of his brain. The amazing thing is that when someone does not have activity in this part of the brain, doctors will declare this person "brain dead". Yet this boy, without this section, was fine. 

Experts like brain surgeons and others who study the brain probably have many cases that don't fit the accepted medical models. This is important to consider in light of the following. The Bais Din decided that they could act on the husband's behalf. This is without precedent in Halacha, according to my understanding. The husband, being alive, cannot give his wife a Get. So his wife remains his wife. But the Bais Din decided that were the husband to be communicative, he would communicate that he wants to give his wife a Get because he, the husband, is in an apparently permanent uncommunicative state. So the Bais Din "divorced" the wife.   

The Bais Din issuing this ruling was overruled by a higher court in the Bais Din system known as the "Rabbanute". The higher court decided the wife remains married. Then the higher court of the Rabbanute was overruled by a civil court. The civil court said the Rabbanutes's lower court ruling remains in effect and that the wife is divorced. This raises two questions:

(1)   What kind of education and vetting is there for Rabbanute judges? Clearly, the lower court did not act according to Halacha. [Comment from RDE –Major rabbis in America such as Moshe Heinemann in Baltimore, Hershel Schachter in New York, and Shmuel Kaminetsky in Philadelphia promote forced Gittin by humiliating husbands and such devices, something clearly forbidden by all commentators to the Shulchan Aruch in laws of Kesubose 77 paragraphs 2,3. Plainly, these rabbis, the cream of the students of Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Rabbi Yosher Ber Soloveitchik, do not follow the Shulchan Aruch, as all of the commentators there forbid pressuring a husband to give a GET. I spoke to Moshe Heinemann and to a student of Herschel Schachter while the student was on the phone with Schachter, and I am sure that Schachter does not know the laws of Gittin either. Shmuel Kaminetsky is considered by the Agudah to be a Gadol but the major poskim rabbis who criticized him for telling a married woman to remarry with no GET and make mamzerim had only derision for him. The Gaon from Brisk in Israel said that Kaminetsky is forbidden to teach Torah.]

 (2) What kind of high court puts itself in a position where it can be overruled by a civil court? [Commentary from RDE - This took place in Israel where the majority are not Orthodox Jews. And yet, the government accepted Orthodox rabbis to have official government positions. Having little choice because of their minority status, many prominent rabbis accepted that Orthodox rabbis will have governmental power but not Conservative or Reform rabbis, and with this came the problem of the government courts who can overturn at least some rabbinic decisions.]

 In the U.S. we are in a similar position where unlearned and/or renegade Batei Din are releasing women wrongly from marriages. Furthermore, civil courts, under so-called "Get Laws", force Gittin, thus leading to women wrongly released from marriages. This leads, in some cases, to Mamzerim being born.

[Commentary by RDE – Joe is right about that and in his original paper continues about the great problems of Kiddushin making women helpless if the husband does not want to give her a GET. Let me explain a bit. I believe that a woman who won’t honor Kiddushin by remaining with their spouse even when the marriage is broken until the husband gives a GET willingly, is forbidden to make Kiddushin. And to remain single is also a sin, as taught in Shulchan Aruch. The only solution is to marry with Pilegesh. Pilegesh is a real marriage and the children are the true family of the parents. The basic condition is for the woman to come to the husband’s house and live there with him as husband and wife, with the understanding that there is no Kiddushin, but Pilegesh rules, so that either spouse can leave whenever they want to, with absolutely no penalty. The couple must behave as a married couple regarding not having relations with others. If somebody wants to marry with Pilegesh another thing is to have a rabbi tell a few other rabbis and people in the community that these two, the husband and wife of Pilegesh, are not married with Kiddushin. Again, in my blog torahhalacha.blogspot.com I devote more detail to Pilegesh. Anyone interested can write to me email at eidensohnd@gmail.com or call me at 845-578-1917.]

A GET for a vegetable and the focus of outcry against it

Question from Chaim Levin:

Chaim Levin <chalevin5@gmail.com>

BS"D

I'm trying to clarify why there isn't more outcry over this new "ruling" by the so called "Safed Rabbinate" to invent a non-existant "get" that someone classified as a "vegetable" can divorce his wife...

It is clearly discernable from the Shulchan Aruch Even Haezer 121 that a "shchiv mera" cannot arrange that a get be given to his wife unless we ascertain that he was in full faculty of his mental state at the time (also at the time the get is given).

Reply from Rav Dovid Eidensohn:

Chaim, very good question. Let’s first make clear what your question is: A married man became a “vegetable” and had no normal mental capacity to decide and declare things. His wife was therefore trapped in a marriage with a vegetable who could never give her a GET willingly, as he had no capacity to decide to give his wife a GET and to utter the statements that are required to give one’s wife a GET. And you correctly quote the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 121 that a GET may only be given when the husband gives it willingly and says that he wants his wife to be divorced. A vegetable cannot do this. But an Israeli Beth Din ruled that the woman is free to remarry, because the husband would surely want his wife to be divorced in light of his situation. When a senior Israeli rabbinic court decided to overruled the first Beth Din and declare the GET for a vegetable invalid, a secular court overruled the religious court and said that the GET was valid, even though the husband never said one word about giving his wife a GET and had no mental capacity to even think about doing such a thing.

And Chaim, your point is “why there isn’t more outcry over this new ruling" is surely a very valid point. It is not a point against the Beth Din which surely erred in its ruling. It is a ruling against those of us who were not moved to protest such an outrage as accepting a divorce from a man who was a vegetable and could not think or speak those things needed to produce a GET.

As for myself, I feel the real discussion must be something else: What can we do when there is a government sponsored rabbonuse where people are free to invent rulings that produce mamzerim and the secular courts back them so there is no recourse?

In such a case, who should we attack? The erring Beth Din, or the entire system? And if the entire system, does that mean we do away with the rabbonuse? If there were reasons to make an Orthodox rabbonuse, do we now reverse this?

Yes, Chaim, your question is a good one. But many people are confused. If there is an Orthodox rabbinate, and if it is  under the control of a secular government, we are inviting the outrage of the Tsevas Beth Din. So who do we scream at, the Tsevas Beth Din or the secular court that backed them or the entire structure of an Orthodox Beth Din capable of making such rulings that are backed by a secular court and a secular government. This makes for a lot of confusion, and confused people don’t usually sound off when they don’t know who to complain about.

Problems with Kiddushin, and a Solution

Problems with Kiddushin, and a Solution

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

 A woman who accepts Kiddushin, can only leave her husband with his willing giving of a GET. A forced GET, one made with humiliation or threats or one made by the decree of the secular court makes an invalid GET and the woman who remarries with such produces in general mamzerim. Therefore, for a woman and even a man, taking Kiddushin is a very serious problem. It should only be accepted if the woman is ready to give up her happiness if her husband refuses a GET. And in the Modern Orthodox camp and other camps, even some deeply Orthodox people, we see clearly that a lot of women are not ready to give up their happiness, and do what they can to force the husband to divorce and then make mamzerim. Therefore, for such women, taking Kiddushin is a sin and she should not take Kiddushin.On the other hand, the Shulchan Aruch opposes living alone. Living alone is unnatural especially in young people with burning biologizes. So what happens when somebody is not ready to give up their happiness for Kiddushin?The solution is Pilegesh, a union of man and woman mentioned in the Code of Laws and the Gemora in Sanhedrin 21A. The union or marriage of man and woman without Kiddushin can never produce mamzerim, and it can never produce forcing two people to remain together.Pilegesh is not the preferred way of Orthodox marriage, but it is approved when there is a need for a marriage that does not have the problems of Kiddushin. Today, most marriages are problems with Kiddushin, surely for women, and even men cannot just leave without a lot of trouble and maybe years of work and expense. Therefore I believe that people who are not sure about honoring Kiddushin if the other spouse refuses a GET, should not remain alone, but should marry with Pilegesh.

A possible problem with Pilegesh is that people don’t see, in general, people marrying today with anything other than Kiddushin. Furthermore, if a person is strong enough to give up their happiness to honor Kiddushin, they should marry with Kiddushin, and for them Pilegesh may be a problem. I personally only recommend Pilegesh for somebody who cannot be positive that they will put up with the problems of Kiddushin, such as having a broken marriage the rest of her or his life. I also fear that today and tomorrow for sure, honoring Kiddushin properly is something that few people can be positive about until they taste the horror of a broken marriage.

Another problem with Pilegesh is that there are two ways of marrying with Pilegesh. One way is to marry with Pilegesh rules and publicize this, which is the proper way to do it, and the other way is to keep it quiet, which can make problems. For instance, if people see a couple living together and having children, they assume that the couple is married with Kiddushin, at least if the couple is Orthodox. If so, when the Pilegesh couple decides, or one of them decides, to leave the other one, they have the right to do so. And they can immediately remarry somebody else. But people may think that they are leaving each other without a GET required by Kiddushn, because most people do marry today with Kiddushin. If so, people may mistakenly assume that if the woman remarries without a GET her children in the next marriage will be mamzerim!Therefore, anyone who wants to marry with Pilegesh, should contact me, and I will first of all explain exactly what their marriage entails, and what it does not entail. Yes, they can split at any time, but while they live together in the same house, they must honor their marriage. Failure to honor the marriage can be a big problem.Also, it is important that I notify key people in the community that I assume responsibility for the Pilegesh marriage, and that this is not Kiddushin, so a remarriage will not be a problem.

A recent Matsav article about Open Orthodoxy replacing Kiddushin leaves not a trace of disagreement, as if Matsav itself considers Open Orthodox much more important than those who properly write in protest on the Facebook site of FrumMen that Open Orthodox are not Orthodox. After all, a senior Open Orthodox person said openly he does not accept the stories in the Torah, so how Orthodox is Open Orthodox? Surely Matsav knows about that apikores, and yet it has no mention at all of any criticism of Open Orthodox. Yes, there is Modern Orthodox, but they had a rebbe Rav Soloveitchik who was a stickler for true Torah Halacha. But Open Orthodox is far removed from Halacha. They want to be Open, to do what they want.There are problems with marriage and family today. And to the rescue come apikorsim and Open Orthodox and “rabbis” who make mamzerim. From now on, don’t marry anyone until you check them out thoroughly, especially what rabbis gave them a GET. Details about this problem are in the very important book Mishpitei Yisroel, with dozens of articles by Gedolei Yisroel. 

From My Brother's Blog daattorah.blogspot.com - GET Law punishing husbands for not giving their wives a GET is unconstitional

Friday, January 20, 2017

Masri vs Masri - New York court finds Get Law unconstitutional

In view of the foregoing, this court holds that in the circumstances presented here, increasing the amount or the duration of Defendant's post-divorce spousal maintenance obligation pursuant to DRL §236B(6)(o) by reason of his refusal to give Plaintiff a Jewish religious divorce or "Get" would violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. There is no evidence that the Defendant has withheld a Get to extract concessions from Plaintiff in matrimonial litigation or for other wrongful purposes. The religious and social consequences of which Plaintiff complains flow not from any impropriety in Defendant's withholding a "Get", but from religious beliefs to which Plaintiff no less than Defendant subscribes. To apply coercive financial pressure because of the perceived unfairness of Jewish religious divorce doctrines to induce Defendant to perform a religious act would plainly interfere with the free exercise of his (and her) religion and violate the First Amendment. The court accordingly declines Plaintiff's invitation to apply DRL §236B(6)(o) in determining Defendant's maintenance obligation.

http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2017/2017-ny-slip-op-27007.html

In view of the foregoing, this court holds that in the circumstances presented here, increasing the amount or the duration of Defendant's post-divorce spousal maintenance obligation pursuant to DRL §236B(6)(o) by reason of his refusal to give Plaintiff a Jewish religious divorce or "Get" would violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. There is no evidence that the Defendant has withheld a Get to extract concessions from Plaintiff in matrimonial litigation or for other wrongful purposes. The religious and social consequences of which Plaintiff complains flow not from any impropriety in Defendant's withholding a "Get", but from religious beliefs to which Plaintiff no less than Defendant subscribes. To apply coercive financial pressure because of the perceived unfairness of Jewish religious divorce doctrines to induce Defendant to perform a religious act would plainly interfere with the free exercise of his (and her) religion and violate the First Amendment. The court accordingly declines Plaintiff's invitation to apply DRL §236B(6)(o) in determining Defendant's maintenance obligation.

======================================================[...]

It was of the view that "the relief [the wife] seeks from this court so obviously runs afoul of the threshold tests of the Free Exercise Clause that the court need never reach the delicate balancing normally required in such cases." Id., at 534. It wrote:

The court is not unsympathetic to [the wife's] desire to have [the husband's] cooperation in the obtaining of a "get". She, too, is sincere in her religious beliefs. Her religion, at least in terms of divorce, does not profess gender equality. But does that mean that she can obtain the aid of this court of equity to alter this doctrine of her faith? ....

Id., at 535. After extended analysis, the court answered:

It may seem "unfair" that [the husband] may ultimately refuse to provide a "get". But the unfairness comes from [the wife's] own sincerely-held religious beliefs. When she entered into the "ketubah" she agreed to be obligated to the laws of Moses and Israel. Those laws apparently include the tenet that if [the husband] does not provide her with a "get" she must remain an "agunah". That was [the wife's] choice and one which can hardly be remedied by this court. This court has no authority — were it willing — to choose for these parties which aspects of their religion may be embraced and which must be rejected. Those who founded this Nation knew too well the tyranny of religious persecution and the need for religious freedom. To engage even in "well-intentioned' resolution of a religious dispute requires the making of a choice which accommodates one view and suppresses another. If that is permitted, it readily follows that less "well-intentioned" choices may be made in the future . . . .

The tenets of [the wife's] religion would be debased by this court's crafting of a short-cut or loophole through the religious doctrines she adheres to; and the dignity and integrity of the court and its processes would be irreparably injured by such misuse...

Id., at 542-543.

It is clear from the legislative history that it was precisely this purported "unfairness" of a Jewish husband's refusal to provide a Get that drove the enactment of the DRL §253 requirement of removal of barriers to remarriage:

....Although the statute is phrased in ostensibly neutral language, its avowed purpose is to curb what has been described as the withholding of Jewish religious divorces, despite the entry of civil divorce judgments, by spouses acting out of vindictiveness or applying economic coercion. See Governor's Memorandum of Approval, McKinney's 1983 Session Laws of New York, pp. 2818, 2819. The statute seeks to provide a remedy for the "tragically unfair" situation presented where a Jewish husband refuses to sign [*6]religious documents needed for a religious divorce. Id.

Though this is the purpose of the statute, the statute makes no express reference to Jewish religious divorces or Jewish religious tribunals. The absence of references to Jewish religious practices was hardly unintentional. The statute represents an obvious encroach-ment by the civil authorities into religious matters, particularly with respect to perceived unfairness in the religious divorce doctrines of one particular religion. In an attempt to skirt some of the difficult constitutional questions raised in the context of the relationship between church and state, the drafters of the statute wrote in neutral language and avoided any express singling out of Jewish practices. However, even approached with linguistic backhand, the contention has been raised that the entire statute is unconstitutional. The existence of constitutional questions was noted by the Governor when the original legislation was presented for signature. However, he was determined to sign the legislation because of the absence of "impelling precedent" and confidence in the courts to resolve the constitutional questions. See Governor's Memorandum of Approval, McKinney's 1983 Session Laws of New York, pp. 2818, 2819.

McKinney's Cons. Laws of New York Annotated, DRL §253, Practice Commentaries (Scheinkman) C253:1 (2016).

Noting the potential constitutional infirmity of DRL §253 in terms directly applicable to Plaintiff's request that maintenance be so calibrated per DRL §236B(6)(o) as to apply financial pressure on Defendant to induce him to provide a Jewish religious divorce, the Hon. Alan D. Scheinkman wrote:

DRL §253 is really designed to induce or compel Jewish spouses, especially men, to "voluntarily" accede to religious divorces or else be precluded from obtaining a civil divorce decree. Viewed as such, it is questionable whether the statute can withstand constitutional challenge.

It cannot be doubted that marriage is a personal relation and the state may fix the rights, duties, and obligations which arise out of the relationship, including the terms on which the relationship may be terminated. Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190...(1888). The state may allow civil divorce, even though one spouse object to the decree on the basis of religious conviction and even though a religious divorce cannot be or has not been obtained. See Williams v. Williams, 543 P.2d 1401 (Okla. Sup. Ct. 1976), appeal dismissed, cert. denied ...426 U.S. 901.... Religious practices, even those relating to religious marriage practice, may be regulated, if offensive to overriding public policy. See Reynolds v. United States, 8 Otto 145, 98 U.S. 145...(1878)(criminal prosecution for bigamy).[FN4]

This statute does not purport to prohibit a religious practice on public policy grounds. Instead, it is intended to coerce parties to seek religious relief on pain of being deprived of civil relief. While it may perhaps be permissible for secular courts to compel a party to perform a contractual obligation, though imposed in a religious writing (as allowed by the Avitzur decision), it seems doubtful that a civil statute can compel, by mandating the withholding of relief, a party to a civil action to undertake religious proceedings or submit [*7]to religious authorities and practices. The statute may be susceptible to the conclusion that it interferes with the free practice of religion and transgresses the separation of church and state.

McKinney's Cons. Laws of New York Annotated, DRL §253, Practice Commentaries (Scheinkman) C253:1 (2016) (emphasis added).

In view of the foregoing, this court holds that in the circumstances presented here, increasing the amount or the duration of Defendant's post-divorce spousal maintenance obligation pursuant to DRL §236B(6)(o) by reason of his refusal to give Plaintiff a Jewish religious divorce or "Get" would violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. There is no evidence that the Defendant has withheld a Get to extract concessions from Plaintiff in matrimonial litigation or for other wrongful purposes. The religious and social consequences of which Plaintiff complains flow not from any impropriety in Defendant's withholding a "Get", but from religious beliefs to which Plaintiff no less than Defendant subscribes. To apply coercive financial pressure because of the perceived unfairness of Jewish religious divorce doctrines to induce Defendant to perform a religious act would plainly interfere with the free exercise of his (and her) religion and violate the First Amendment. The court accordingly declines Plaintiff's invitation to apply DRL §236B(6)(o) in determining Defendant's maintenance obligation.

5. Findings

Defendant is a young, well educated man in good health with an earning capacity far in excess of the very meager income reflected on his 2015 tax return. Moreover, evidence of record indicates that his earnings and financial resources exceed the amounts stated on his tax return and net worth statement, and, in addition, that Defendant has willfully failed to comply with his financial disclosure obligations in this case. In view of the foregoing, the court imputes to Defendant gross income in the amount of $75,000.00 per annum. Applying the statutory guideline for post-divorce spousal maintenance to the parties' income as determined hereinabove, spousal maintenance owing from Defendant to Plaintiff would be $9,696.00 per annum (or $808.00 per month, $186.46 per week) for a minium of 2.1 years and a maximum of 4.2 years.

In accordance with the post-divorce maintenance guidelines, the court fixes Defendant's maintenance obligation at $9,696.00 per annum ($808.00 per month, $186.46 per week), taxable to Plaintiff and tax-deductible by Defendant, for a period of four (4) years, and finds that this guideline obligation is neither unjust nor inappropriate in light of the factors set forth in DRL §236B(6)(e)(1).

Child Support

At this time, Plaintiff is the custodial parent. Unless and until Family Court alters her status as the custodial parent, Defendant's child support obligation is $843.83 per month (or $194.73 per week), calculated as follows: [...]

The foregoing constitutes the decision of the court. Plaintiff's counsel is directed to submit revised Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, and a revised Judgment of Divorce, consistent with this Decision, for settlement on ten (10) days notice to Defendant.

Serving Gedolei HaDor Reb Aharon Kotler, Reb Moshe Feinstein, Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev and others

Contents

Lakewood Yeshiva after Reb Aharon Dies 1

Talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein about Difficult Medical Questions 4

The Strassberger Rov and a Serious Halacha Question 5

The following is from Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn. We have already published on our blog http://torahhalacha.blogspot.com several dozen pages about my experience with Gedolim Reb Aharon Kotler, Reb Moshe Feinstein, Reb Yosef Shalom Elyashev and others. We are now developing an entire section with material from Gedolei HaDor in Israel and America that shows the crisis of invalid Gittin, invalid conversions, and other things especially now that marriage and family is falling apart. It is our hope to supply happy answers to the dreadful crisis of broken children and families.

Lakewood Yeshiva after Reb Aharon Dies

Reb Aharon Kotler died in 1962. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The new president was Lyndon Johnson, whose great hope was to undo the grip of poverty on the poor. From President Johnson came federal grants for people who needed money who could qualify for the programs, and sometimes merit large sums of money.

Who was poorer than somebody who learned in Kollel? Thus, here is one factor for the new money in Lakewood. The Yeshiva itself applied for the now generous Federal government’s grants for the poor, and so did individuals.

At the time, there was such corruption, including front page articles about prominent people, that I determined to stay away from every dollar and every penny. I asked Reb Yaacov Kaminetsky about this. He seemed pleased that somebody would ask such a question, but could not rule that we should not take money from the government. He asked if it was not true that people constantly benefit from the government with all kinds of Federal expenditures including roads, lights, etc. I heard from somebody else who asked this of the Satmar Rov Rebbe Yoel zt”l, and he got basically the same response. He did not forbid taking federal money. Whether it was better to subsist on different money was not an issue he publicly ruled on.

I made up my mind after seeing what I saw of the problems with such free money, that I would refuse to apply for it. I know that HaShem granted me wonderful children, heads of institutions and Talmidei Chachomim. That is wealth, and that kind of wealth doesn’t come from Federal largesse, but the opposite, from straight earned money.

At any rate, the free money surely helped Lakewood financially. But there was another factor that contributed to a rapidly growing student body in the Yeshiva. America was involved in a terrible war with North Viet Nam. Eventually, America just left and eventually Communists took control. There was a draft during the Vietnam war, and college students were obligated to go fight in it. Eventually, many students rebelled at the draft and the idea that their college program would be interrupted by a war that nobody cared about. Timothy Leary was a prominent Harvard professor who taught students to take dangerous mind altering drugs so that they would sense new things. Modesty and decency were openly flouted by the youth. Obviously, Orthodox children could not go to such colleges which had become sewers. Now more and more people looked with new understanding at the prospect of sending a child to Lakewood.

Now, a good Lakewood student was a valuable asset. This translated into cold cash. Meaning, a boy had a price. A boy with a good name in learning could anticipate a girl whose parents would pay him a lot just to marry their daughter instead of sending her to college and the heinous horrors there.

Thus was born the idea that instead of the old Lakewood system where people trusted in miracles not to collapse from starvation, now money flowed into the Yeshiva from President Johnson and from parents anxious for a learning boy.

I had talked to Reb Aharon in learning regularly. And I needed a Gadol to talk to. Now Reb Aharon was in another world. And, in a sense, the Yeshiva was in a different world. The Lakewood in the last year of Reb Aharon’s life was a new Lakewood, especially when a group of geniuses came to the Yeshiva. Then Reb Aharon realized that he had succeeded. But the new Lakewood, now something that attracted more and more people for various reasons, and more and more money for various reasons, was not for me. I was at a crossroads, and I had nobody to talk to about it.

I told HaShem I was putting it on Him. I am leaving Lakewood. I am going home to Cinnamson, New Jersey, which is basically nowhere, and the worst place to be if I want to get married. If HaShem gets me married properly in Cinnamson, NJ, it will obviously be from HaShem. And, if I won’t have a wife, my question will be answered in a bitter but strong way.

As time went on, I did get married. I remember the day we held open house for the family and close friends. I realized that people were coming not to honor me or my basherteh, but out of plain curiosity. Who in the world would marry somebody like me, who left Yeshiva and stayed for years at home where? in Cinnaminson, NJ. At least two people saw my wife-to-be and burst out with “Miracle!” Okay, so HaShem got the job!

One day a gentile friend born in Holland who once killed a Nazi asked me where my wife was from. My wife drove me to work that day and this fellow and some others in his company were very impressed. But they couldn’t figure out where my wife was born and were curious to find out. I told him that my wife was from Poland which made him very happy. Well, don’t Europeans have the right to think that attractive women come from Europe?

Once, I was in New York with my wife and children, in the house of my wife’s sister and her children. There was a terrible milk strike. My wife and her sister both had young babies who needed milk. But there was no way to get one drop of milk anywhere. I declared that I was going out to look for milk. Some people thought I was nuts. I walked one block away from where I was staying and a milk truck drove right next to me and stopped. I asked him if I could have some milk. He said yes. I said I wanted a crate of milk. He gave it to me. I walked into the house with the crate of milk and people were astounded. Well, if you work for HaShem that is what happens.

I am now an old man of 74. I spent my life chasing great rabbis and living in terror as I told them my questions or understandings. After Reb Aharon Kotler I chased Rav Moshe Feinstein for some years. I was terrified but I kept coming back. Finally, I wrote a book and asked him for an approbation. He wrote, “I know Rabbi Eidensohn for many years as one who delves very deeply into complex halalacha questions to clarify them.” That is what happens when you spend time outside a rocket ship far from the moon and you know that if you make one false move you will sale off into outer space.

I also have a very strong semicha from Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev, the senior Posek in Israel. I had a Beth Din under Rav Elyashev that dealt with Russian Gittin, rather, baalei teshuva who used to be either Communists or lost Jews. I went to Israel and met with Rav Elyashev and he didn’t want to talk about Russian Jews. He wanted to talk about American rabbis who convinced New York State to force men to divorce their wives even though the men did not want to give a GET. In Torah law a GET given by the husband because of pressure is usually invalid and the remarriage of the wife to another man produces babies who are usually mamzerim.

Recall that at age 17 I began talking to Reb Aharon Kotler as much as I could. It was very frightening, but I came back for more even though Reb Aharon was very honest with what he thought of my Torah thoughts. Eventually I understood how to present my Torah to Reb Aharon so that he did not blow me away, which was quite a feat. Later on, I spent a lot of time talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein. That was also very frightening, but I kept coming back, and one day I got a very warm approbation that I quote above. Reb Moshe knew how hard it was for me and how scared I was and that figured into the semicha he gave me with his approbation.

By the time I got to Reb Elyashev I had gone through Reb Aharon and Reb Moshe and now I was not afraid. I asked him some very hard questions which only a Gadol HaDor could answer, and he answered right away. When we were finished, I asked for a semicha from him to be a Rosh Beth Din for Gittin, and I added, I wanted his name in the bargain. He immediately agreed. Of course, that was chutzpah first class or maybe last class, but when you deal with Gedolim at my age and with my knowledge what else is there but brutal chutzpah? At any rate, I told this to my chaverusa on our Beth Din, and he was absolutely furious. Such chutzpah? The Rov never uses his name for anything and he gives it to your Beth Din for Gittin?

Look, all of the Gedolim knew it was pure chutzpah; I knew it was pure Chutspah, so what else can I do when I talk to Gedolei HaDor when I might be happier playing basketball?

Talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein about Difficult Medical Questions

Some years after the above criticism from my chaveruso about how I dealt with Gedolim, he told me that he was asked a very difficult medical question and he and nobody he knew could answer it. Well, that is what happens when you are not a mechutsaff. But I am a mechutsaff, and I had asked Reb Moshe that exact question.

The question was, if a person is very ill, and there is no treatment, and the person is in great pain, do we have to keep the patient alive to suffer or can we let him die, if we don’t contribute in any way to his death? I had been told previously that some authorities rule that a person in pain and dying and there is no cure must be kept alive even if he wants to die. The case was a hospital where a certain Rov was the posek, and a person was dying of a very weak heart. He was in terrible pain and his children wanted him to die to be saved from the terrible pain, but the Posek refused. Each time the sick father died because his heart gave out, the Posek brought him back with electric shocks. The children begged the Posek to let their father die, but he said, no, the Din is that the person must be brought back to stay alive, no matter how terrible the pain is.

I asked that question to Reb Moshe. He immediately fired off exactly how many times he had been asked that question, and how he had answered. He spoke so fast I could not keep up, but I did understand when he said that we don’t have to keep a person alive who is suffering and wants to die. A child in Monsey was in that state, and it is said that Reb Moshe ruled that if the child was suffering and wanted to die there was no obligation to bring him back to suffer, and he can be allowed to die. I heard that somebody had asked Reb Moshe this question and he answered as follows: There is no obligation to keep a sick person alive who has no chance of recovery if he is suffering and wants to die. Yet, let the suffering person should realize that while he lives he can do mitsvose, and when he dies he may need those mitsvose. But if he really suffers and wants to die, he may. (And a person who suffers can say some bad things so maybe it is better to die – that is my comment DE.)

Now, in my career as a mechutsaff I spoke often to the Gaon Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner from Israel when he visited in America. I had two open gemoras that Reb Moshe was right, that a person who is suffering may be allowed to die if there is no cure and his pain is intense.¹ See footnote below. One proof is a gemora in Gittin 70A and one is Avoda Zora 12B. The gemoras say that one who will surely die from his illness may be prevented from dying until he says goodbye to his family and settles his estate. He is willing to suffer so that his children will not fight after he dies over the inheritance. If as the Posek mentioned above is right that we must fight to keep a person alive even if he has hideous pain, why does the gemora suggest that one take this or that food or medicine in order to say goodbye to his family? Let it say that he must take this medicine or food in order to live another few minutes, even if he already said goodbye or has no need to say goodbye. I told this to Rav Wosner and he replied, “That is poshut.” I wondered why he said such thing. But then I realized that since Reb Moshe was Gadol HaDor Rav Wosner did not want to say that he agreed with Reb Moshe, as this insults the Gadol HaDor, so he said That’s poshut, meaning, of course the halacha is what Rav Moshe said.

The Strassberger Rov and a Serious Halacha Question

When I trained to deal with difficult halochose, I went to a Rov who paskened halochose. He spoke to people on the phone and I did not hear what the people said to the Rov, but I did hear what the Rov said. One time the Rov had a long and difficult time with somebody and he tried his best to calm things down and finally succeeded. However, he did not pasken the Shaalo. When he hung up the phone finally he told me, “I am not going to pasken that question. Go to the Strassberger Rov who is in Monsey and ask him the question.”

So I went down the block to where the Strassberger Rov was visiting his son-in-law, a Monsey Rov. I was told to come in and sit down until the Strassberger Rov is ready to speak to me. I sat down, and soon the Rov came in. I told him the question and then I told him what I thought was the proper answer. The Rov said nothing. I repeated myself and the Rov said nothing. I tried again, and nothing, so I just sat quietly.

The Rov then spoke and said, “HaRav Eidensohn.” When I heard that I knew I was in big trouble. I knew that after this “HaRav” I was going to be blasted, which is exactly what did happen. After saying “HaRav Eidensohn” and letting it sink in, the Rov continued saying, “A Rov never says from his mouth what you just said.”

I told this to a Monsey posek and he told me the following: A couple went to the Gaon Rav Yaacov Kaminetsky with a hideous problem, similar to the problem the Rov refused to pasken. He spoke to them at length and then they left. They by then knew exactly what the halocho was in their case, but never did Reb Yaacov say one word about the halocho. He spoke in a smart way that they should understand how to proceed, but never told then directly to do this or that. That is what the Strassberger Rov told me. I may have been right that in the case of the Rov the person should do this or that. But since it was an ichy horrendous thing we don’t talk about it. We talk around it and the person gets the message, without being told directly. So I learned something. Fine. But maybe it was learned too late. Because I was sure that by now the Strassberger is fed up with me who says things that a Rov is not supposed to say.

I was waiting for the curtain to come down and then I would leave, but the Strassberger went into the next room, where I could see him clearly, and he first paced here and there, and then he said, “I have a difficult shaalo.” I was stunned. I thought he was going to tell me, “Good night.” Then the Strassberger began telling me his difficult shaalo. It was a real difficult shaalo. Then, as I was spinning with his remark and the fact that he didn’t get me to leave the house, he said, “I have to bring the shaaloh to Reb Moshe, but I don’t know how to reach him.” Now, this was really strange. The Strassberger was in charge of Gittin and family issues in the Haredi Beth Din of Jerusalem of Aidi HaCharedis. He never spoke to Reb Moshe in the years of his paskening family questions? He doesn’t have anyone to ask where Reb Moshe lives when his son-in-law is a Rov and lives in this very building? Part of me was really confused, but the part of me that was a mechutsoff, just wanting a piece of the action, plowed ahead. I announced, “I know Reb Moshe and I will take the Rov’s shaaloh to his house tomorrow.” The deal was done.

The next day bright and early I was running up the steps of the apartment house where Reb Moshe lived. Suddenly, somebody grabbed me and asked me where I was going. I replied that I wanted to go to Reb Moshe. He told me that Reb Moshe wasn’t feeling well and nobody is allowed to go to his apartment. I replied that I had a letter to Reb Moshe from Aido HaCharedis. The gentleman immediately released me and let me go to Reb Moshe’s apartment. I gave in the letter and left. I called later and asked when there would be a response to the letter. I was told the response would be soon. I was told that Reb Moshe felt that the ruling on the shaaloh was that it was permitted. But I never received written proof of this, only daily oral statements that Reb Moshe permits it.

Weeks or months of calling didn’t improve things. The time came when I got a letter from my rebbe in this world and the next, the Kabbala genius Reb Shmuel Toledano zt”l. He told me that if I did not come to visit him he would stop writing to me. I got this letter on Motsei Shabbos and I was terrified. I ran to this and that Rov but nobody was home. I came home, and had no idea what to do. The phone rang. It was my sister who had just married. She told me that she won a ticket to Israel but was going to return it, because one person of a couple who just married doesn’t leave the other spouse and go to Israel. I told her to give me the ticket, and I had a ticket. I had a few dollars from a Tephilin campaign that I made, because I was studying Safruce, so I went to see my rebbe. But I also told Reb Moshe that I would be in Israel from this date to that date, in case he wanted to send the answer to the question of the Strassberger Rov.

I stayed by him a few days, and on Friday I went to see the Strassberger Rov. He told me that I would be by him for Shabbos, but he told me that I will go to the general Mikva and he goes to the rabbis Mikva, so he would be back before I would. So it was. I got back to his house and he was reading a letter. It was the letter from Reb Moshe. For some reason, Reb Moshe did not want to mail the letter to me, but did want to mail it to the Strassberger.

The Strassberger showed me the letter and then asked me, “Did you speak nicely to Reb Moshe?” I almost fell over. What kind of question was that? Later, after I had studied the letter, I realized what had happened, why the letter was never mailed to me. And why the Strassberger asked me if I had spoken nicely to Reb Moshe. I will soon explain. But to continue, the Strassberger then told me that although his rabbis disagreed with Reb Moshe, and did not want to recognize the boy in question as a bona fide Jew, but rather as one with serious questions about his Yichuse, since Reb Moshe had said that what his rabbis wanted to do with the boy was not wrong, they would do that. But there was still some kind of a halacha question even doing what his rabbis wanted to do with the boy. So he told me to take the letter from Reb Moshe to the senior rabbi in Israel, Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, and ask him the halacha question.

Before I continue, let me explain why Reb Moshe never mailed the letter to me, but simply ruled that the boy was permitted to marry a Jewish girl. To explain, I have to explain my relationship with a very senior Posek, the Klozenberger Dayan in Williansburg, Rav Fischel Hershkowitz. He was my rebbe for some years. I used to travel from Monsey to Williamsburg once a week, with a list of questions for what I invented answers, as part of my training in paskening halocho. Of course, I told him about the boy who had gone to the Strassberger for permission to marry a Jewish girl, and was refused. This caused the Strassberger to refer the issue to the great rabbis of Israel, especially Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, who emphatically refused to accept the boy as a definite Jew, but rather feared that he was not.

The issue is that the boy came I believe from India, from a group of people who at one time were probably regular Jews, but as the centuries wound down, and the group had no real rabbis, gentiles mixed into the group. If so, there was now a fear that the boy was a mamzer, because maybe somewhere and sometime in the centuries in India a parent of his going back some generations may have had relations with somebody who would make him a mamzer. The Strassberger and the great Israeli rabbis feared that he was invalid to marry a Jewish girl, because he may be a mamzer or a doubtful mamzer, but Reb Moshe permitted him.

Of course I told the argument to Reb Fischel Hershkowitz, and he replied, “Such a problem if a boy is a mamzer can only be ruled on by Reb Moshe.” He did not mean that the Israeli rabbis were not capable of ruling on it. He meant that since he heard exactly what the Israeli rabbis were planning to do, he realized that the boy would never get married with their leniences. Thus, the only hope for the boy to marry is to go to Reb Moshe.

To explain: The Israeli rabbis held that the boy was a doubtful mamzer. If so, how can a doubtful mamzer marry a Jewish girl? No way. So they came up with a plan. The boy would find a woman who was not Jewish, and would somehow ascertain that she was a slave, although those people don’t exist anymore, or are not recognized anymore, and have a baby through her, and the baby would be consecrated as a Jew. I don’t remember all of this so well as it took place decades ago, but that was basically what I remember. The catch in all of this is that the boy was an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Israel who dressed with full fanatic regalia, and what non-Jewish girl would ever accept such a person as her husband, especially if he had to explain to her that she would be a slave and have a baby a slave that would be consecrated as a Jew, or if I err in any of this, the real idea was not far behind this. This is why Rav Fischel Hershkowitz said right away that going to a gentile woman with all of this was not going to produce a wife for this fellow in Israel. His only hope is to go to Reb Moshe and be told that he is accepted as a regular Jew. Since Reb Moshe was the acknowledged Gadol HaDor, once he ruled on such a thing, the boy would find somebody to marry.

Now we come to explain why Reb Moshe did not mail me the letter and why the Strassberger asked me if I spoke nicely to Reb Moshe. Reb Moshe knew that the only hope for the boy was what Rav Hershkowitz said, to ask Reb Moshe to pasken the shaaloh. That is why Reb Moshe sent the letter to the Strassberger and not to me. He wrote the letter without the proper titles that usually one rabbi sends to another in an important letter. He wrote that way because he knew what Reb Fischel knew that the boy would never get married with the plan of the Israeli rabbis. Thus he wrote in a way that the Strassberger would realize that the letter contained a harsh complaint that Reb Moshe, the gadol hador, wants to pasken this question on his own, without the Israeli rabbis involved. If they got involved, the boy would never marry. Once however that the Strassberger saw my expression when he asked me if I spoke nicely to Reb Moshe, he realized what the truth was, and to mollify me for his accusation sent me to Reb Shlomo Zalman, the greatest rabbi in Israel, and the head of the group opposing Reb Moshe, so that he would see clearly what is going on over here, that Reb Moshe is very upset that the question is not being sent to him.

I came to Reb Shlomo Aurebach. It was Friday afternoon before Shabbos. He read the letter, and then, I said to him, “Rebbe! This is an Aguna question.” He exploded and said, “Somebody talked like that in Israel and we wanted to put him in cherem.” When I heard that, well, what can I say? At any rate, what I did I did because I am a talmid of Reb Fischel, but if I get put in cherem, what happens then?

Suddenly, I felt a pair of hands on my skull, and the skull was pulled open. That is, I sensed that. And the fingers reached into my skull and put a piece of paper there. The paper came shooting out of my mouth and I heard myself speak to Reb Shlomo Zalman and say, “The Rov should pasken, not give advice, but pasken, that the boy should ask the shaalo of Reb Moshe.” I noticed that Reb Shlomo Zalman was not looking at me. He was obviously talking to somebody I could not see, and the other person was obviously somebody important. I repeated myself, and Reb Shlomo Zalman turned back to me and said, with some irritation, “I heard you the first time. Yes, that is what we will do. I pasken that the boy should ask his shaalo of Reb Moshe.”

I ran with the letter to the Strassberger who agreed to the pesak, and to another Rov, who was I believe at the time the president or something like that of the Torah community in Jerusalem, and he agreed. So I had three prominent rabbis who paskened that the boy should ask Reb Moshe the shaalo.

I wrote on the back of Reb Moshe’s letter that Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, the Strassberger Rov, and the third senior Rov, paskened that the boy should ask his shaalo of Reb Moshe. I then presented the letter to the boy.

Now comes the most shocking thing I ever saw in my life. The boy refused my letter. He said, “I am an Israeli. I want my rabbis to pasken my shaaloh. Why do I have to go to American rabbis?”

Let us pause for a moment. Here is a boy who knows that he is a doubtful mamzer and the rabbis in Israel will never permit him to marry a Jewish woman. But here is his hope. These same Israeli rabbis have clearly paskened that he should ask Reb Moshe the shaalo, and he refuses! Never did I see such a tsaddik, and he is a sofek mamzer – Incredible!!!

I found a Rov who spoke to the boy who agreed to accept the pesak of Reb Moshe but I never saw the boy again.

At least, let me add my own bit here to explain how the rabbis in Israel who feared that the boy was a sofek mamzer could tell him or pasken for him to ask Reb Moshe.

See Sheb Shemattso I:1 much discussion about a doubtful mamzer, if it is forbidden by the Torah or the rabbis. The Pnei Yehoshua brings that the Rambam holds that a doubtful mamzer who may be a mamzer or may be completely worthy of marrying a regular Jewish girl, may do either or both by the Torah. That is, even though logically by marrying both a mamzeres and a regular Jewish girl he has certainly sinned, by doubtful mamzer the Torah permits even this. There are other opinions there that are not our present topic. But at any rate, there are certain leniencies with a doubtful mamzer at least as regards the Torah, and therefore, the senior Israeli rabbis were dealing with a doubtful mamzer who if he marries a Jewish girl has standing with some opinions that he does no sin by the Torah and the discussion turns to the rabbinical stringencies. In such a case, when the rabbis accept that what they want to do won’t in all likeness work, and he will probably never marry, and the Gadol HaDor wants to permit him to marry, which probably will not produce Torah sins but maybe rabbinical ones, we understand why they ruled as they did.

Again, to mutter in my own muttering, a doubtful mamzer has many circumstances. One case is when there are two babies, one a definite mamzer and the other definitely not a mamzer and they get mixed together. This is a very serious problem of “one out of two” being forbidden for sure. But in the case of the Jews who lived for centuries among goyim and originally a Jewish tribe lived there, how do we define the community now? Surely they intermarried with goyim. And we have a rule that we go according to the majority. The majority of the country was surely gentiles, and they don’t make mamzerim. If so, the question is what is the question? If the majority of the country today and probably for previous generations as well are and were goyim, and maybe here and there is a Jew, so what? And if there is a Jew and he married somebody who maybe, possibly, had somehow got into his system some problem of a mamzer, is this not a remote question?

We have a doubt that may be not one doubt but many doubts. A doubt if this child is a goy. If he is, there are no problems. A goy is permitted to convert to Judaism, no problem there. But maybe this child who is probably a goy because the majority of the goyim there are goyim, maybe, he is Jewish. So what? He is Jewish, so what? Well, maybe the Jews in this community produced mamzerim. How could Jews produce mamzerim? One way is by a brother marrying a sister. But nobody does things like that. So why even worry about it. What happens if a Jew marries somebody who is married to somebody else? This is only a problem if the woman the Jew marries is Jewish and the man is Jewish. But in each case, we assume that the majority of gentiles cancel out the question if the husband or wife are Jewish. If even one, the husband or wife, is a gentile, and the other is Jewish, there is no mamzeruth. Without prolonging the discussion, there are so many doubts here that any verdict that a child is a doubtful mamzer is a very interesting challenge. Add to that that we are talking about a boy who may never marry which is certain a factor, and we can accept that the Israeli rabbis in good conscience told the boy to ask Reb Moshe his shaalo.

1 גיטין ע ע"א אמר שמואל האי מאן דמחו ליה באלונכי דפרסאי מיחייא לא חיי אדהכי והכי ניספו ליה בשרא שמינא אגומרי וחמרא חייא אפשר דחיי פורתא ומפקיד אביתיה אמר רב אידי בר אבין האי מאן דבלע זיבורא מיחייא לא חיי אדהכי והכי נשקיה רביעתא דחלא שמזג אפשר דחיי פורתא ומפקיד לביתיה עכ"ל וע' ע"ז יב ע"ב שמביא זה.