Censorship by Artscroll,The Agunah Problem, Part 1

The Agunah Problem, part 2; Wearing a Kippah; More Censorship by ArtScroll The Agunah Problem, part 2; Wearing a Kippah; More Censorship by ArtScroll Marc B. Shapiro 1. Continued from here. There is even an opinion, which as far as I know is accepted by many, that if a man apostatizes the beit din can still not force him to issue a divorce. This is first mentioned by R. Meir of Rothenburg and his reason is quite surprising. He says that a woman would rather be married to an apostate than not married at all.[1] כתב מורי רבינו עובר על דת או אפילו משומד אין כופין אותו להוציא ותדע מדלא מנה רשע עם שכופין אותן להוציא וטעמא דטב למיתב טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו אם לא שעבר על דת שקיבל עליו חרם שהוא כלפי דידה כגון שלא להכותה או שלא להקניטה. This position, and the opposing one that we do force is ,משומד כופין אותו על ידי גוים :a meshumad to give a get mentioned by R. Moses Isserles, Even ha-Ezer 154:1. Today, there is no way in the world that a religious woman would wish remain married to an apostate, so how could be applicable in such טב למיתב טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו the hazakah a case? I therefore don’t see how any beit din could tell a woman whose husband apostatized that they are not able to compel him to divorce her. Incidentally, R. Solomon Luria couldn’t believe that R. Meir of Rothenburg really meant what here does not משומד he said. According to R. Luria, the word that is, a complete ,משומד לכל התורה mean “apostate” but a sinner who is still in the Jewish community and can be brought back to Torah observance, perhaps even by his wife.[2] כל זמן שלא נטמע ביניהם אפי’ הוא משומד לכל התורה כולה אין כופין אותו מאחר שיכול לקיים שאירה כסותה ועונתה כראוי וגם אולי על ידה יתחרט ויחזור למוטב ובזה יתיישבו דברי מהר”ם שכתב שאין כופין כלל אפילו משומד. This is not the standard position as pretty much everyone assumes that R. Meir of Rothenburg was talking about an actual meshumad. Yet it must be noted that as with R. Luria, R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg also found R. Meir of Rothenburg’s טב למיתב טן דו language strange, since how can you say .about a woman living with an apostate? R מלמיתב ארמלו Weinberg therefore suggested that perhaps R. Meir just meant a sinner.[3] Elsewhere, R. Weinberg sees it as obvious that a Jewish woman would not want to marry an apostate, even one who has repented from his apostasy.[4] והנה זה דבר ברור שהמומר מאוס בעיני כל אחד מישראל, ואפילו אם חזר בתשובה שלמה הוא מאוס כשזוכרים שהמיר את דתו, וק”ו ב”ב של ק”ו אם לא עשה תשובה שלמה אלא הרהר תשובה בלבו ואח”כ חזר לסורו שהוא מאוס ואין שום בת ישראל מתפייסת עם אדם כזה. הכל יודעים ששום בת ישראל לא תנשא לאיש שהמיר דתו אפילו אם עשה אח”כ תשובה בלבו ואפילו אם ימיר את דתו החדשה בדת ישראל. Just as with the case of a real meshumad, it is hard to imagine that today a woman who wants to divorce her husband because he has become completely non-observant, and the husband refuses to give the get, that this woman would not be regarded as an agunah. I am speaking about the more modern communities. What about in the haredi world? I was shocked to read the following in a recent work by R. Judah Itah explaining why it is that even today a woman would rather be married to an apostate than be alone, something that is obviously factually incorrect and is a terrible indictment of Jewish women.[5] והנה בדין זה אם כופין המומר לכאורה איירי דבאה האשה ומבקשת מהבי”ד שיעזרו לה לצאת מרשות המומר כי לא טוב לה להיות בחברת המומר. א”כ היאך אתה דוחה את רצונה בנימוק דטוב לה כיון דטב למיתב תן [!] דו וכו’ הרי היא זועקת דאין זה טובה בשבילה. וצ”ל דקים לחז”ל דכל אשה רוצה להיות בחברת איש מלהיות בודדה, ומה שאומרת שרצונה לצאת מהמומר לא זה סיבה בגלל המומר אלא אפשר מפני שעיניה נתנה באחר ולכן אין כופין המומר, דלא מאמינים למה שאו’ שכל רצונה לא להיות בחברת המומר. Can R. Itah really believe that a Bais Yaakov girl could live with an apostate and the only reason she would scream to get out of the marriage is because she has her eye on someone else? If there was a haredi woman who chose to remain with an apostate rather than demand a divorce, wouldn’t the haredi world regard her as a traitor? In the previous post I discussed R. Weinberg’s responsum dealing with a man accused of sexual abuse. In that case, R. Weinberg refused to force him to give a get. This responsum is mentioned in a 2013 decision by the Jerusalem Beit Din available here. In a 2-1 decision the beit din refused to order a convicted sexual abuser to give his wife a get. The majority recommended that the husband give a get, but as far as compelling the husband, or even telling him that he was obligated to give a get, the beit din felt that its hands were tied. We are taught that the ways of Torah are pleasant. Can it really be that a woman who wants to be divorced from a sexual abuser has no recourse? Must it be the case that the beit din’s hands are tied and the husband can keep his wife a prisoner? This brings me to a suggestion which can perhaps solve some of the problems at least in the State of Israel. I am not naive enough to think that it will ever be implemented, but I do think that it is a good approach. As I just mentioned, the Jerusalem Beit Din case of the convicted sexual abuser was decided by a 2-1 majority. One of the dayanim thought that the husband could be compelled to give the divorce, but unfortunately for the wife he was in the minority. If you examine the decisions of the various batei din you find that some dayanim are more liberal than others when it comes to ordering the husband to issue a divorce. This doesn’t mean that the other dayanim are “bad guys”, as some feminists like to portray them. They just feel bound by certain halakhic restrictions. The more liberal dayanim, however, follow a halakhic tradition that assumes that if the husband and wife have been separated for a long time, or if there are good reasons for the woman to want a divorce, even if these reasons are not mentioned in the Talmud, then the husband can be forced to issue the get. Since I think we all agree that freeing women from dead marriages is a positive goal, would it violate any halakhic procedure for certain communities to have batei din composed exclusively of those rabbis who accept the halakhic position that a husband can be obligated to divorce his wife even in cases not specified in the Talmud? This would not be an example of deciding the halakhah before the case was heard, but only of creating a beit din of dayanim who are at least open to a more liberal understanding of when divorce is to be required. This would no different than the conversion courts set up in Israel recently under the direction of R. Nachum Rabinovitch. Only dayanim who have a liberal perspective on conversion are on this court. This doesn’t mean they will always agree on all points, but they will agree on certain baseline positions. This might be a solution to the sort of case that appeared before the Jerusalem Beit Din, discussed above. Had the make- up of the beit din been different, rather than a 2-1 decision leaving the wife in a miserable marriage perhaps for the rest of her life, the decision could have been 2-1 or 3-0 in her favor. I don’t think anyone would object if a community said, for example, that they will only hire a rabbi who supports, or opposes, the heter mekhirah. That is the community’s prerogative. So why should it be problematic to say that for certain communities only dayanim who have a liberal perspective on when a husband is obligated to give a get should be seated on batei din dealing with these issues? I think that some dayanim will be fine with this. While their interpretation of halakhah does not generally permit them to obligate a husband to give a get, they recognize that others have a different perspective. It is not uncommon for a posek to tell a questioner that he should inquire of another posek who will probably give him a more lenient answer. For example, both R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and R. Ovadiah Yosef, when confronted with questions about abortion, rather then reply that it was forbidden they advised the questioners to ask R. Eliezer Waldenberg, as he had a more lenient opinion in this matter.[6] Many more such examples could be cited dealing with a whole host of issues.[7] Here is what appears in R. Eliyahu Sheetrit’sRabbenu , p. 137. It describes how R. Ovadiah Yosef did exactly what I am suggesting. He purposely arranged to have a dayan join the beit din on a certain day, knowing how this dayan held in a halakhic matter. In other words, R. Ovadiah was “stacking the deck” to get a decision he believed to be correct.

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