It is a tremendous chutzpah that these three rabbis joined this beit din. Questions of this most serious nature—permitting a woman to remarry without a divorce—were brought to Rav Yitzchak Elchanan, after him to Rav Chaim Ozer and in our time to Rav Moshe Feinstein, all of whom were recognized as the greatest of their generations. It is forbidden for average rabbis to involve themselves in these matters because whoever does not understand the nature of marriages and divorces cannot be involved with them. In our generation, we present these questions to the few Torah scholars who have specialized in these laws and apprenticed under greats, and who therefore have a tradition about where to be lenient and where strict.
I encourage my colleagues and students not to rely on any ruling from this beit din because they have no standing. I heard that one of the judges resigned and I asked the other two to also remove themselves in the future from this bad activity and to inform the public not to rely on the lenient rulings they already issued, since their entire approach is not according to the law.
(Rav) Tzvi (Hershel) Schachter, Tammuz 5775
(Rav) Nota Tzvi Greenblatt, Memphis, 22 Tammuz 5775
ReplyDeleteThe words of the above giants are clear in law and in practice, and I also join in their objection:
You inadvertently copied and pasted the words of Rabbi Union.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Nota Greenblatt's words are as follows:
"It is superfluous to add that there is no ruling and no judge, but nonsense of fools who have appointed themselves authorities."
and do you see the irony in that comment?
ReplyDeleteThis might be where the OO's officially split from Orthodoxy. For them, the idea that a man can grant a divorce but not a woman is anathema. They are feverishly trying to figure out how to twist halacha so as to level the playing field.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as your other post from Rav Sternbuch accidentally points out, the playing field is level. The man can turn a woman into an agunah. The woman can turn the man into a bankrupt nobody with no potential future of escape.
The “International Beit Din”- A Very Troubling Update
ReplyDeletehttps://yated.com/international-beit-din-troubling-update/