Friday, September 29, 2023

Rackman's aguna solution was rejected by Modern Orthodox also - Rabbi Norman Lamm

 https://traditiononline.org/rabbi-emanuel-rackman-zl-a-critical-appreciation/

It was this question that applied to the Rackman efforts in relieving the plight of the agunot. It was his genuine compassion for the agunot that led him to misapply and misinterpret key elements of halakha. Thus, Rabbi Soloveitchik (“The Rav”) publicly berated him in 1975 at the annual convention of the RCA and was to an extent responsible for his failure to achieve any further promotion in communal office that might have been in store for him. Yet Rabbi Rackman acted respectfully to the Rav, who was seven years his senior, “but not by sacrificing the autonomy of my soul. I dare to differ with him—and still do to this day.”

But it was this powerful opposition by the Rav, combined with certain other considerations, that shattered Rackman’s dream to succeed the late Dr. Belkin as the next President of Yeshiva University, and which led Rabbi Rackman to turn to Israel as the President, and later Chancellor, of Bar Ilan University. These factors should not be overlooked in writing the history of those stormy days when the destiny of Y.U. was being determined.

While I personally admired the motivation of his efforts on behalf of the agunot, I was dismayed by his latest move—essentially a continuation of his position years earlier—namely, the establishment of the grandiloquently named “Rabbi Emanuel Rackman-Agunah International Beit Din L’inyanei Agunot.” As a student of the Rav, I learned from him never to allow one’s reason and logic to be overwhelmed by someone’s great reputation (a legacy of his eminent ancestor, R. Hayyim of Volozhin.) I therefore studied the situation and would not have automatically supported my Rebbe’s broadsides if I disagreed with him. But much as I held Mendy in genuine esteem, I found too many weaknesses in his argument, some startling, especially in his public actions. The people he entrusted with this new Beit Din patently were not of the level that such innovation in halakha required. The approach he innovated was to annul the marriage of the couple, thus no divorce was needed. But this was agonizingly irresponsible for a man of Rackman’s stature, for many reasons. One was that in making it so easy to break up a marriage, trivialities can knowingly or unknowingly be disguised as serious agunah situations. With the relatively easy availability of an annulment, all genuine outside help—whether by rabbis or professional counselors—may be rejected in unspoken reliance on an annulment. In a word, it makes marriage itself casual and unserious. If one were to accept fully the Rackman “solution,” it would mean that the number that had so far been “released” from unhappy marriages, would increase many times over so that there would be no reason for the whole institution of divorce, because one could easily obtain his or her freedom by applying to the Bet Din for an annulment, often when casus belli can prove to be frivolous. Much as that would be helpful to the few

agunot, it would be tragically destructive to Jewish home life for many decades to come. By making divorce superfluous, you paradoxically make marriage itself unstable and even unnecessary, as it is always accompanied by the silent prospect of an annulment at the first sign of marital discord. The marital bonds are not strong enough in our times to bear the pressure of this additional burden. No wonder that the overwhelming number of Modern Orthodox Rabbis—let alone Haredi Rabbis—will not recognize such annulments, leading to horrific consequences.

14 comments:

  1. Here's the thing: some women are in desperate situations. "We emphasize with you but have no solution" will not hold them much longer. What is the cost when the woman then decides to leave the faith, run away and shack up with a Gentile who doesn't beat her?

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  2. https://lnkd.in/dsVyVMd?NwAWm7SwStl

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  3. Everyone agrees there are some such cases

    How many cases do you estimate and does that justifies revoking the Torah Law?

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  4. Alex Mendes de AraujoApril 27, 2021 at 7:53 PM

    https://www.linkedin.com/slink?code=dUWvnjg?R9VaoCsJpN

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  5. We have no data because such things are not reported. The only ones we know about are the ones who leave the community and tell the world.
    It's this bad - many years ago a women did try to do a study on spousal abuse in the UO community and came up with some shocking numbers. The Agudah dispatched Rav Avi Shafran to write a rebuttal. According to him, this was a hit job, couldn't be believed because frum men would never abuse their wives so clearly she was making up the problem.

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  6. If the doctor accurately tells the cancer patient "We emphasize with you but have no solution", does the woman then forswear ever going to doctors again??

    If there's no solution, there's no solution. Regardless of how innocent the patient or wife is. And regardless whether it is a medical situation that cannot be treated or if it is a spiritual situation that cannot be treated. Either way (medical or spiritual) one must accept the facts and the limitations of the doctors or rabbis, even if they're helpless to help her.

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  7. "If one were to accept fully the Rackman “solution,” it would mean that the number that had so far been “released” from unhappy marriages, would increase many times over so that there would be no reason for the whole institution of divorce, because one could easily obtain his or her freedom by applying to the Bet Din for an annulment, often when casus belli can prove to be frivolous. Much as that would be helpful to the few"

    This in itself is a weak argument. The rackman BD was not a first point of call. Most of the agunot were long term, many had started new relationships / civil marriages. The annulments also brought forward husbands who decided to give the get.

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  8. Even Rackman disagrees with you

    http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2014/11/r-rackman-solution-to-aguna-is-being.html

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  9. His attempt at solving the agunot situation was not a general divorce bd. It was for those long term agunot, many of who had remarried.
    Your point being that r Lamm took that paragraph from r Rackman's book?

    Rav Bleich uses this in many of his analyses - reductio ad absurdum to rebutt a halachic argument. By extending an argument to its logical extreme, it becomes absurd.
    So, by the same logic, maintaining it within certain boundaries keeps the argument within the bounds of rationality.

    The rackman solution was doomed before it started because halachic revolutions are rarely accepted. But since it has inspired the IBD , at least in spirit, and the RSK/NG heter, it may still be "successful" at least in the eyes of its creators.

    Would I accept such a freed woman Eg to marry my son? Definitely not.

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  10. "We emphasize with you"

    What was the emphasis on?

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  11. Shulchan arukh you quoted in the Arukh hashulchan post:

    "It has been the practice in every place that the community leaders have the status similar to that of the Sanhedrin in that they can give beatings and punishments as well as appropriate a person’s property – all according to the local practice. Even though there are those poskim which disagree and say that the local communities authorities do not have such powers but can only pressure the community according to the local practices or their actions need to be agreed upon by everyone."

    So only some poskim deny the authority of community leaders.
    These are not necessarily the gedolei hador - the opposing poskim admit this.

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  12. Here is Rackman telling his side of the story of his disputation with the Rav




    http://www.hakirah.org/ShurinArchive/DOC0159.PDF



    He cites the Mordechai in Ch. 7 of Ketubot, to support his position

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  13. so what?
    That proves Rackman was a greater authority?!

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  14. Nope, just that he had a further story to the saga.

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