On April 23 2012 I wrote a short article entitled “Protesting Without Coercing” on a topic related to coerced divorce (see here) and this article was subject to a mean spirited ad-hominem by Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn (it can be found here). Like much of the dialogue that occurs in our community, his reply is short on substance, but full of vile language. I suspect that I could write a full blown reply if I wanted to but, as I have told many, I do not expect to reply further. My friends have been befuddled, and I write this public letter to explain my decision not to reply further and to be silent.
First, these types of polemical replies – full of words like “slither,” “brazen” “bald lie” and “completely wrong” – almost always misunderstand (accidentally or blinded by zeal) my writing in a significant way. Polemical writings aiming to score points almost never are connected to tight reasoning or an honest assessment of the strength of their own case. This type of writing then becomes a tool to attract hits on the internet and not to discover the truth of Jewish law.
Second, I have little desire to fight with another Torah scholar over whether he is right or wrong in a particular case; the discerning reader has seen two views and can figure the matter. It is better that I should be mochel any kavod hatorah that ought to be mine than to respond in a way that undermines kavod hatorah generally. I try to respond to all those who have written to me, publically when written to in public, and privately when written to in private: That is the give and take of Torah, and it is what makes halachic Judaism authentic. There is no failure in kavod hatorah when responding to criticism. But the name calling and vilification found in the matter at hand makes it hard to respond other than in kind, and doing so undermines the general principles of kavod hatorah. I simply cannot bring myself to diminish the honor of Torah. [...]
Stan edit out personal attacks & insults from your comments
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with the substance of your criticism - but please leave out inflammatory states such as that someone is an apikorus, liar etc.
No, you only let your brother talk like that about gedolei Torah. Neither of you know hora'ah, but you stand in judgment of gedolim and then won't even let their followers use the very same tone?
DeleteRabbi Broyde is a law professor at a college. He is not active as a pulpit or practicing rabbi. He wrote an article essentially giving justification to married women leaving their hair uncovered. Godol Hador HaRav Shlomo Miller shlita, of Toronto, wrote a scathing letter denouncing Rabbi Broyde. Questions have been asked whether Rabbi Broyde's own wife always covers her hair in public. Rabbi Broyde declines to answer this question. R. Broyde is best known for writing left-wing viewpoints reinterperting halachos to fit modern sensibilities.
ReplyDeleteNo, Mrs. Broyde does not have her hair always covered in public.
DeleteWhy would anyone be surprised about the hair covering position R. Broyde took?
1) Rav Broyde did not write an article essentially justifying married women not covering their hair. He wrote an article examining what opinions they might rely upon since he assumed that they are God-fearing and wouldn't knowingly violate halacha.
ReplyDelete2) His lack of a response to Rav Miller's harsh attack shows the relative greatness of both men since Avos tells us a "gibor" is one who controls his temper.
3) Why is this blog so obsessed with this issue now?
Rav Broyde was a shul rav for a decade and currently serves as a dayan. And also, for the record, he has a beard.
ReplyDeleteCalling Rav Shlomo Miller a Gadol HaDor is delusional.
Gil,
DeleteCalling Rav Schachter a godol is delusional.
In the response to Rav Miller's letter to Rashkbhag Rav Shalom Yosef Eliashev shlita, Rav Eliashev addresses him as "HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Eliyahu Miller shlita".
DeleteBetween Rav Eliashev and Gil Student, it is no contest.
I am referring to the photocopy of the letter and response published in the American Yated 7 years ago and reposted here on this blog yesterday or the day before.
DeleteGil Student: Beard? I don't see one in his picture above. Why do you raise that point, anyways?
DeleteEYY: "Rashkbhag" is a made up title with no halachic significance. There is no halachic pope. Machloqes with a "Rashkbhag" is mutar, assuming you know what you're doing.
DeleteAnd your pretending RGS is taking on R' Elyashiv is just trying to bury the fact that RHSchachter is indeed a gadol, and the blog entry author did have the foolishness to take him on. (And I again repeat: Everyone here relies on RHS lehalakhah! If he's not a significant poseiq, start growing your own food.) RGS is noting and defending the majority opinion, not denying RYSE the "right" to hold differently. Such inability to understand something basic like the possibility of legitimate machloqes appears to be a symptom of the other camp.
Between Rav Schachter and Dovid Eidensohn, there is no contest. R Daniel Eidensohn should stop giving his brother a soapbox for spewing forth inanity. Go back to harbatzas torah rather than this sin'as chinam fest.
Gil must mean a "sefira beard". All photos of him on the internet show him being beardless.
DeleteMicha,
DeleteWhy your visceral reaction to a godol hador having been referred to as Rashkbhag? Rav Moshe was also referred to as such. Also, EYY made no mention of RHSchachter, so why are you mixing him in? But since you did, and called him a godol, what do you call R. Shlomo Miller? Rav Eliashev calls him a Gaon but Gil Student disagrees with RYSE.
Furthermore, RYSE's position on the issue at hand IS the majority opinion. How did YOU count your majority otherwise? On what basis are you counting majorities and what is the halakhic basis for you to count majorities as such? And what is its halakhic relevance, that you mention it?
Also, one can rely on any Torah observant Jew for Kashrus. That is not the case for Gittin. So I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate by pointing out people rely on RHS for kashrus but not for gittin.
Barry, my reaction was far from visceral. I said the term has no halachic significance, that halakhah has no pope. In other words, making a big deal about a title doesn't quelch the legitimacy of the dispute. Particularly when RYSE is being the m
DeleteRSM is a baal machashavah, his expertise isn't in pesaq. Thus he is a gaon, but in a way that's not relevant here.
I counted the majority by opening up Otzar haPoseqim and searching the Bar Ilan CD for developments since R Isser Zalman Meltzer. (Although OhP was Shabbos-friendly.) How do I know what's the general flow of halakhah? I went to the sources!
RHS is being altogether slandered as being dishonest and disloyal to halakhah, not just bad at gitn. I wouldn't want people to accuse a Jew off the street what people are saying about the person who may today be -- especially with the number of the elder generation currently sick -- our generation's greatest lamdan. In the real world, as opposed to the sesspool of the blogosphere this venue fell into, chareidim routinely use RHS to form batei din in cases where one side of the other is too politically powerful for the other side to feel secure that they'll get justice from their own dayanim. Such as every time a mosad is involved.
People from the yeshivah world should listen to shiurim by the rashei yeshiva on YUTorah.org, if just as an experiment. It will disabuse you of any notion of having superior learning. In this era, Brisk's lomdus is to be found on Amsterdam Ave.
For example, the Mabit 1:76 says that if he won't support her, we have sufficient grounds for applying pressure.
DeleteAs for this line of reasoning given here besheim RYSE itself:
See shu"t Beis Yoseif "Din Mayim sheEin Lahem Sof", siman 1. He explicitly says that "we are nohagim to hold like the Rambam over the Ramban, all the more so when dealing with an agunah" (tr. mine), and then procedes to dismiss the relevency of the Rivash.
Or shu"t Chakham Tzvi siman 3, who also discusses and explicitly dismisses the line of reasoning promoted here.
You see, someone who read the literature, as well two dayanim I asked (one does gitin in NJ, the other in Y-mi ih"q), can rapidly see this is a new chiddush. The supporters are not fighting milkhamta shel Torah, or else they wouldn't be violating the majority of R' Yisrael Meir haKohein's works in their tactics to do so.
Oy leRabbeinu SY Elyashiv, if this is what people do to his Torah!
If she runs out of his home (or forces him out), she is effectively refusing his support. His support is available to her in his home. So it is inapplicable to our situations. Rav Elyashev is jn the overwhelming majority, you are simply misconstruing him and the other poskim.
DeleteGreatest lamdonim of our generation? RHS is surely a lamdan, but even excluding the great senior lamdanim who are greater though ill today (they should all merit a refuah bkorov), RHS would only come in after Rav Avraham Yehoshua Soloveitchik, Rav Dovid Soloveitchik, Rav Ahron Schechter, Rav Shlomo Miller, Rav Shmuel Auerbach, Rav Ovadia Yosef, Rav Dovid Feinstein, Rav Malkiel Kotler and a whole host of others. (I'm simply going with those that come to immediate mind.)
Ben Torah, who said he can't be forced to give a get even if she instigated his not providing support or onah? I didn't see anything like that. Point me to where they say anything about his guilt being a prerequisite in any of the teshuvos already cited as being different than RYSE's pesaq.
DeleteOn a side-note: I don't think you have heard RHS give shiur. He is amazing. (ROY aside, he's a "Sinai", encyclopedic. I was discussing creativity, lamdanus, the "oqerei harim".) I think you're just working from assumptions based on "yeshivish guys learn". Speaking as someone whose background crosses Mod-O, chassidish and yeshivish yeshivos, and therefore I like to think I harbor little partisanship to any.
Even my time in YU, my rabbeim were R' Nissan Alpert zt"l and mori verabi, R' Dovid Lifshitz zt"l. Not quite your stereotypical YU / Mod-O experience. From them I learned what a machloqes lesheim Shamayim looks like. This ain't it.
Micha Berger:
DeleteIf she refuses to accept the support he is offering her (by supporting her in his home or making available support to her in his home, etc), that does not constitute him not supporting her. She is simply not taking the support he is giving or making available to her.
I have heard shiurim by RHS and the others mentioned. What I stated is common knowledge by those who have heard them all.
One other thing. Rav Eliashev's psak on this issue follows not only the majority, but is the accepted practice currently in the Torah world (outside of MO and possibly DL), especially in Eretz Yisroel but even mostly in America and chutz l'aaretz. You are very mistaken about your assertions to the contrary.
DeleteGood point. If the husband offers support and the wife refuses it, that doesn't constitute him lacking to provide her the requisite support. Furthermore, even if it were a case where he is not supporting her as he is obligated, the remedy available to beis din is to require him to support her, not force him to divorce her. Or he could remedy it himself by beginning to support her again, if found to be lacking in the support, thus rectifying the issue without a divorce. And as stated, he can make his required support (food, clothing, room and board, etc) available to her in his home and tell her to come to his home to receive the support. Then his compliant with his obligation, even if she doesn't come to receive her available support.
Deleteyour brother showed very clearly the very, very limited understanding that broyde had of the meforshim he quoted - he misquoted them essentially he did not know what he was talking about.
ReplyDeletealternatively he deliberately tried to milead and misrepresent. pretty pathetic if this man is allowed to a dayan in the death bin of america.
i ask a very basic question. how is it that a "bais din" that chooses to use secular law in violation of halochoh which broyde can't really defend in his magnum opus on fake agunahs with virtually no sources and one that supports women in arko'oys under the fake principle of bifurcation but issues fake siruvim on men who insist their wives leave arko'oys is allowed to still operate and the purported moetzes hatorah of the agudah keps quiet. shame on you.
where did you see rav shamshom refoel hirch advocating secular law or the rabonim in fnrace after the emancipation?
I think the case of Epstein is a real obfuscation from the real issue for the total violation of halochoh by the BDA/ herschel schachter corruption machine. the meir kin and menachem lowy cases are much much stronger,i urge you to post shmuel's post with a detailed explanation of the meir kin case and ask schachter to justify his fake siruv. please post as a separate blog.
ReplyDeletelest gil student claim that it is loshon horah, let him explain his despicable attack on rav abraham where he did not site a single halachik violation of rav abraham or a name of a litigant. end the hypchricy already gil. you're happy to oyver motzi sheym ra.
Avigdor, what does what Rav Broyde's wife's hair have to do with anything?
ReplyDeleteRav Shlomo Miller is THE Godol Hador or one of many? Does his attack immediately negate everything Rav Broyde wrote?
Wikipedia claims Rav Broyde is a law professor with yoreh yoreh and yadin yadin from YU. Does one have to be a pulpit/practising Rabbi in order to learn/write/have an opinion?
Finally, it would seem that Rav Broyde maintains halachah le-ma'aseh that a married woman must cover her hair - look here: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/rabbi-broyde-and-hair-covering
"his reply is short on substance, but full of vile language". That is another lie, rather, two lies. My response to you was filled with substance, and I destroyed your three major pillars to support ORA. And since your proofs were based on misquoting and leaving out phrases of Reb Moshe and the Gro, I considered that a false defense and let you have it. You insulted Reb Moshe and the Gro with your lies. Your third proof from the rabbinical council also did not deal with the case of a woman leaving her husband, but in a case where the Talmud demands a GET. You deal with falsehood and then you have the chutzpah to call me names as if I have no substance and only vile language.
ReplyDeleteIf you say that Reb Moshe permits coecion of a husband when the marriage is over, and Reb Moshe says clearly that we don't coerce the husband, you are a liar. If you in your first reply to me say that Reb Moshe would consider the PIRUD of Rabbeinu Tam, ostracizing in a passive manner, a minor thing, that is also not a true statement. As I pointed out to you in my response to you, Reb Moshe in a Teshuva clearly says that the PIRUD of Rabbeinu Tam is an extremely serious and awful kind of coercion, even stronger than threatening one's money. So he would not permit coercion even of RabbeinU Tam's variety. But ORA doesn't do Rabbeinu Tam. It humiliates in public actively. This is clearly wrong as taught by the Rashbo, Reb Yosef Caro, Radvaz, Shach and Chazon Ish. Even the rabbis involved with the Siruv for Mr. Friedman told me that what ORA does is forbidden, and many other rabbis agreed. If I let you have it for such twisting of halacha, is this my fault or your fault? This is part one. But there is a part two, when I say something about you that is more pleasant.
I just want to say that the modern Orthodox world puts enormous pressure on its poskim to make changes in the laws of Gittin. I disagree with those changes, but I don't feel the pressure you do, and I have to mention this, even though changing the laws of Gittin is completely wrong. If someone does something, and that person is a Talmid Chochom and spent his life serving the Torah community, we have to find some silver lining in his doing things we don't like. I don't like what you are doing, but I concede that you have pressures that I can't even imagine. That doesn't make it right, but with your paycheck comes certain understandings, and they are to make changes in the laws of Gittin. OF course, if this continues, there will be a break in the Orthodox community between those who consider these "freed" women freed at last, and those who don't consider them freed. Woe to the children. I never meant anything personal but rischo diorayso can be a problem. A Rov once decided to leave his house to ask another Rov forgiveness for the fight they had. As he left his house, the other Rov was waiting for him. HE said, "I knew you would come to appease me." The waiting Rov was Reb Yonoson Shteif, and the first Rov is somebody else.
Delete"That is another lie, rather, two lies."
DeleteWhat you say here is not credible. We read what you wrote. Many commentators drew your attentation to the fact that your language was not appropriate.
you had shoddy excuses saying that some people you insulted remained your best friends. See, this is someone you insulted who will not be your friend.
sholem defend him all you like. does his wife cover her hair?
ReplyDeleteagain the real issues are cases like the meir kin case and schachter and the death bin's fake siruvim. answe that one sholem.
"And since your proofs were based on misquoting and leaving out phrases of Reb Moshe and the Gro, I considered that a false defense and let you have it. You insulted Reb Moshe and the Gro with your lies."
ReplyDeletethis again is the crux of the matter.
normally one could complain that r' dovid e was far too aggressive. but when the writer broyde is either totally or totally misrepresents, he deserves it over the head.
>normally one could complain that r' dovid e was far too aggressive. <
ReplyDeleteWhen you've lost Stan, you've lost middle America!
To Rabbi Broyde and Gil student: The dialogue here has been a back and forth debate, but one thing is for sure jews have alway had machlokes. You rely on your poskim and I rely on mine and thats fine. But the GET issue crosses the line since you have radicalized it by allowing ORA and others to defame and ridicule and prosecute others. That means you have not allowed the opinions or psak of others to stand. This is unacceptable from a Torah perspective as well as a secular perspective. Many Halachic opinions by the great Rishonim and Acharonim have already been layed out in these blogs by Rabbi Eidensohn to justify why no coercive methods should be done.You, Rabbi Schachter and all the others have not allowed any distinction in divorce cases but all lumped together as guilty. This doesnt fare well and give any credibility for your camp, as you cannot make distinctions between different divorce cases. Even in the Meir Kin case, Rabbi Herschel Schachter signs a fake seiruv without sending Hazmonos and without being there as he lives in Ny and the other 2 rabbis live in LA. This appears so fake as why couldnt those other 2 rabbis find a 3rd rabbi to sign the siruv against Meir Kin? They had Rabbi Bess their colleague, and he could of signed? But instead they seek out a signature 3000 miles a way?? All your Halachic rhetoric may sound very poetic but you are missing one component, and that is the "TRUTH". One cannot bury the truth as it comes back to stab you in the eyes. Had you and the others made your point in select cases, perhaps one can argue in those select cases that the Guy appears recalcitrant and perhaps "may fit according to some poskim as a case to to coerce indirectly". But when you cant bend in your views and lump all men and all divorce cases as one, then you reveal your radical views. Because the Torah warns judges not to judge every case the same, but to carefully sift thru all the information and extrapulate the correct halocho APPLICABLE TO THAT CASE ONLY!
ReplyDeleteShmuel,
DeleteI would keep it simple. If ORA continues, many children will be a problem to marry because their mothers had invalid Gittin. Is this not the ultimate in child abuse?
Reply to Micha: "who said he can't be forced to give a get even if she instigated his not providing support or onah? I didn't see anything like that."
ReplyDeleteOf course you didn't see anything like that, because your YU/ORA feminist Reformadox handlers completely erased the concept of MOREDES from the Shulchan Aruch (Evan HaEzer Seman 77). Instead you and your ORA pals continually bamboozle the frum olam and obfuscate HALACHA by misquoting and erroneously applying HALACHA sources.
See Rav Gestetner's excellent discussion of authentic Gittin HALACHOS in "Kuntress Kifiyat Maasar". Rav Gestetner explains there that "Leica shum chiyuv klal
al baalah shel moredes b'taanas maus alai, l'garsha." To receive the file, send an email to PDF@sendfast.org with 5029 in the subject field.
In the words of Bais Din Shar HaMishpat:
"... the "ORA" group - shamefully known for their disgraceful actions against the Torah ... to whom many False and invalid GITTIN could be credited - which is causing the sin of ESHES EISH and ARAYOS to be allowed, as well as MAMZERIM B'MACHANEINU ... They (ORA) are following the crooked way of the Reform movement, as if in every conflict between husband and wife - the wife has to have the upper hand - to be able to force him to give a GET while depriving him of his rights, as well as in every detail of the conflict she has to have it all according to her wishes. And a husband who is willing to give his wife a GET, but insists on his basic human and halachic rights ... is being shamed, humiliated and embarrassed ... while quite the contrary, whereby the wife would only want a GET in a way that deprives her husband of his rights, it is only the wife that is chaining herself ..."