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Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn

(Letter Sent to a Community Name Withheld) 

Dear Rabbi, Rosh Yeshiva, and Congregant

שלום וברכה!

I understand that you practice in your community the ostracizing suggested by Rabbeinu Tam. A person who does not give his wife a GET and you feel he should give it, is ostracized. Whereas I feel that you are mistaken in practicing this, and whereas I feel that a look at the poskim should convince you that such a practice could make a GET questionable, I will write to you sources for my opinion. As one who has dealt with Agunoth, I wish to tell you that forcing a husband sometimes works, but sometimes it does not. It is  dangerous for many reasons. Usually people who have the time and energy to deal with a man who won’t divorce with a GET can get it done without the coercions and questionable halacha moves. Those who are too busy do ostracizing and coercive maneuvers, and it saves them a lot of time and energy, even if at the end of the day some question exists about the GET. No, this will not do. We cannot play with the Yichus of Klal Yisroel by producing questionable GITTIN simply because we are too busy to do the mitzvah of getting the GET the right way.

In the case where a woman demands a GET because she doesn’t like the husband, this is known as the complaint of מאוס עלי , or “my husband is repugnant to me.” Rabbeinu Tam suggested that in such a case we practice ostracizing the husband. If so, why do I suggest it is wrong to do this? However, if we look into the Shulchan Aruch and poskim carefully, we see that we may not practice ostracizing for מאוס עלי and that to do so can make an invalid GET. (While it is true that Rabbeinu Tam permitted this even for “he is repugnant to me,” the Rosh and the Rashbo, in many responsas dealing with husbands who must divorce, never mention the ostracizing of Rabbeinu Tam. The Chazon Ish interprets a Rashbo as forbidding the ostracizing of Rabbeinu Tam.)

First of all, we have the Chazon Ish[1] who forbids using the ostracizing of Rabbeinu Tam. His source is not only his own hallowed opinion, but he brings the mighty Shach[2] who says this, and the Shach quotes a gadol hador 450 years ago, the Mahari ben Lev[3], who says that in his generation nobody practiced this, and that it should not be done.  Mahari ben Lev quotes a major posek of his time who considered ostracizing to have the same status as NIDUI, or cursing, which is the same as a beating. These can render a GET invalid because it is forced.

We have thus quoted the Chazon Ish, Shach and Mahari ben Lev who feel that ostracizing is the same as beating and may produce an invalid GET. Others don’t go so far, and would allow ostracizing in certain cases, but they would not permit it in the case of “my husband is repugnant.” The poskim who feel this way are the Ramo[4] and the Vilna Gaon, the Gro[5]. The Ramo is the author of the glosses in Shulchan Aruch accepted by Ashkenazim, and the Gro, the Vilna Gaon, is considered to be a Rishon. The Mishneh Berurah, in his foreword, writes that when there are arguments about Halacha the opinion of the Vilna Gaon is to be accepted  “he is the light of Israel, and a hook that all hangs on it, and is worthy to adjudicate the matter.” How then can a community make an ostracizing for the case of “he is repugnant to me” in defiance of the Ramo and Vilna Gaon, especially as the Shach is even more opposed, along with Mahari ben Lev and the Chazon Ish?

The Gro rules that we cannot ostracize for the complaint of מאוס עלי but only for those cases where the Talmud has ruled that the husband has done something wrong and must divorce. When you ostracize, you are coercing a GET that the Gro considers to be a problem of גט מעושה.

The Ramo in Darchei Mosheh, his commentary on the Tur, states that we may ostracize only when the husband has done something similar to marrying a forbidden woman, that is, he has definitely committed some sin, and is definitely someone the Talmud requires to divorce. This does not apply to the lower category of מאוס עלי when the wife finds her husband repugnant.

Therefore, when  you ostracize in Passaic a husband simply because the wife finds him repugnant, even if the marriage is dead, the Ramo, and as we mentioned before, the Gro, forbid you to ostracize the husband. Others, such as the Shach, would not permit ostracizing even in cases where coercion is more of an option, and certainly not when the wife finds the husband repugnant.

Why then do people ostracize? Someone told me he relies on the Levush[6]. But even if the Levush did permit this, how can you make a GET that is considered pressured and possibly invalid by all of the major poskim? Do you rely on the Levush when he disagrees with the Shach? With the Ramo? With the Gro? Of course not. So why then do you allow this ostracizing?

There is, morever, another problem with ostracizing. When you ostracize according to Rabbeinu Tam, you may not do anything positive, no actual pressures, no yelling at the husband, only passive pressure is allowed. And yet, when a community ostracizes someone, and creates an atmosphere of discrimination and anger, there are those who may cross the line into active harassment. This surely creates a problem of a forced and invalid GET. This indeed may be a reason why so many latter poskim do not want to do the Harchoko (ostracizing) of Rabbeinu Tam. In latter generations Beth Din can no longer control the community to insure that ostracizing does not turn to public humiliations and positive pressures forbidden by Rabbeinu Tam.

The atmosphere in your community, designed to humiliate and break a man, a husband and father, is frightening to his children. Where is your sensitivity? All of this could be avoided if, instead of taking the cheap way out, you would form a committee of the proper, calm people, who would spend the time and energy necessary to get this GET finished. When I worked with Agunoth in my youth, at the end of each case, which was completely successful, with no hate or rancor on any side, I got sick. That is the proper way to do it. It is the hard way, and it is the only way.

I therefore humbly request from you that you cease ostracizing  husbands in the case of “my husband is repugnant to me.” I would be very happy to meet with you to discuss how to make a committee of calm and smart people so we can get a GET, which both parties surely need and want, without the fireworks and pain.

In closing, I wish to protest your policy of forcing giving a GET before the fiscal issues and custodies have been decided. The Ramo in Seder HaGet[7] clearly proscribes this. Reb Moshe Feinstein says that for many centuries no GET is given until all fiscal and other matters are settled. He says there are absolutely no exceptions, and it is unheard of for any Beth Din to give a GET when the issues are not settled.[8]

Why do you do things different than Ramo and Reb Moshe? And even if you have some source, does that source give you the right to coerce a husband who believes in the Ramo and Reb Moshe and the traditional way of Botei Dinin, not to divorce until after the fiscal and other matters are settled?

Really, we should talk this over. But before we talk in person or otherwise, I am putting the issue in Halachic perspective, to give you an opportunity to find a source for what you are doing. If you find one, good, and if not, please let us get a GET that will not have aspersions, as one given in defiance of the greatest poskim. Let us make a committee of people to work on Gittin the traditional way, without bending the Shulchan Aruch. Either that, or else Gittin from your community will be unacceptable.

You must know by now that the Israeli rabbinate is getting increasingly sensitive to American modern Orthodox conversions. Next will be modern Orthodox Gittin. Recently we discovered a major modern Orthodox posek who dismissed a couple without a GET and permitted them to remarry, and they wanted to make a GET. This disgrace is a red light. And forcing husbands is right up there to make things even worse for you. It is up to you. If this keeps up, your children will not be able to marry Haredi children. That would be a bitter shame, because as Rav Chaim Soloveitchik shlit”o has said, “We must learn the ways of the Haredim, because we are going to be that eventually” or some such thought. At any rate, it is true, and you owe it to those who will eventually become Haredim that nobody asks them if they are mamzerim.

שלום וברכה,

Dovid Eidensohn

מחבר ספרים הלכות בית נאמן, קדושת בית נאמן, ותשובות בית נאמן: ריבית