Rav Moshe Sternbuch (1:781): It often happens that the wife goes to secular court and receives a large judgment for maintenance for herself and her children. The husband is not able to pay it so he is forced to make a deal with his wife that he will divorce her and in exchange she forgives him from paying or to reduce what he owes her. So in order to be exempt from the judgment of the secular court which actually the court is stealing from him, he is forced to give her a get. The wife’s lawyer does not allow this exemption without the giving of the get. The wife is therefore forcing her husband to divorce her by using the pressure of the judgment of the secular court which is not in accord with the halacha and thus constitutes theft by the wife. The pressure to divorce her includes fear of being imprisoned or monetary fines. The Chazon Ish states that even though the pressure is not explicitly to divorce but since it is pressure to pay something not according to halacha we need to be concerned that the get is not valid.
Is there a concept of "posek acharon" and what is this based on?
ReplyDeleteWho decides that X was the last posek, and we are not allowed to veer from X?
That is what the MO call the "halachic freeze".
In any case, there were plenty of Poskim after the CI, and who continued with halacha, not in agreement with his positions.
I wish to ask a general question, about how things were a few hundred years ago, before radio, internet etc.
ReplyDeleteWere there different appraoches to agunot/mamzerim in different communities? eg Morroco, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Baghdad, Italy, Hungary etc?
There was not a single authority in the world that people went to, but there were many local leaders. The idea that only the single gadol hador handles these questions probably didn't exist 200 or 500 years ago. or did it? And why should it exist today?