Tamar
Epstein Friedman Remarries – What is the Public Reaction?
By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn
Tamar Epstein Friedman, with the encouragement of the Rabbis Kaminetsky
in Philadelphia, was remarried by Rabbi Notto Greenblatt of Memphis, Tennessee,
even though she was still married to Aharon Friedman. I wrote
a post called “Rabbi Greenblatt Makes Mamzerim.” Other than that and my
brother’s very popular Israeli blog that was filled with this, silence. But the silence was misleading. People were
reading my blog and my brother’s blog. They were reading the flyers I gave out.
And they were getting very angry. As the street stiffened in its objection to
this, the rabbis who struggled to find the facts had an easier time. Finally,
there was a crack here and a crack there, and then, some big cracks. People now
know basically what happened, and they have proof of the major points.
When the community got to work to fight this and find the facts, every
shade of Orthodoxy was represented. Those
who worked on this did not go around bragging or making statements. So people
could mistake the silence for disinterest. Nobody is rushing . They want to make sure that nobody ever tries
this again.
The version of the story accepted by people I have spoken to is as follows: Rabbi
Greenblatt was told by Rabbi Shalom Kaminetsky that Aharon Friedman had an
incurable mental illness that made him completely unable to satisfy a wife. Out
of respect for Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky, Rabbi Greenblatt completely accepted
the story, and performed the marriage. Previously Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky
signed a paper forced on him by two major rabbis that he no longer encouraged
Tamar to remarry. But somehow she remarried anyway.
Here I want to talk about three people or groups who fought this. One is
me. I fought immediately not because I knew why Rabbi Greenblatt did what he
did, but I fought because I know that in halacha there is no possible
permission for such a thing, as I describe in detail on my blog
torahhalacha.blogspot.com many times. See later here. Next is my brother Rabbi
Daniel Eidensohn. My brother has an ability foreign to me. He does incredible
things that nobody understands until finally everybody accepts it. His blog
exploded after the marriage with ideas how to annul the marriage which turned
out to be right on target. And he immediately showed why those ideas, getting
therapists or psychiatrists to declare somebody with a mental illness and thus
claim that the marriage is negated, has no place in the Torah.
The Gaon Rav Henkin states clearly that in the past centuries nobody ever
negated a marriage because of some defect of the husband. This is also the
opinion of the Nodah Biyehuda II:80, Bais HaLevi, and Kovneh Rov. See also
gemora Kesubose 72,73 and Even Hoezer 38,39 and 117. Nowhere does it say that
if a woman has a husband with a blemish or problems that the marriage can be
cancelled. The Gaon Reb Moshe Feinstein permits this but only on the condition
that the husband is truly horrendous such as a homosexual, and that it is
absolutely impossible to get a GET. In the case of Tamar Epstein Friedman, the
husband wanted to give a GET. But he wanted an improvement in visitation rights
regarding the daughter. According to Reb Moshe, there could be no negation of
the marriage in these circumstances. Thus, Rabbi Greenblatt performed a
marriage for a married woman that is forbidden by all Torah authorities, the
gemora and Shulchan Aruch. So he and Rabbi Kaminetskys are reshoim.
The senior Gaon Rav Nissim Karelitz of Bnei Braq said clearly that Tamar
could only marry if she had a GET. Rav
Suriel Rosenberg, the Rosh Beth Din of Rav Karelitz, was there when Rav
Karelitz said she had to have a GET. He subsequently wrote in strong support of
what Rav Karelitz said. Rav Rosenberg is considered one of the major poskim in
our generation. The Beth Din of Baltimore that dealt with the case until Tamar
ran away to Philadelphia said clearly that there was no possibility to negate
the marriage because of any fault of Aharon Friedman, and that any children
born from Tamar from her new marriage would be mamzerim.
Let’s consider the husband, Aharon Friedman. Rabbi Greenblatt declares
that his wife is free to remarry without a GET. And how is this possible? Only because
Aharon has such a terrible mental illness that it can’t be cured and no woman
can be married to him. Rabbi Greenblatt, besides making mamzerim of Tamar’s new
children, makes a mental case out of the husband Aharon. And guess what: when Rabbi Greenblatt believes the
Kaminetskys and declares Tamar to be free to marry without a GET, he has turned
her into a sinning adulteress. And when he declared that Aharon was mentally
insane and unable to be a husband, he destroyed his name and future to remarry. And both things Rabbi Greenblatt
achieved, the destruction of Tamar and her new children, and the destruction of
Aharon, are completely mistaken and have no place in the Torah, and no place in
truth. Aharon who has for years
maintained a high position in Congress as an attorney, is not mentally ill.
Furthermore, during the years that Aharon and Tamar went to Beth Din and courts
about their marriage, Tamar never successfully argued that Aharon had any
mental problems. The Baltimore Beth Din knows exactly what Tamar did say about
Aharon and why she wanted a GET. Therefore the head of the Baltimore Beth Din
told me that there is no hint at all from his experience with Tamar’s claims
that she felt that Aharon was mentally incapable of being a husband. He further
told me that if she has a child it will be a mamzer. So much for the lies of
the Kaminetskys.
Rabbi Shalom Kaminetsky had a married woman remarry without a GET for
invalid reasons. He did a terrible sin to teach the wife to ignore her marriage
and remarry without a GET. He did a terrible sin to teach a woman to remarry
and have mamzerim for children. He did a terrible sin to make up lies about the
husband Aharon. For each of these aveirose, bain odom lichaveru, Yom Kippur
does not atone, only the forgiveness of the injured person. Can the baby mamzer really forgive? Can anyone really
forgive? If Shalom Kaminetsky was the main power in this hideous sinning, he is
a rosho and can not be a Rosh Yeshiva. Do not send your child to Philadelphia
Yeshiva. It is forbidden to learn Torah from someone like that.
I called up Rabbi Greenblatt and
told him that he married off a married woman. He told me that Gedolim permitted
this and anyone who disagrees has chutzpah. I told him a Chazon Ish and he hung
up on me.
Just as it is a mitzvah to proclaim the evil in Shalom Kaminetsky and the
terrible mistakes of Rabbis Greenblatt and Shmuel Kaminesty, so it is a mitzvah to proclaim the
suffering of Aharon. He has been demonized in Washington, DC so that no shull
will invite him to doven there. He has been humiliated by the cursed
organization of mamzer producers ORA, sponsored by Rabbi Herschel Schachter and
recommended highly by Rabbi Moshe Heinemann.
This despite the Rashbo in VII:414 that forbids humiliation even for a
husband commanded by the Talmud to give a GET because he cannot be a man.
Certainly a man who has a child is not to be humiliated. The pressures of humiliation are in the words of Rabbeinu Yona
“humiliation is worse than death,” a
great pressure that makes a GET invalid.
We have a world where some rabbis who get themselves a name do what they
want. This is the tragedy brought about
by Rabbis Greenblatt and Kaminetsky.
In the coming generation, any woman who received a GET from Rabbi
Greenblatt may be suspected of having an invalid GET. Any woman who was freed
from her marriage because ORA or others humiliated the husband is also a
suspected person and needs a proper Beth Din to determine if she may remarry. The
anger is building against rabbis who think they are “great ones” and twist the Torah and destroy people’s lives.
We have to do two things. One, we have to stop demonizing men who don’t
give their wives a GET, and we should rather listen to their side of the story,
especially if they have children. Two, we need to increase the study of
Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer, Family and Marriage Laws so we will be safe from
the inventions of the “great ones.”
We want to publicize flyers, booklets, audio tapes, telephone
conferences, and have public teachings about the laws of Gittin and family.
Thank you,
Dovid Eidensohn
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