Question - Wife went to secular court and not Beth Din

1. QUESTION:

   1. November 9, 2014 at 2:15 PM

   Dear Rabbi.
   
   My ex-wife & I spoke about a possible divorce prior of my ex-wife leaving the marital home. I clearly told her that in the event of a divorce I would go to a Bais-Din first, and I object to go to a secular family court, as we are both orthodox observant Jews. When my ex-wife left the marital home (with the children), she immediately went to secular Family Court, ignoring my objection. When I brought my objection to her Rabbi, he also ignored my objection. Prior to my ex-wife going to a secular Family Court I never got a Hazmanh from a Bais Din, nor was any permission to go to a secular family court granted. After 6 month my ex-wife decided to go to a Bais Din after failing to force a ‘Get’ in the secular Family Court. This Bais Din, which was managed by her own Rabbi, knew about her going to a secular Family Court, and knew about my objection. At that point I already lost terribly as a Pro-Se litigant due to lack of financial ability to be represented by an attorney. My questions are as follows:
   
   1. Do I have an obligation NOW to respond to this Bais Din?
   2. Doesn’t Jewish Law forbid going to a Secular Family Court?
   3. Can my ex-wife break a fundamental Jewish Law of ‘Mesiara’ and ‘Erchaoth’ and still demand a ‘Get’ from a Bais Din?
   4. Doesn’t it consider a betrayal for the Torah, as she really didn’t ‘need’ the Bais Din thus far???
   5. Do I have any obligation to go to a Bais Din while my ex-wife already litigated (and won) all financial & children custody issues at the secular Family Court?
   6. Her Bais Din wrote a ‘Siruv’ (Jewish Contempt of the Court) on me. Is this ‘Siruv’ valid?
   7. Is this ‘Bais Din’ allowed to issue a siruv on me based on the information above mentioned?
   
   Thank you for your time.

   RESPONSE
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3. 
   
4. I don't know who you are and I don't know anything about your case other than what you said. I therefore cannot assume that I know what actually happened. I can, however, respond to you regarding your questions of Jewish law, how the Shulchan Aruch would look at things, but whether or not this applies to anyone, especially this case, is not something I know enough to discuss. And listening to one side of a dispute does not convey the whole story and one may not pasken on that basis. In the event that you want me to be involved in your personal case, discuss the matter with your wife, and if I can talk to you and her, I can suggest a plan that may satisfy both sides. But for now I am not talking to you to respond to how you should behave in this particular case that I know nothing about. I am merely using these questions as they came to me to bring out basic procedures in Torah law.
5. Let us take your questions now:
6. 1. Do I have an obligation NOW to respond to this Bais Din?
7. I don't know anything about your particular Beth Din. It seems you don't want to appear before it and they wrote a Siruv against you. There is a general mistake made by people in your circumstances. They see that the wife does something wrong, to go to civil court and not a Beth Din, and they see that rabbis are going after you, not after her, and you feel that the rabbis are wicked and you don't want to respond to them. This is a mistake. When you are given a claim by somebody, good people or bad people, by a Beth Din you respect or one that you do not, you cannot ignore it. You cannot refuse to enter into discussions to deal with the claimant. Now, technically, in certain cases, you may find an excuse to consider them out of the pale of Torah, and maybe you are right that they are like Reform rabbis, but still, nobody wants to leave things hanging like that, and living with a Siruv that can destroy you.

Therefore, when a claimant, even a wicked one, has a claim against you, you must respond. In this case, the Shulchan Aruch has two opinions whether the Beth Din itself would consider the wife's claims, because she sinned by going to secular court. But while it is true that Ramo rules this way, and his opinion is usually decisive, in this case the Tumim who was a mighty genius and authority, completely disagrees with the Ramo, at least in some circumstances. So, if a Beth Din refuses to get involved, that is the Beth Din's business. But for you to deny the claimant an opportunity to deal with her claims is not smart, will result in a siruv, as it already has, and denies you the opportunity to turn the tables on her.

What you should have done is to respond to the Beth Din's demand that you have a Din Torah by agreeing to the judgment. But you can refuse to go to the Beth Din of the claimant. You can say that you will respond to the claimant in a different Beth Din. Or, you can respond that as long as she is in secular court, or as long as she refuses to relinquish all of her gains in secular court, you refuse to go to Beth Din. Now, the Beth Din may refuse you on some of these points. But you are not a plain refuser. You are a refuser with a reason. That makes a difference. 

Now, if after all of this, the Beth Din comes after you, you respond to them that you want it in writing, that even though she won her claims against you in secular court, and only comes to Beth Din to finish you off by asking for a GET, that you must accept their demands. Say also, that even when the Beth Din reiterates its demand that  you come to them for the Din Torah, you want another Beth Din. There are Beth Dins that are on the side of the Shulchan Aruch, even in such cases. At that point, the Beth Din must accept your decision if you have a Beth DIn that will back you. Rabbi Knoefler in Lakewood might be a good Beth Din for you. Once you have a Beth Din to fight for you, you are strong, and she is in trouble. The first  Beth Din is also in trouble.

If your wife refuses the Beth Din that you chose, you enter the phase of zabla, meaning, each of you pick out one dayan. You will pick a Dayan and she will pick a dayan. Then begins the selection of the third Dayan, which is made by the two selected Dayanim. Hopefully, they will agree on a third dayan and they will settle all of the issues.

That is the basic answer for  your questions. But let us finish off the other questions.

1. 2. Doesn’t Jewish Law forbid going to a Secular Family Court? 
2. Yes.
3. 3. Can my ex-wife break a fundamental Jewish Law of ‘Mesiara’ and ‘Erchaoth’ and still demand a ‘Get’ from a Bais Din? 
4. That is up to the Beth Din to decide. If they err, they err as a Beth Din, and it won't help you to tell them that. But yes, this could possibly be an error.
   4. Doesn’t it consider a betrayal for the Torah, as she really didn’t ‘need’ the Bais Din thus far???
5. Maybe you are right. But it doesn't change matters. You must respond and mount your claims or get squashed.
6. 
   5. Do I have any obligation to go to a Bais Din while my ex-wife already litigated (and won) all financial & children custody issues at the secular Family Court?
7. What about the children? You must win them back in a Beth Din. You must reverse the civil court's ruling against you. The Beth Din properly constituted is your great strength.
8. 
   6. Her Bais Din wrote a ‘Siruv’ (Jewish Contempt of the Court) on me. Is this ‘Siruv’ valid?
9. It doesn't matter if we don't discuss this issue. You must get to a Beth Din for your sake, for the sake of the children, but maybe not the Beth Din that you don't like, as we explained earlier.
   7. Is this ‘Bais Din’ allowed to issue a siruv on me based on the information above mentioned?
10. I can't talk about your actual case. I explained already the basic parameters in all of this, and the bottom line is that you need a Beth Din that  you trust and  you can get one with Zabla, when each side selects one dayan and the two select one they both agree to. If she refuses to accept any Dayan that your selection wants, that is another question.
11. 
    
12. Went to Secular Court Not Beth Din

Interested in a Divorced Lady, How to Proceed

Question:

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

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

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

Thanks for your advice. 

Answer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wife Demands GET, Give it to Her or What?

A wife demands a GET. Does the husband have to give it to her? Should the husband give it to her? Can the husband demand an effort to save the marriage, such as marriage counseling? Or should he just give it to her and let her take the children?

We have to answer these questions from two perspectives. One, is halacha. What does the Torah command the husband when his wife demands a GET? And secondly, we must know something else. Does the wife have a right to break the marriage and take the children from the husband?

The reason we have to ask the second question before we answer the first question is as follows. I have spoken to many people who are Torah Jews and learned, and when they feel that the wife has a right to divorce her husband, they insist on the Torah agreeing with them, even after I show them that the Torah does not agree with them. It doesn't help with some people to prove the Torah's opinion as long as they are sure that morally the wife has a right to leave. Therefore, we cannot just proclaim the Torah position. We must think carefully into a divorce, and its implications. Then we will think about the moral issues. And when we see the moral issues explored properly, we will turn to the halacha.

I have worked for years with broken marriages and women demanding a GET. A GET destroys. Husbands are broken, children take medication, families are devastated, hate grows and festers. Yes, a divorce is a disaster, for the husband, the wife, the children and the family.

When we realize this, we can better  understand the Torah position that the wife, in the vast majority of cases, cannot force her husband to give a GET, and if she does coerce the GET, it is invalid.

 Let us take a regular marriage. Two people from fine Torah homes with excellent background in Yeshiva and Bais Yaacov marry. They have a few children. Then, the wife has had enough and demands a GET. Does she have a right to do this? Does the husband have a right to refuse?

For the husband, a divorce is a life-changing disaster. Let us say he married at twenty five and now he is thirty five. By the time the divorce is completed and he is able to get back into thoughts of remarrying, years may go by. To start a new marriage at the age of forty or about that is a daunting proposition. The new wife would be a person around this age, possibly with children from a previous marriage. And if the husband remarries such a woman and has a house with her children, and hopefully, new children from him and his new wife, these children will have to get along with the husband's older children from his previous wife. Thus, three types of children will have to share one house. That may not be a problem. But if it is a problem, it is a problem. If the new wife stands up for her children, and the husband stands up for his children, you are looking at a very messy marriage.

Another problem is that the husband loses a large part of his income to support his children, now dominated by the wife. The children may visit here and there, but the wife, now divorced, has the major say and the major time with the children. The husband thus, in order to honor his wife's demand for a GET, must lose a large sum of money to support his children that he doesn't see very often, and he sees his children only here and there. And because the wife sees the children much more than the husband, and she often doesn't like the husband, the children may sense this and begin to dislike the father. Thus, the father can have the ultimate pain of his children turning against him. There are fathers who suffer terribly when their children refuse to answer their letters, or have anything to do with them. A child makes a simcha and there is an issue if the father should attend.

And today there is a legion of supporters of women who come to ladies divorcing or who want divorce, and teach them how to torture the husband. Step one is for a wife to make up lies about her husband that he beats he or molests the children. Next the wife is taught to get an order of protection based on her lies. Once that is done, if a father comes to his child's public event, he can be arrested and put in jail. A prominent therapist told me of the father who insisted on coming to all of his child's events, and was thus jailed for 56 times until the judge finally realized that the wife was making trouble where it didn't belong.

There was a case not long ago where a wife called the police and said that her daughter was bleeding and blamed the husband. The police experts in this field rushed over and discovered that the whole thing was a complete lie. Despite this, the child remained with the mother, and the secular court, the rabbis and the heads of the community continued to make war with the husband to destroy his name. All of these things are real and happen all of the time. And a husband knows it. He knows that his only protection is not giving a GET. Once the wife has the GET, she can completely destroy the husband's relationships with the children, and constantly harass the husband with claims of criminal activity. The husband must spend a fortune to defend himself, and his life becomes a hideous horror.

We now turn now to the halacha, which clearly says that in the vast majority of cases a wife cannot force a GET from her husband, and that it is forbidden to pressure him to do it. We can do so only after we realize just what is happening when we force a husband to divorce. A divorce can mean that his life is destroyed. As he ages, and loses strength, and seeks another mate, he is a cripple, financially, emotionally, and family wise.

All of those who encourage divorce and the destruction of a husband because a wife won't go to therapy to improve the marriage will have to answer for this in another world.

A couple once came to the Chofetz Chaim and he advised them to divorce. Somebody asked him, would it not be better to reconcile? The Chofetz Chaim answered, "According to you, why does the Torah permit divorce if we must always reconcile?" Yes, there are cases where the Torah permits divorce. But the mass divorcing in America today is surely not in the spirit of the Torah. The destruction of children, of husbands, of wives, of families, is so hideous that we cannot understand why so many people encourage it.

I had a case where a woman called the police on her husband and got  him put in jail. I asked her if she wanted a divorce, and she said that she did not want a divorce. I asked her, if so, why did she put her husband in jail? She said that the ladies told her to do it. Now, that sounds stupid. But I told it to a senior therapist and he agreed that in his experience this is not a rare occurence.

This is Torah? HaShem Yerachem.

Yes, sometimes there must be a divorce. But if today, you think you are next, contact me, because there may be another side to this story.

Shalom Bayis - Stop Broken Marriages

Shalom Bayis is one of the pillars of life, for the husband and wife, for the children, for the family, and for the community. When I was younger I never heard of anyone divorcing. In high school I heard of an English teacher who was not religious and whose husband was caught in a bad scandal and they divorced. But today we have people from the finest Torah families with many children who fight with hate and fury in and out of Beth Din and secular court, and hate takes over.

Things are so bad today that some children from the finest Torah families simply refuse to consider shidduchim. I have heard from reliable people that in Torah communities there are groups of people who celebrate when somebody decides to have a divorce. Some people seek divorce, and some people simply ignore their broken marriage and take up with foreign women.

A rabbi was asked what to do by a husband who was not with his wife for over a decade but did not want to divorce so as not to harm the prospects of his children in shidduchim. The rabbi had nothing to say, and the man continued, "My friend took up with a prostitute and she blackmailed him. So I have figured out that if I can't live like this, I will have to find a Torah woman who is married who will not blackmail me. Rabbi, please help me."

And things will be worse if we don't find the key to Shalom Bayis. There are so many singles out there that one shul in Brookllyn is mostly older men who never married. What will be in the next generation?

I spoke to somebody who is a senior therapist and for decades has worked with very hard cases in broken marriages. He told me he can help everyone and has done so for over thirty years. He ridiculed the idea that so many people have today that just because there is a problem in the marriage divorce is the solution. I heard also from other people who work in general therapy that most broken marriages could be saved. I once saved a marriage at their divorce. I don't know if the Beth Din was happy to lose its fee, but I am sure they were pleased that Shalom was made in their Beth Din.

 If things keep up like this, we will just see things sinking lower and lower. There is now is a war among rabbis. Some say that a woman who wants a divorce in a broken marriage must be given one even if we have to coerce the husband. And other rabbis, the senior ones who quote the Shulchan Aruch and Poskim say that in most cases, to force a husband to give a GET makes an invalid GET and the children born from the GET are mamzerim. In the coming generation, the Orthodox community will be divided by the mamzer issue. Those who follow the lenient rabbis will have children that the disciples of the senior rabbis will consider as possible mamzerim. In fact, we are close coming to a general suspicion that a GET given by a Beth Din that is not known to be from the few that are completely in line with the poskim, will not be recognized. HaShem Yerachem.

I suggested making today a Shalom Bayis Beth Din, so that people, prior to marriage, enter an educational program on how to behave in marriage. Upon marriage, the Beth Din handles any problems. And if the couple wants to, they can sign up for Beth Din to fine anyone who is disturbing the marriage. This would promote Shalom Bayis and if someone was obnoxious the Beth Din could fine them until they gave up and divorced. But the Beth Din will never mention the word divorce. It is there only to promote and protect the marriage, not to end it. Gedolei HaDor have told me that this is an excellent idea. Even though today there is no widely accepted prenuptial, this is accepted by everyone, because nobody forces a GET. The fineis only  to sustain the marriage.

What is wrong? Why do people from the best Torah families and the best Yeshivas and Bais Yaacovs tear their children and their families apart with the hate of a broken marriage? What is so horrible that the only solution is a mighty war?

Gedolim from this and the past generation have pointed the blame at the Yeshiva system. We have to look into this some more and see what can be done to improve the Yeshiva experiences, and we do want to talk about that on this blog. But here we mention it quickly as it deserves its own post.

Let us get to the point somewhat by saying that marriage exists in two phases that the experts call "in the bedroom and outside of the bedroom." A senior therapist told me that everything that happens in the bedroom happens or doesn't happen because of what happens or doesn't happen "outside of the bedroom." He told me that every family needs a "date" between husband and wife once a week. The husband can take his wife out somewhere to have some time together, or they can play some kind of game together. Somebody I told this to tried and and he said that  it works.

Rambam tells us that a husband must honor his wife more than he honors himself, meaning he spends more on her than he spends on himself. Rambam says that the wife must respect the husband as if he was a great officer who deserves obedience. Obviously, we are not talking about a partnership. We are talking about two people who sacrifce all for the other one. Partnerships don't work, and if they do, they often eventually break down. If a wife helps in the marriage because she expects the husband to do his share, that is the end of the marriage. If she gives all and the husband gives all, this is self-abnegation. I wrote a book about this sold on Amazon called "Secret of the Scale". The ancient scales were two plates help by strings. When something was put in one plate it went down and the other plate rose. But both plates never rose or declined simultaneously. Marriage is one person giving, or going down, and the other person being raised. The raised person then  reciprocates by going down and raising the other person.

The Torah commands the husband "and he shall make his wife rejoice." Rashi and Zohar teach, "He makes her happy, not himself." That is, the husband comes to the wife to make her happy and when she is aroused, of course, he will be happy. But if he comes to use her out to please himself, she may just hate him.

A Jew once did something so terrible that nobody could figure out how a Jew could do something so awful. A senior rabbi was asked and he replied "I don't know how a Jew could so such an evil thing. But one thing I do know. He did it leshaim shomayim." That is, he sinned because he felt he was doing a good deed.

A person who knows that stealing is forbidden may, in desperate times, do some stealing. But he knows it is wrong and he knows that he has to minimize his sin. But when somebody convinces himself that it is a mitsvah to steal, where does it end?

If a husband makes  his wife and children suffer because he wants to learn, and this ends up in a divorce, what kind of Torah is that? It is Torah built by evil. There were and there are families that are happy to suffer because they love Torah so much that the suffering is ignored. This is how the Jews in old Jerusalem lived. And this is how people lived when I learned in Lakewood under Reb Aharon zt'l. But toda when there are husbands who want to get paid up front so they can learn with comfort and everyone has to suffer for it, what kind of Torah is that?

Today, we have people going around encouraging men and women to divorce. They think they are doing a good deed. But the children and the family and broken spouses know that this is a terrible crime and sin.

It is time for people to go around and encourage marriage. We have little time left.

A Forced GET is Usually Invalid

A Forced GET is Usually Invalid

by Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

A GET must be given by the husband willingly. If he is forced to give the GET, in nearly all conventional divorce cases, the GET is invalid. Exceptions are rare such as when a husband marries a woman he is forbidden to marry. In such a case Beth Din can force him to give a GET, even with a beating.

A husband who is not able to perform in marriage must give a GET according to the Talmud. But the Shulchan Aruch says that we don't beat him, nor can we do any serious kind of coercion. He may be told that he is wicked for not obeying the Talmud, but  physical and fiscal pressure are forbidden.

Maharshal says that a husband who does great sins and is removed from Judaism cannot be forced to give a GET. However, the wife may leave his house and live with her family or alone.

If a husband is not one of the rare cases when a GET may be coerced from him, but he was forced, the GET is invalid. If the wife remarries with such an invalid GET, and has children, she is a sinner for living with a man while she is still married to her first husband, and her children are mamzerim. Nobody should ever call a child a mamzer or even say he is a mamzer until the matter has been checked out by a Torah authority who knows the laws of Gittin and has thoroughly investigated the case.

The Chasam Sofer says that when rabbis disagree if a husband should be coerced and the rabbis who permit coercion go ahead with it, the GET is invalid by Torah standards, meaning the children born from the woman in her new marriage are mamzerim diorayso. (Chasam Sofer Teshuvose I:28; and teshuva 116)

The gedolim in Israel have issued a pesak that no coercion should be done without their approval. Any Beth Din that coerces in ways contrary to the Shulchan Aruch EH 77:2 and 3 lose Chezkas Beis Din and we don't recognize their Gittin. Any woman divorced in such a Beth Din must have a new GET from an accepted Beth Din. The children born from such a Beth Din's GET must be investigated by an accepted Beth Din to see  if their is some way to save them from mamzeruth.

QUESTIONS - BETH DIN OR SECULAR COURT FORCES GET

A GET COECED BY A BETH DIN OR SECULAR COURT

1) Is a ‘Get’ considered valid if it was given under the coercion/influence/pressure of a secular family court Judge?

Answer - No. However, without knowing all of the particulars, we cannot issue a ruling about any particular situation. In general, however, a coerced GET is invalid unless in extremely rare circumstances. The common battles between husband and wife that cause somebody to pressure the husband to give a GET are almost universally wrong and may make mamzerim if the wife receives such a GET and remarries and has children. See EH  77 paragraphs 2 and 3.

2) Can a Bais Din (Rabbinical Court)  force a ‘Get’ (Jewish Divorce)?

Answer - Only rarely. The Chazon Ish says that any Beth Din that orders a husband to give his wife a GET when the Torah does not require a GET to be forced on the husband, which is true in nearly all instances of marital dispute, that such a GET is invalid and worthless. Children born from it are mamzerim. See Chazon Ish EH Gittin 99.

3) If a Beth Din bends halacha such as by forcing a GET when a GET should not be forced, is it still recognized as a Beth Din?
Answer: If the complaining Beth Din is known to force Gittin and do other illegal things, it is not recognized as a Beth Din. If it makes a GET we don't recognize it and the wife needs another GET from a kosher Beth Din. But the defendant still must cooperate with the claimant to organize a kosher Beth Din. Heard from Posek HaDor Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev zt"l and taught by present day Gedolei HaDor in Israel in Sefer Mishpotei Yisroel.

5) What can a person who is being pressured to give a GET do?
Answer - contact me at dddeid@verizon.net.