Purpose of Life is not Perfection but Penitence

To Answer Questions

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Question One

I complain about people not marrying, but what about older people who are alone without marriage?

Answer: Older people are often without the biological problems that affect younger people, and they are less prone to sinning even if they are not married.

Question Two – How can we say in Tachanum that we and our forefathers sinned? Is this not an insult to the father and forefathers? And how does a young child who says this know that his father sinned or his forefather sinned?

Answer: I have an answer to this based upon gemoras and Kabbala. It is basically this: People come into this world which is designed not for human perfection, because almost nobody is perfect. So people sin, and this is expected by heaven, with the condition that a person sin and then do teshuva.  There is a gemora that the greatest Jews did the greatest sins, such as David with Bas Sheva, and Israel at Sinai who then went to worship the Golden Calf. But both of these repented which is the true purpose of the world. This idea that human beings were created with great impulses and tendencies to sin with extremely few exceptions, emphasizes to us that penitence not perfection it the purpose of life.

There are discussions of this in Kabbala about the first humans and their experiences with evil that had nothing to do with their sins but with the will of heaven. Indeed, the gemora says that HaShem declared that He must repent regularly because he rejected the Moon. The Moon wanted a world free of evil, and felt that a world with living sinners was a disgrace to heaven. HaShem said that to kill out all of the sinners would destroy the world, because sinning is what most people do. But to teach people that the purpose of life is penitence, not perfection, HaShem offered to Himself to teshuva, as if it could be, to teach everyone that the purpose of life is not perfection but imperfection followed by penitence.

Living Alone with Biology and Suspicions

Living Alone and Sinning

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Rambam[1] says, “It is a mitsvah of the rabbis [not the Torah] that a man should not live without a wife, lest he sin with evil thoughts. Nor should a woman live without a man, so that people will not suspect her of sinning with men not her husband.”

The Magid Mishneh there in the Rambam says that his source is a gemora in Yevomose 62b where the gemora accepts the teaching of Rabbi Yehoshua in this matter. The Maharsha in Yevomose 63A go into this subject in depth and quotes sources going back to the beginning of creation that some creations such as proper human beings are designed to thrive in this world, whereas to merit this level one needs a proper marriage, a man with a woman, for the sake of the man and for the sake of the woman. A man without a woman or the opposite can produce a creation that floats here and there and enters the world of not proper creations.

We can understand these deeper thoughts or not, but the plain teaching of the gemora and the Rambam are that a man without a wife and a woman without a husband violate the rabbinical decree of not living with sinful thoughts or people suspecting you of sinning. We can, without delving into Medrashic or Kabbalistic mystery, understand very well that a man without a functioning marriage is a candidate for sinful thoughts and worse, and a woman without a functioning marriage may be suspected as to how she manages to deal with her biology alone. Nothing mystical about that.

The gemora goes further by saying that a man who reaches the age of twenty and is not interested in marriage, of him we say, “his bones have exploded,” whatever that means, but it is not a compliment. Bones hold the body together, and when they “explode,” the human being drifts into the second phase of humanity, we discussed earlier in the Maharsha, and it is not a compliment. Today, huge numbers of people, young and not married, have all kinds of opportunities to marry and refuse it, for whatever reason. Do they sin? Are they suspected of giving in to their biology? What do you think?

---

[1] Ishuse 15:16

Recognizing Homosexuals as Orthodox Jews

David Eidensohn <eidensohnd@gmail.com>	9:53 PM (1 minute ago)		Reply
to Riccardo

Dr. Riccardo,

Here is what I wrote today to answer you, and I am feeling a bit better, thank HaShem.

Question from Dr. Riccardo from Italy

According to pure Halakhah, is it possible for Gentiles to assume the admissibility of carnal lesbian relationships and those between males other than anal coitus?

Dr. Riccardo,

I read with great interest your involved and intricate study from many important sources about homosexuality, etc. I had some thoughts reading through your sources which impressed me greatly. It is now almost the Sabbath day as you mention as I live in Monsey, NY, and we begin our prayers her around six o'clock to move things up to make Shabbos early. I won't be able for a while to give you a definite answer to all of your excellent points, because I just got out of the hospital with pneumonia, it should not happen to anyone else, and my doctor studied me carefully after I had finished my eight days of medicine for that condition, and he warned me strongly not to do anything strenuous for two weeks which will culminate in  chest x-ray on Aug 28. Until then, if I have to do heavy thinking, I have to take it easy.

I will not, however, leave it at that. See Rambam Ishuse 24:16 - A wife who  is not modest loses her Kesubo, which was established by the rabbis to prevent the husband from divorcing her. But a woman who is not modest should surely be divorced. See also Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 21,7 - One who hugs or kisses a woman forbidden for him to have relations with her, that people do not sense any sexual interest in such, for instance an older sister or his father's sister, even though he has no pleasure this is very shameful and is sinful, and is the doing of fools, because we never come close to a forbidden woman. End quote. See also Rambam brought in Moreh Nevuchim 3,28 and specifically in Rashbo I:417 that doing something which doesn't seem like a terrible sin but it corrupts others, those involved are killed even if they did nothing that could ordinarily bring them to great punishment. Thus, all of these loopholes which can bring about changes in respect for Torah are suspect. 

There is today a great effort from Orthodox homosexuals to gain respect for their situation. They want to attend synagogue and pray with everyone else, and they are gaining respect from various quarters, because why drive out people who want to be Orthodox and have little hope for changing their biology? The problem is that when people advance an idea that will cripple the community or change it dramatically, this is a serious injury to the community that should be strongly opposed. This is becoming a strong issue and will lead to great arguments, with both sides feeling they are in the right. Personally, I don’t want to encourage for any reason people to popularize behavior clearly forbidden by the bible, for centuries. Even though some people demand their rights, we Orthodox Jews have rights also, and we don’t want to discard the Torah. And if we permit homosexuals or others to publicize their deviancies in the community proper surely many people will be influenced to imitate them, including our own children. We must fight it tooth and nail. Our children come first.

Shalom,

David Eidensohn

Kiddushin and Pilegesh

Letter to an Italian doctor about Jewish marital laws

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

I was honored recently to receive a letter from Dr. Riccardo F. Gioviale-Catania,Italia, a Noahide believer in the Torah, regarding one of the most difficult areas of Jewish law, marital situations with Kiddushin and Pilegesh. His ideas with many sources are too complicated for most people here, as was my response to him, but I wish to state the purpose of my letter here is not to comment further on that, but to recognize that for Orthodox Jews, the issues of Kiddushin and Pilegesh are very important, not so much in earlier times, but for today, as I will explain.

Kiddushin is the normal way of Orthodox marriage. It requires the husband to give the wife a ring, or a marital document, or an act of marital relations, all of this witnessed by two witnesses who are Orthodox Jewish men.

The husband takes the wife for himself, and in the words of the Ramban, “acquires” her so that she cannot leave him without his permission, unless he dies. On the other hand, Pilegesh, which is simply that the man takes the woman, not acquiring her, but she moves into his house, and whenever either one of them desires, they can simply leave and negate the marriage with no penalty. Both these kinds of marriage are recognized in the gemora Sanhedrin 21A, as the Vilna Gaon mentions in the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 26:1.

I said before that Pilegesh is important today, but not so much in earlier times. What does this mean? In earlier times, every Jewish community had senior rabbis who had great influence. People feared to refuse their opinions. But after the great loss of six million Jews in the Second World War, and the great decline in America and other countries in respect for Torah, times changed. Now very few people know the laws of marriage, although many people claim to be experts in it. I once asked one of these where the laws of not forcing a GET is taught in Shulchan Aruch, and he didn’t know. Rambam in the beginning of the Laws of Divorce says that any forced GET is worthless. The Vilna Gaon says that this is the accepted practice today, that a GET must not be forced, and all of the commentators in Shulchan Aruch 77 par 2 and 3 agree, that a GET may not be forced, which is the teaching of the Rashbo in VII:414. But today this is no longer accepted by many ‘rabbis’ who don’t know the laws of Gittin.

Today there are increasingly brazen ‘rabbis’ who go so far as to tell a married woman who can’t leave her husband who refuses to give her a GET, that she may leave without a GET! Why? Because they invented some ridiculous reason that she was never married in the first place! A few years ago, there were ‘rabbis’ who guaranteed to force a husband to give his wife a GET by torturing him with electric shocks and physical violence, and they demanded sixty thousand dollars for this. One of them is a Rosh Yeshiva in Monsey, NY, and all of them were arrested by the FBI and either jailed or fined or both.

A husband or wife who wants to end the marriage, may turn to a Beth Din. At one time that was a good idea, but today, the attitude is that going to a Beth Din is quite a risky proposition.

What then can a woman do today who wants to marry? If she does Kiddushin, and is acquired by the husband and cannot escape him unless he dies or gives her willingly a GET, should she go to the ‘rabbis’ who will tell her lies such as the forcing of a GET from the husband or to declare that she was never married in the first place? That is what is going on today in America and other countries in the world. And things are getting worse all of the time. In recent years major countries are beginning to ‘help’ women by putting husbands who won’t give a GET in jail. A prominent Torah expert said recently that all divorces done in New York State today are suspect because the government has given power to the woman to force a GET in certain cases. In Canada the government is also beginning to force divorces which, if done, means that the woman who remarries with such an invalid GET and has a child, the child is a mamzer.

Even in Israel there are problems with Kiddushin. I once spoke with a member of a prominent Israeli Beth Din who told me that when a husband doesn’t want to give his wife a GET they call in ORA, who forces the husband with public humiliation, to give a GET. My rebbe the Gaon Reb Shalom Yosef Elyashev zt”l told me that any Beth Din that does illegal things to free a woman from her marriage is not a Beth Din. Senior Israeli and American rabbis in the past generation have cautioned women never to go to a secular government’s court to settle marital matters, and never to trust even a Torah Beth Din until they clarify properly that they don’t make funny Gittin. Today very few of these great rabbis remain, and in their place are those who invent a new Torah to do what they want.

The only solution, as I see it, is not to marry with Kiddushin, but Pilegesh. There is no acquiring of the woman, there is no enslaving the wife to a man who may be impossible to live with. And she is free to leave when she wants. I spoke to a woman whose husband won’t give her a GET, and I explained about the problems of Kiddushin and the good idea of marrying with Pilegesh. She said to me, “Why didn’t I know this when I was nineteen years old?”

The great proponent of Pilegesh is the Ramban. But he himself admits that sometimes, in certain communities, Pilegesh could introduce problems. There are those who are against Pilegesh entirely. But the Shulchan Aruch in Kiddushin 26:1 has all of the major commentators of the Shulchan Aruch in favor of Pilegesh, such as the Vilna Gaon based upon the gemora in Sanhedrin 21A, who says that Rambam and Ramban permit Pilegesh. I explain elsewhere how the Rambam, who seems to say clearly in Kings 4:4 that only a king may have a Pilegesh, something that is clearly defied by passages in the Tanach. I explain how the Rambam does permit Pilegesh elsewhere on my blog torahhalacha.blogspot.com and material on google.comat eidensohnd@gmail.com. Also, the Beis Shmuel, the Chelkas Mechokake and others, to one degree or the other are not in agreement with the opinion of the authority that Pilegesh is sinful.

In earlier generations with great rabbis controlling marriage, to leave Kiddushin and going to Pilegesh was not necessarily a critical matter. But today, with the influx of mamzerim from women who flee their husbands who won’t give them a GET willingly, it is highly dangerous for anyone to marry with Kiddushin, and Pilegesh is preferred. But, as Ramban mentions, there is a danger to some degree in Pilegesh. But I feel that the danger of Pilegesh is not to make mamzerim, but the danger of Kiddushin is to make mamzerim, and that is happening today all over the world.

Yom Kippurim is almost as Great as Purim

We are now in the Hebrew month of Elul, which is a time of holiness and preparation for the great holy days coming in the Hebrew month of Tishrei. First in Tishrei is the first day, called Rosh HaShana, New Year followed ten days later by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This is followed five days later by the holy holiday of Succose and eight days after that by Shemini Atseress, the Eighth Day of Assembly.

Interestingly enough, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, has an interesting name, because Yom means Day and Kippur or Kippurim is actually the word "like Purim," meaning, that Yom Kippurim or Yom Kippur, is similar like, but not exactly equal, to Purim.

Purim is the most unusual holiday of the year. It is not a day devoted to prayer, or learning Torah, but to drinking, especially powerful liquids, and many people simply get drunk with that kind of drink. How can Yom Kippurim be only almost like Purim, which is a day of drinking and not praying and not learning Torah?

But Yom Kippurim is about considering our sins. Purim is about something higher, considering heaven. Not praying, not learning Torah, but thinking of heaven and HaShem, that is the greatest day in the year.

Shalom,
Dovid Eidensohn

Torah Holidays - Nissan and Tishrei

Torah Holidays

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

The months of the year have special holidays and special months. The Jewish calendar begins in the spring month of Nisan and ends with the winter month of Adar. The greatest group of holy holidays and holy days is in Tishrei in the summer, which follows the holy month of Elul. Tishrei begins with Rosh HaShana, the New Year, which ten days later is Yom Kippur the fast day of penitence, and a few days later Succose, the festival of the Tent, when people leave their homes and eat and sleep in Succose. In climates very cold few people sleep in the Succah, but do eat in the Succah. The eighth day of Succose is a new holiday called Shemini Atseres, which means the holiday of the eight day, the eighth day of Succose.

Strangely, the first Jewish month, which is Nissan, although it has the important holiday of Pesach, or Passover, is completely outclassed by Tishrei. It would seem that by rights Nissan should be the beginning of the Jewish year, and the senior candidate to be Rosh HaShana, the New Year. Instead, Rosh HaShana is seven months later, the first day of Tishrei. That day is the big holiday of the year, with the blowing of the Shofar, and great efforts to make it the pure and holy holiday that determines the future of the year.

Another strange thing about Nissan and Tishrei is that Nissan is the beginning of the Jewish year, and Rosh HaShana the gentile or general year. But the gentile year is the day of the greatest and holiest celebration, the blowing of the Shofar, the reading of the Torah, and holiday dress, and the first day of Nissan is not a major holiday at all.

But on Nissan the Jews left Egypt, not with a Torah that had not yet been given by HaShem and Moses to the Jews, but as a people who were slaves and now going to the Holy Land of Israel, but not yet there. On the first day of Nissan the Jews were still in Egypt with only a few Torah commands. Two weeks later the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the Paschal lamb, and about the sin of eating bread and the mitsvah of eating matsose. But Nissan was not the great day of celebration. It was rather a beginning, a very small beginning, of the year, which concluded in Tishrei, which was essentially a Rosh HaShana for the gentiles, not the Jews. There is an important Torah teaching in this strange situation. The Jewish people are “the smallest of the nations” but their task is to bring Torah and goodness to the entire world, to all of the gentiles. For this reason, the key holiday is not Nissan but Tishrei, because only in Tishrei have the Jews advanced to the level of receiving the Torah and the Ten Commandments at Sinai and merited to hear HaShem speaking to them. Nissan is special because it is “light from darkness,” Jewish slaves to Egypt who escape with miracles to go to Sinai and eventually receive there the Torah. Perhaps nothing is so crucial to Israel as the mitsvah of teaching the entire world about HaShem and Torah. And the culmination of this command is on the gentile holiday of Rosh HaShana, the New Year, a New Year, not for Jews whose New Year is Nissan, but for the Jews who fulfill their task of teaching Torah to the world.

Pneumonia Fixed with Medication and the Hospital

Pneumonia, Part Two, Baruch HaShem finished

Dovid Eidensohn

I went today to my doctor and he studied me very carefully about my pneumonia. He finished his work and told me that there is not a trace of pneumonia left in me, but that I must now be very careful not to stir things up and make problems. He suggested a few weeks of peace of mind, and only then getting once again into the thick of things.

He sent me to a lab to study my blood, and told me that in two weeks I have to redo an x-ray about my general situation and the passing of the pneumonia. The happiness in my heart that I heard such good words from this doctor, who is surely one of the top experts in his field, gave me strength that had eluded me for a few weeks. I walked with a steady pace to the doctor’s office, and returned full blast, although I was careful to force myself to sit down at one point and relax. Then I got up and went home full of happiness.

When a person is my age and has pneumonia or some terrible disease, one senses that just in the next room in the Angel of Death. And when the doctor gives us the good news that the pneumonia is gone and that if we behave there is surely hope for a healthy future, we surely want to thank HaShem for fears that may not return.

I want to say more, but the doctor warned me to take my joy slow and easy unless I want to make a mess of things. So I will obey him and thank HaShem and conclude for me at this time.

A Time to Love, and a Time to Hate

A Time to Love, and a Time to Hate

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

A time to love, and a time to hate, is a biblical phrase, usually used to explain how all people feel from time to time. But today, in America, and increasingly in other countries, larger populations, stronger communications, technical improvements; these modern elements unite people into movements and feelings that are very strong, and invariably, spill out into fear of others and fear of not fighting back.

A friend of mine has for years studied human issues, even as I was busy studying Talmud. I began to realize talking to him that building in the United States was a war between strongly opposed organizations or ideologies. I began studying the issue from various sources and it was obvious that something was gong on out there that had to be studied. At this point, I feel that the quarrels and hate are growing, but wherever they are today, is just the beginning. The important thing now is to somehow address this problem and maybe solve it. Let me explain as I understand it why now, is the critical time to deal with this growing phenomenon.

The forces at war are biblical people who follow how they understand is heavenly values, and people who dismiss the bible and have biological drives they cannot control. Sometimes biblical people cannot control their biblical desires and sin with children or with other people, and sometimes people who are not biblical feel a need to be pure in moral matters. But the rest of us have a variety of what I described, and they are two strong and fanatic forces, growing stronger and stronger, and heading towards pure war. The only hope is to head off this war with some kind of effort.

This is not my idea. I understand that a major leader in one of the groups has suggested that what we need is the ability to talk things over. Yes, it surely won’t be easy for both sides to talk together without solving first their differences, which can’t be done without great struggle. When we know that both sides are matched in populations, share the ability to access weapons, which will surely lead to let’s not discuss it more, this must force us to the table.

I don’t think that the first table of such conference will have a big table, but it will be a beginning. If we can find a couple of leaders on each side, who realize what the cost of failing is, they can get a few more leaders, and eventually, the media will pick up the growing numbers on both sides who want to save their own lives and the lives of their families, and there is some hope, that maybe, some efforts, some sacrifice, and some prayers, things may either be solved, or if not, be held off for as long as we can manage it. After all, we Orthodox Jews await the coming of Messiah, and we hope he doesn’t arrive during the final battle, heaven forfend.

As I said before, I am a Talmudist, not a people person, and don’t have great knowledge of people and surely know nothing of organizations. Perhaps somebody like me who only awaits the wonderful day when I can be finished with this job, can ask others who do want the job, to step up to the plate.

Anyone interested, from any side, call me at David Eidensohn 845-578-1917 (land-line, leave a message where to call you back), or write to me at eidensohnd@gmail.com. After all, I am almost eighty years old, but if you are young man and don’t want to see the end of this problem, it pays you to give it a try.

Shalom and peace to one and all,

David Eidensohn

HaShem Helps - in Hebrew language

פותח את ידך ומשביע לכל חי רצון.

ממני דוד אליהו אידנסון

הנה ידוע שמשיח שיבא בקרוב בימינו עוד פועל הנסים שלו בדיבור ולא  צריך לעשות על ידי מעשה. ובודאי שהקב"ה עושה דברים בדיבור. ולא צריך לידים. וא"כ מהו פותח את ידך ומשביע לכל חי רצון. שכן ידך קמץ עם סגול הוא ב' ידים יד ימין ויד שמאל. וזה ודאי צריך ביאוור למה הוכרח השם לב' ידיו כביכול להשביע לכל חי רצון.

וי"ל שפה מיירי פותח את ידך ומשביע לכל חי רצון. והנה כל חי כולל כל מיני אנשים. וגם כולל אולי כל חי גם הבהמות ושרצים. ולהשביע כל חי אפילו של אומה ישראלית לבד הלא יש צדיקים ורשעים  והמדות שלהם מן הקצה אל הקצה. ובפרט שכל חי הכונה לכל האנשים שבעולם שזה כולל יהודים וגוים.  והפסוק אומר שמע ישראל השם אלקינו השם אחד. ופרש"י השם אלקינו שהוא מדת החסד עם מדת הדין לישראל שהם מקבלים דין ועונש על העבירות, אבל השם אחד על הגוים. שאין להם השם אלקינו מדת הדין שבזה מקילים להם שרק מבקשים מהם לצאת מן הקליפה שלהם וליכנס להיות בני נח או אפילו יחידים שיזכו להתגייר ממש. ובכל זאת לא שייך לעשות פעולה של דיבור לכל המינים אלא כביכול צריכים ליטול כל אחד ואחד ביד ולתקנו. ובכל זאת ידך הוא בלא יוד שאין זו כלפי מעלה דבר קשה ורחוק אפילו שצריך להשביע לכל מיני אנשים וכ"ש אם צריך להשביע אלה שאינם אדם כלל.

א"נ יש לומר שכאן פותח את ידך ומשביע לכל חי רצון הוא דבר גדול מאוד להשביע לכל אחד ואחד שצריך יד ולא דיבור סתם, א"נ י"ל ומשביע לכל חי רצון הכונה הרצון העליון של הקב"ה שיזכו שיאירו כל אחד ואחד מאור העליון שהוא הרצון של הקב"ה למה ברא פלוני ושאר הנבראים מדה זו הוא צריך חקירה גדולה שגם אצל הקב"ה רק נעשית בפעולת הידים יד ימין ויד שמאל.

והנה ודאי שהקב"ה לא היה צריך לידים לעשות שום דבר ח"ו. אלא בכדי לגלות לבני אדם שמקבלים חסדו של הקב"ה להשביעם בדיוק מה שצריכים ומה שזוכים. שהרצון הולך בתוך כל אחד ואחד וממשיך תמיד כל חייו והקב"ה כביכול משתמש בזה ביד להמשיך הברכה והרצון תמיד לכל אחד כפי מה שהוא. וזה דבר תמידי כאילו הקב"ה יושב תמיד שנה אחרי שנה להשביע לכל יחיד ויחיד וכל הנבראים.

Suffering before Moshiach and the Solution

Family Suffering before Moshiach Comes

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

The Mishneh at the end of Sota tells us that in the Footsteps of Moshiach, prior to the coming of Moshiach, great problems will take place with Derech Erets, or human relations with other people, extending even into the family. Thus, “one’s enemies will be his household.” Sons will quarrel with fathers, and daughters with their mothers.”

Of course, when the family is at war, children suffer. And when they grew up, and maybe marry, what happens then? Rashi tells us that Footsteps of Moshiach means the terrible exile before the actual arrival of Moshiach. Is it true that this will be a time of destroyed families? But the lengthy Mishneh there, after describing in graphic detail the suffering of the time in family, concludes with, “And there is nobody to turn to other than our Father in Heaven.” Reb Elchonon the prime disciple of the Chofetz Chaim said that this means that turning to HaShem can bring us salvation. Yes, turning to HaShem can turn an age of disaster into achievement and peace.

Is there any other idea that can help in such a time?

The Haredim in chapter 20:8 tells us of the mitsvah, “It is a positive Torah commandment for a man to have marital relations with his wife. This applies even when the wife is pregnant. As it is said, ‘And he shall make his wife rejoice.’ (Devorim 24,5) There is also in regard to this mitsvah a negative command as it is written, ‘And her marital relations shall not be lessened (Shmose 21,10)

Rashi in Devorim and the Zohar there as well tell us that the mitsvah of making a wife happy does not mean that one rejoices with the wife. It means that the husband must think solely of how to make his wife happy. This means, says Raishi Chochmo, that if the husband has limited money, he must spend it on his wife and he will do without.

A house where the husband lives to make his wife, not himself, happy, is a house where the wife senses the direction of the house and can only reciprocate. Such a family lives in peace and happiness. The children grow up in peace and will themselves be fine fathers and mothers.

Rashi in the Mishneh stresses that “In the Footsteps of Moshiach” means in the terrible exile preceding Moshiach. The suffering will surely limit peoples’ income and this itself can make great problems. Thus, the crucial thing is to raise a family with extremely limited spending. Those who do have some money will be tested to see if they spend their money on more luxuries or supporting Torah or the poor. One who lives the right way with money is surely doing the will of heaven that can bring the greatest blessings, even in a bitter exile.

Some of my children are paid good money to speak in schools in Israel, about what? About their family life as children. Every Shabbos I would speak at great length on the greatness of women, based on solids sources in gemora. My wife didn’t mind, of course, and the children grew up without any interest in money which we didn’t have, or having a nice house which was quite different. But everyone was happy. I took my children regularly across the street to a property filled with trees and various challenging paths. When we reached a certain hole in the ground, we stopped, and the children were all excited about Mr. Shlang. Now Mr. Shlang never appeared, but happiness was there.

A son of mine once asked me permission to sleep under the kitchen table, because our house didn’t have room for a big bedroom. When he got permission, everybody was jealous. That son is now an international expert on running a Yeshiva and dealing with any problems with rebbes or students. Some of my daughters in Israel are regular speakers in schools. They are asked to speak about what is what growing up as children in our house. People know that our children are special baruch HaShem.

For forty-five years, my wife supported the family with a business which she recently closed. During that time nobody went without. We started out small, but we turned to heaven and to Torah and did without things we didn’t need. What we needed was to show how much parents and children loved each other. Today, here and there in different countries all of the children are similar. They were trained in peace and love.

How to Make a GET, and how Not to Make It

Making a GET

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

The laws of making a GET are taught in the Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer. But as with the general structure of the Shulchan Aruch and even the gemora, many are the considerations of those opinions. So we have to go carefully and find out the final judgement of the great rabbis. In the Shulchan Aruch the great rabbis are Rav Yosef Caro the Beis Yosef, Reb Moshe Isserles the Ramo, the Vilna Gaon[1], the Beis Shmuel,[2] the Chelkas Mechokake and a few more printed opinions. In Even Hoezer page 77 par. 2 and 3 we find these great rabbis declaring that one may not force a husband to give her a GET. The exception is if a prominent Beth Din finds that it has clarified that what the lady claims her husband did to her is true, then we may possibly find that the husband is forced to give a GET, even if we have to beat him.

The Rambam[3] writes the basic ten Torah rulings about how to write a GET. The first is “The man should not divorce his wife unless he wants to do it.” “And if he divorces against his will she is not divorced.” Thus, a woman who forced her husband to divorce her and remarries somebody not her husband, the child born from that person is a mamzer.

Rashbo in teshuva 414 volume VII says when a woman demands a GET that “if the husband wants to divorce he divorces her, if he doesn’t want to divorce her he doesn’t divorce her.” Meaning, we don’t force a husband to divorce even if the wife complains bitterly about him. If the Beth Din knows that the wife is right and that the husband is doing bad things to her that require Beth Din to force him to divorce her, that is Beth Din’s prerogative, but the wife alone has no power to force a GET.

The Rambam[4] writes, “A woman who denies her husband marital intimacy is called a MOREDESS, a rebel. And we ask her why she rebelled. If she says ‘I despise him, and cannot tolerate sleeping with him willingly’, we force him to divorce her by a certain time, because she is not a slave to sleep with somebody she hates.”

In general people assume that the Rambam gives a woman the power to force a husband to divorce her if she claims he disgusts her. However, the Ramo in teshuva 96 quotes a lengthy teshuva from Rav Eliezar Ashkenazi that the Rambam never said that a woman has the power to force her husband to divorce her. In fact, there is an open Mishneh in Nedarim 90b that no woman can force her husband to give her a GET because we fear that she simply wants a nicer husband not that her story about this husband is true. In earlier times when women did not lie, we believed women who had sad stories about husbands, but not in later generations. If so, obviously the Mishneh blocks us from assigning to the Rambam the position that a woman may simply demand a GET from her husband because he disgusts her. Furthermore, the Rambam never said that the woman demanded a divorce. It says that she demands privacy from intimacy, but remains in the house, does the dishes and takes care of the children. But she refuses marital intimacy. Such a woman is believed and precisely because she did not mention the word “GET,” we believe her story about her husband, and force the husband to give a GET. But if she demands a GET we don’t force the husband to give her a GET because “maybe she just wants another husband.”

However, the Rambam adds the words “we force him to divorce her by a certain time.” This means that we believe her that the husband is indeed disgusting to her. But we give the husband a period of time to learn how to behave, and the Beth Din probably is involved in this. If by the end of this period the wife has changed her mind and accepts him for intimacy, he does not have to divorce. But if that period comes and she still despises him, he must give her a GET.

One of the hottest disagreements today is about the ruling of the Beth Din of America that all members must have husbands sign a paper that whenever the wife demands a GET he must give it to her immediately, or pay a large sum of money regularly. This created great controversy because it argued clearly with the above mentioned Mishneh in Nedarim 90B that no woman is believed to force her husband to give her a GET, because we fear she is lying about the husband simply because she wants another man for her husband. If so, how can the wife be able to force her husband to pay a fortune of money every year for not giving a GET immediately after she demanded it? A prominent Israeli rabbi said that whoever ruled this way is not an Orthodox Jew, and Rabbi Bleich from Yeshiva University reportedly savagely attacked it.

This teshuva of the Ramo #96 is very rich at the end of the lengthy study there to locate various reasons where senior rabbis have the right to demand a GET from the husband. They are 1) If the husband acts in a way to shame the woman and her family, such as if he is a public thief, the Rosh rules that we may force him to divorce his wife because he is shaming the wife and her family. 2) Since the husband the thief cannot return to their home in the city where he committed robberies, because they will seize him and maybe kill him, this prevents him from returning there, and this itself that he must stay away from his wife who is not obligated to follow him to another city means that we must order him to divorce so that she can have another husband and that he can have relations with a woman and not live in sin. (Tur) 3) Since the husband has only one child and has not fulfilled the command of Pru urvu, we force him to give a GET so he can remarry and have children. The Ramo (mentioning Rav Eliezar Ashkenazi) concludes that the above mentioned gedolei oilom of the Rishonim have permitted us to force the husband to give his wife a GET. But the final decision must be in the hands of “two experts on Torah Law” who alone will determine if we should force him to give a GET.

We will stop here, having provided basic ideas in these matters of forcing a GET, but we were careful not to overload with the large number of opinions that most people won’t want to struggle with. But on a basic level, those who clearly force a GET from the husband or tell a wife ridiculous reasons why she was never married in the first place, have surely put themselves in a very sad halacha situation, and children they have from these

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[1] The Vilna Gaon is a Rishon despite being born in a latter generation, and the others are Acharonim.

[2] Beis Shmuel is considered by Maharsham the greatest of the latter Acharonim to rule on halacha. (Maharsham teshuvose IV:73 page 40

[3] Gerushin  I:1 and 1:2

[4] Ishuse 14:8

Kiddushin and Pilegesh for Torah Ladies, Plus and Minus

The Laws of the Torah for Ladies: Terrifying Problems, and the Mightiest Holiness

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

My dear friends! I am writing for you the Law of the Torah for Ladies, Jewish ladies. Terrifying problems exist, and the Mightiest Holiness. It takes great courage to discuss such things, which amaze and confuse to a degree perhaps not found anywhere in the Torah. My style is always the same, no matter what I discuss. I present sources, but these sources themselves often conflict terribly with other sources. How then can I entertain hopes of not utterly overwhelming people so they can’t get to the bottom of these problems? But I studied under the greatest rabbis of the past generation, the Geonim Reb Aharon Kotler, Reb Moshe Feinstein, Reb Yaacov Kaminetsky, Reb Yosef Shalom Elyashev, Reb Shmuel HaLevi Wosner, and Rav Ephraim Herschel, all of the zt”l. I have semicha from them in writing and orally, that I can plunge into deep halacha problems and produce a clarified response to do away with confusion. I have no fear of this. I say all the time[1], “One who serves his rebbe is greater than one who learns Torah.” Does this mean that one who brings his rebbe a cup of coffee is greater than one who learns Torah? It means that one who learns Torah is confused with many conflicting teachings, but one who serves his rebbe and ascertains how to plunge to the depth of these conflicting teachings merits the pure truth, which is Torah without the confusion.

In my work which I publish frequently I often explain things that stun even me, and I realize that it was beyond me, but an act of HaShem to reveal these thoughts. My rebbe in this world and the next, Rav Shmuel Toledano zt”l, the Gaon of the Jerusalem Kabbalists, wrote many very deep Kabbala books, and he gave me permission to rewrite them at my leisure. The senior Kabbalist Rav Yitschok Kaduri zt”l wrote about my rebbe, “He wrote with Ruach HaKodesh,” not mere brilliance. The rebbe’s books make me dizzy, but I struggle, and struggle some more. Torah is not easy.

Now, let us get to work, to discuss the Torah for Jewish women, problems and solutions.

Let us begin with Berochos 17A, “Greater is the trust HaShem has in women more than His trust in men, as it is said, ‘Trusting women hearken to my words.” This seems to conflict with the teaching of Shlomo HaMelech in Shir HaShirim,[2] “I am black and I am beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kador and the tents of Solomon.” The Ari z”l explains that black means justice and stress and beauty means a sweetening of the justice and stress, so the tents of Solomon were a beautiful white and the tents of black were strict justice and ugly.

“Do not look at me that I am extremely black, because the sun has blackened me. The sons of my mother turned against me, and made me guard the vineyards. My vineyard I did not guard.” Thus a woman can suffer from her own brothers and her mother did not intervene. This is terrible suffering.

We now get into a Kabbalistic teaching that makes us dizzy, but it is critical to understand our topic. The great Kabbalistic Reb Moshe Chaim Lutsato tells us that there are ten worlds in this world, and that the worlds are called Sefirose. The bottom Sefira right next to our world and its sins, is called MALCHUSE, or monarchy. This MALCHUSE is deluged with the terrible sins of humans and she suffers terribly. This is part of her agony of being black and turning white. In Kabbala it means as follows. The highest of the ten levels is called KESER or crown. Now, pay attention. The highest sefira or KESER is so high and heavenly, that it is wrong to even say that it exists! This means that its level of existence is not an earthly finite existence but one of the higher world, which we may not understand in this world. But this highest world in our world, KESER, is one with MALCHUSE and plunges down to greet her, and raises her up to the top of the ten Sefirose, and then, incredibly, raises her into the very heaven to the AIN SOFE place of pure heaven, and there the sins she deal with in this world are dealt with and somehow returned to earth in a state that improves them, similar to the teaching of the Ari z”l that the female begins with blackness and becomes a beautiful white. I want to stop the Kabbala at this point, because we want to get into the basic teaching for women of their role in the Torah without the very complicated Kabbala ideas. But keep in mind black to white and realize that women have a very high place before HaShem, although in this world we may sense the opposite, as we will discuss.

We want now to go directly to this, the pain and suffering of the woman, not with Kabbala, but with basic teachings of the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch.

We come now to the marriage of women, with two ways permitted by the Torah. See Sanhedrin 21A as taught by the Vilna Gaon in the beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin. One way is for a woman to marry with Kiddushin, and the other way, is for a woman to marry with Pilegesh. Both of these have positive and negative capacities, as we will explain.

We will now turn to the Rambam who promotes both Kiddushin and Pilegesh, but also clearly states the problems with both of them. In the volume of the Rashbo called Meyuchesses where the vast majority of the teshuvose are from the Rashbo, two of them are from the Ramban, and one of these is about Pilegesh.

Today there are many women whose marriages are in trouble. There are two types of Torah marriages: One is with Kiddushin, and the other is with Pilegesh. The Vilna Gaon in the beginning of the Laws of Kiddushin talks about both Kiddushin and Pilegesh, and says that the gemora in Sanhedrin 21A approves of both Kiddushin and Pilgesh as valid marriages for Torah Jews. The Vilna Gaon also says that the major authorities Ramban and Rambam also approve of Pilegesh as well as Kiddushin.

To understand what both Kiddushin and Pilgesh mean for the wife, let us examine the teachings of the Ramban, one of the greatest Rishonim. In the volume of the teshuvose of the Rashbo known as meyuchesses[3] we find in teshuva 284 a teshuva signed clearly by the Ramban, not the Rashbo.

The Ramban there is about Pilegesh and Kiddushin and he writes, “Kiddushin and marriage in a chupah tent is a mitsvas esseh. One who comes to marry a woman who will be forbidden to all men and possessed by him to inherit her and to be defiled by her [when she dies he goes to the grave and becomes tomay] the Torah commands him to make Kiddushin and enter the chupah tent, and he must recite before ten men the blessings of a wedding. And if one sleeps with his wife in the house of his father-in-law (before chupah) he is beaten with makose marduse. And if after he brought her to his house he hurried and slept with her without having the blessings of marriage she is forbidden to him as if she was a nida. And anyone who did not give her two hundred zuz for marrying her, she thinks that since he does not treat her as a real husband, that he has determined to divorce her. She is then as one who is divorced in the heart of the husband.

“However, if the husband wants the wife not to be married with Kiddushin but as a Pilegesh, so that she will not be owned by him, and not forbidden to other men (meaning that a woman married with Kiddushin who gets a divorce and marries a second person, is forbidden to get a divorce from the second husband and return to her first husband, because the first husband still has power over the woman even after she was divorced by him and the second husband. But this applies only to a woman who married two men and was divorced by both. But if she was a Pilegesh or zonah she is not owned by anyone and can return to anyone as long as she is not burdened with two Kiddushin marriages.) Furthermore, she has no level of Kedusha at all (it seems that Kiddushin creates a relation of holiness that the husband uses to hold some level of control over the woman even after he divorces her, but Pilegesh does not create such a level of holiness, although it is certainly a kosher marriage and their children are completely kosher children.)”

In the beginning of the laws of Kiddushin, the Vilna Gaon says that the gemora in Sanhedrin 21A permits Pilegesh, and that the Rambam and Ramban agree to this.

Ladies who find Relief by being Pilegesh

What relief does a married woman achieve by marrying not with Kiddushin, but as Pilegesh? But we mentioned the teaching of the Ramban before, that Kiddushin gives the man great power over the woman, power that continues even after he divorces her. Pilegesh does not recognize any power in the husband. When the husband and wife decide on a true marriage, without zenuse but with Pilegesh, husband and wife are married with the permission of the Torah. This permission of the Torah means that whenever husband or wife wants to leave the marriage, for any reason, they may. This is the opposite of marriage with Kiddushin, which until the husband dies, does not relax his hold over his wife.

With all this, there is a second side of Pilegesh which can be a problem, maybe worse than Kiddushin. That is mentioned in the Rambam himself, who permits Pilegesh, but writes afterwards a letter to his rebbe Rabbeinu Yona, that in Rabbeinu Yona’s city, he should not permit Pilegesh. The reason is, that precisely because Pilegesh is so easy to achieve with both marriage and divorce, that people may be led to believe that Pilegesh can lead them to do zenuse. Each city must consult with its great rabbis if Pilegesh is appropriate in their community. We find the same attitude in the greatest of lenient rabbis regarding Pilegesh, Rabbi Yaacov Emden, who after extoling Pilegesh, writes that the Pilegesh couple must consult with the great rabbis of their community. If so, what do I say about this? I received strong semicha to pasken difficult questions in halacha from the Gaon Reb Moshe Feinstein zt”l, the Gaon Reb Yaacov Kaminetsky zt”l, and the Gaon Reb  Yosef Shalom Elyashev zt”l. This is what I feel, and feel strongly about, if Pilegesh is permitted or forbidden.

Ideally, and such as the case in earlier generations, every generation had its great rabbis who had power over the community. Today, this is not true. In America and even Israel, there are great problems, especially regarding women who married with Kiddushin and the husband won’t give them a GET willingly. Many of those considered the major rabbis of the community obviously don’t know the laws of Gittin properly. They therefore encourage women to force a GET from their husbands. A forced GET, says Rambam, is worthless and this means that if the woman remarries with an invalid GET her children from the second husband are mamzerim. This itself should caution us against Kiddushin, because every marriage of Kiddushin, if it doesn’t work out well, could lead the woman to demand a GET, and if the husband does not give a GET willingly, the woman has no GET and if she remarries with the invalid GET, her children are mamzerim.

Another idea being practiced in America and even Israel, as well as other countries, is for a rabbi to tell a woman that because of ridiculous reasons, she was never married in the first place.

If so, I surely feel that better Pilegesh then mamzerim with Kiddushin, and the reality is that the senior rabbis in America are very weak in dealing with women who have Kiddushin. There was not long ago a group of rabbis who charged sixty thousand dollars to torture a husband with electric shocks to force him to give his wife a GET until the FBI arrested them and made the Trenton case which results in jail terms and fines. There are also major rabbis who openly encourage women to force their husbands to give a GET which makes an invalid GET. A woman remarried with an invalid GET who has a child from her new husband has produced a mamzer. Better, I feel, is Pilegesh, which does not produce mamzerim, than Kiddushin, which increasingly, is producing mamzerim.

On the other hand, Ramban, who certainly permits Pilegesh, writes a letter to his mentor, Rabbeinu Yonah, that in his community Pilegesh should be forbidden, because people will turn it into zenuse, do to the fact that it is so easy to get married with Pilegesh and to leave that marriage with no penalty, no GET and no pain. And I say that while that is surely a factor, the major factor is the terror of women making mamzerim because they have Kiddushin, which is much worse than Pilegesh. Even Pilegesh which may with some people lead to zenuse does not produce mamzerim but forcing a husband to divorce his wife does make mamzerim.

We will stop here.

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[1] גדול שמושה של תורה יותר מלמודו שנאמר פה אלישע בן שפט אשר יצק מים על ידי אליהו – ברכות ז ע"ב

[2] Shir HaShirim I:5 and I:6

[3] The volume of the Rashbo entitled meyuchess means that it is the teachings of the Rashbo with two exceptions signed by the Ramban, 283 and 284. 284 is about Pilegesh and Kiddushin and their differences.