R' Bechhofer: Using Secular Courts & Demanding a Get

Guest post: Yitzy Hillel  see also Rav Sternbuch (4:301) moredes who went to court & now wants get

Rabbi Bechhofer Shlitta has publicly come out with tremendous chiddushim in matters of Gitten based on pure svaras and no sources. Everyone must agree that he is a lamdan and can hold his own in svaras, but he can't seem to produce actual sources especially any achronim that hold like him. He has also publicly been m'lamed zchus on woman who run to secular court in order to gain child custody and monetary settlements even if this is against halacha. Check out his blog to see his own words:(RYGB)

Contrast Rabbi Bechhofers approach with the approach of these 70 Rabbonim:http://www.mishpattsedek.com/Docs/KOLKOREH-ERKAOT-70GADOLIM-SEALS.pdf) Look especially at warning Vuv,(6), Zayin (7),ches (8), and tes (9)to see the obvious disagreement between being malemud zchus and demanding teshuva and getting out of secular court or no help at all. I think this is the biggest underlining problem in these cases. Should Rabbonim be malamud zchus on men or woman who sin or should Rabbonim tell them to repent and no GET until repentance and getting out of secular court and having the case tried in beis din (even after the secular courts have awarded one side)? Is it immoral for a Beis din to tell the husband to deposit a GET on condition that the woman drops the secular court case. The above Rabbonim seem not to think this is immoral. However, from the view of Modern Orthodox Rabbonim these Beis Dins are considered criminals. The Modern Orthodox say the case has had a "fair judgement" and now the man must give an unconditional GET or because of chillul hashem the man must give a GET, etc. This seems to be the biggest underlining debate in my eyes. In the end, this blog has hosted a debate about forced gitten in contemporary times, and I am waiting to see in writing from great Rabbis whether or not the actions of the ORA are considered potential problems of forced gitten or not. (L'kavod Rabbi Dr. Eidonsohn: you claimed at the beginning of the debate that you planned on getting in writing the opinions of great Rabbis. Are you attempting to fulfill this statement?) However, one thing is for certain, and that is that running to secular court and demanding an unconditional GET at the same time is certainly not acceptable according to most Rabbonim outside the world of Modern Orthodoxy.

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[Update regarding his chiddush the following was posted today

 DT wrote:

Rabbi Bechhofer: Please clarify your view. You noted that Rambam(Hilchos Gerushin 2:20) says that a beis din that errs or a beis din of hedyotos that force a get shelo kadin - the get is posul derabbonin. You made the diyuk that therefore if it is not beis din but individuals who force a get shelo kadin it is kosher. Obviously the Rambam was not referring to passive social withdrawal since that is not considered to be kefiya according to the poskim. It can only be dealing with issues such as financial or physical forces - and yet you said from the diyuk that vigilante justice can't posul the get.

Now you are stating that vigilanted justice can in fact produce a get me'usa? So what is your true position.

Rabbi Bechhofer wrote: "Three types of vigilante justice do produce get me'useh. These are specified by the Poskim: Violence, monetary sanctions and niddui. There is no precedent to ban any other form of persuasion, and the Harchokos in fact encourage other forms of persuasion. No one here has brought any definitive legitimate proof that demonstrations, petitions, and ostracism create a situation of get me'useh."

You can't have it both ways. The above statement contradicts the diyuk you made from the Rambam. If you always intended the above then you don't need a diyuk in the Rambam to permit someone not to speak to another person. However the case of the mother in law who yells at her son in law to give a get or the case of the father in law who takes his son in laws money to force him to give a get - you said were valid pressure when not done through beis din. You rejected the Lechem Mishna that rejected your diyuk.

Rabbi Bechhofer replied:

It is not a retraction. I believe that my pshat in the Rambam is emes. Nevertheless, since it is clear that many Gedolei HaPoskim either do not accept my pshat, or do not rule like the Rambam, I go on to clarify that my position stands independently of the Rambam, the distinction being that according to the Rambam any form of persuasion not initiated by BD would be valid, while the consensus of the Poskim (which I, of course, accept) is to exclude three forms of persuasion as kinds of Kefi'ah no matter how they are initiated. I believe this is pashut k'bei'ah b'kutcha.

ORA: "Passive Pressure" of Rabbeinu Tam?! - Aharon's home

Ultra-Orthodox Jews Hide Child Sex Abuses

ORA: "Passive Pressure" of Rabbeinu Tam?! - Uncle's home

Stupidity is not a disability

Mayor criticizes DA for Rabbi abuse-gatekeepers

NYTimes   Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday sharply criticized the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, over his handling of child sexual abuse cases among the borough’s large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

Mr. Bloomberg said through a spokesman that he “completely disagrees” with Mr. Hynes’s decision to not object to the position of an influential ultra-Orthodox advocacy group on reporting allegations of child sexual abuse. The group announced last year that adherent Jews must obtain permission from a rabbi before reporting such allegations to district attorneys or the police.

Being a parent to a sex offender

CNN   Christine Smith will never forget the moment she watched her 21-year-old son being led out of a Florida courtroom in handcuffs.

"This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening," she recalls thinking at the time. "Take me instead."

She sobbed because there was nothing she could do. Matthew, the second of her three children, was going to prison after pleading guilty to 10 counts of possession of child pornography. A judge in Duval County sentenced him in April 2010 to 18 months in state prison and one year of probation, with the requirement that he register as a sex offender.

What's the "Torah" in "Torah miSinai"?

Guest post: by Rabbi Raffi Bilek a social worker and rabbi living in Passaic, NJ. who wrote a chapter in my Child &Domestic Abuse Vol 1

I am writing a chapter about Orthodox Judaism in a book that will be read primarily by non-Jews.  Right at the beginning I wanted to put down "Torah miSinai" as one of its defining characteristics.  Then I realized I had to define what "Torah" means in this context, since it is not merely referring to the Chumash or the Tanach, which is probably what most people would assume (if they have any familiarity with the word "Torah" in the first place). THEN I realized that defining it here is not such an easy task at all!  Torah can also refer to the entire corpus of Jewish law and thinking - but that can't be said to have been given over at Sinai.  And it also doesn't seem correct to say that Torah miSinai is referring to whatever portion of the written Torah was actually handed down at that time.  So what is it?

R' Eidensohn was gracious enough to let me turn it over to the klal to see what others think. It's an interesting question, at any rate.

[update] I put a number of translations of the classic seforim in the comments section that deal with the issue. They are part of a future volume of Daas Torah which discusses the nature of Torah and the Revelation at Sinai

Does ORA want halacha changed?

*Do ORA and its supporters believe that halacha should be changed so that a get can be given or received with the consent of only one spouse?* [guest post]

Asked whether rabbis could just agree to permit a religious divorce without the man's consent, [Rabbi Shmuel] Herzfeld said, "It's very complicated."

...

He [ORA’s Rabbi Jeremy Stern] said the Jewish community certainly has started to discuss whether a rabbi should be able to officiate a divorce without one party's permission -- but said the community "is not at a point right now where they're willing to fundamentally change how Jewish marriage

and divorce works."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/29/congressman-facing-pressure-from-jewish-groups-on-advisers-religious-divorce/#ixzz1uYp26Mpq

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Rachel Levmore’s May 11 op-ed, “Should the Government ‘Get’ Involved,” raises a multitude of questions.

Let me address just two points. Levmore errs in stating that the proposed Maryland “barriers to remarriage” law would have protected Tamar Epstein from becoming an agunah. Epstein filed for the civil divorce and has done all she can to remove barriers to her ex-husband Aharon Friedman’s remarriage. Thus even if Maryland had passed the proposed law, Epstein would rightly have been awarded the civil divorce she sought but remained an agunah. [Rabbi Jeremy Stern has repeatedly and falsely claimed (although not on ORA's website) that it was Friedman who filed for divorce.] Maryland’s proposed “barriers to remarriage” law, similar to the first New York State “Get Law,” only helps if the husband is the plaintiff in the civil divorce suit. In 99% of agunah cases, the wife, not the husband, is the plaintiff. The second NYS Get law, which allows the judge to give the agunah a larger financial award, has some teeth, but the Maryland law was not patterned on this second law.

Levmore also states that Aharon Friedman, exercising his constitutional right, has turned Epstein into an agunah, but it is the Orthodox rabbinate’s refusal to embrace available halachic remedies to the agunah problem and the communtiy that keeps these rabbis in leadership positions and adheres to their decrees who have turned Epstein into an agunah. Susan Aranoff Director, Agunah International  http://forward.com/articles/156105/getting-a-get/#ixzz1uYpX92cp

Psak: Choosing vs avoiding error - consequences

Amongst the heated debate that has been going on regarding get me'usa - more subtle issues have been ignored. We addressed the issue of whether we posken like the Rambam (Hilchos Ishus 14:8), that a husband can be forced to give a get in a case of ma'us alei or like Rabbeinu Tam, that force can't be used and if it is used you have a problem of mamzerim. While it is clear that we don't posken like Rambam - there are a number of unclear areas. For example what happens if the husband were forced to give a get and then his wife remarried? If the get was invalid she shouldn't be allowed to remarry and if she does  - the marriage would not be valid and future children would be mamzerim. One of the sources that is cited in this question is the following Rosh.

Rosh(43:6):  Question:  A woman has been married for many year and has children. Now she is saying that he disgusts her (ma’us alei). Do we force the husband to give a get? Answer:  Even though the Rambam writes, When the wife says ma’us alei we force the husband to give her a get – but Rabbeinu Tam and the Ri disagree. Since this is a dispute amongst rabbinic authorities why should we stick our heads amongst the great mountains and to make a forced get which is not required by the halacha and to permit a married woman to remarry? Furthermore due to our sins, Jewish women today have loose morality. Therefore there is concern that the wife might be interested in another man. Whoever forces a husband to give a get when the wife says ma’us alei is simply multiplying mamzerim. All of this is in regard to what to do if asked. However if the get has been forced already – if they relied on the view of the Rambam – what has been done has been done.

Question: What is the Rosh doing here in regards to deciding between the Rambam and Rabbeinu Tam? 

Answer: In fact  he isn't deciding between them and doesn't want to. It seems therefore he is following the assertion found in the introduction to Ohr LeTzion of Rav Bentzion Abba Shaul that psak is a not a clear categorization of what is true and what is false but rather it is a strategy to minimize error and harm. He says only in the case of the Shulchan Aruch because it was accepted by clall Yisroel and the Arizal because he spoke with ruach hakodesh - are their rulings absolute decisions of truth. While it seems clear that the Rosh is doing a cost benefits analysis - other poskim such as Rabbeinu Tam, Ramban Shulchan Aruch etc are clearly rejecting the Rambam and saying that he is wrong!

It would seem that in our time - after the Rambam has been rejected and Rabbeinu Tam accepted - that the ambivalent view of the Rosh would not be relevant. However it is cited by contemporary poskim such as Rav Ovadia Yosef  to explain why the wife can remain married to her second husband - despite receiving an inappropriately forced get from the first.

An explanation might be that contemporary poskim are also doing a cost benefits analysis rather than deciding what is true. Thus they take the conservative approach of Rabbeinu Tam and don't allow the husband to be forced because they are worried about the possibility of mamzerim if Rambam is wrong. They would also say that a wife divorced by a forced get could not get married with that get.

 However if she does get married we have a different problem. There is now a marriage and possibly children. Thus we would definitely have adultery and mamzerim if we had absolutely rejected the Rambam. Therefore we turn around and say - we didn't absolutely reject the Rambam but that he is not the normative lchatchila position.  However when faced with the disaster of adultery and mamzerim we say the Rambam can be relied upon bedieved.

To get back to our problem of using force in ma'us alei. The guiding principle that we seem to be using is that we need to avoid the possibility of an invalid get and thus mamzerim if Rambam is wrong. Therefore all our actions need to be based on the rejection of the Rambam and thus we avoid any appearance of forcing the get. However if there is a forced get  - then bedieved we would rely on the Rambam that there is no problem of aishis ish and mamzerim - because there is no other way.

Assuming that is really the halachic dynamic - what would be the practical status of children resulting from remarriage? If you had a choice between a possible zivug with a person for whom there was never a question of yichus versus one for whom the valid is solely because there was a pesak that bedieved the child is kosher - which would you chose? In other words which would you chose - glatt kosher in which there has never been a sofek or regular kosher which had a number of questions that were resolved by a rabbi's heter that took 10 pages of reasoning to justify and that other rabbis don't accept?

This issue of perceived quality of yichus is also a consideration - at least l'chatchila - in how we conduct ourselves. In other words we should avoid doing anything which raises halachic questions of yichus - unless there are other issues which are more important.

In addition there are contemporary poskim who view the Rambam has rejected totally and they problably would require that the wife not only not remarry after a forced get but that if she did then she could not stay in the marriage and that children from the second marriage would be mamzerim. 

Abuse:Falsely arrested & smeared

NYTimes    “Cops Nab the Grope Sicko,” the headline in The Daily News announced, and The New York Post described him as the “dapper fiend.” The Web site Jezebel posted an article about his arrest that drew lacerating comments on how Mr. Vanderwoude was possessed of a sense of entitlement that went with his job in private finance.

But Karl Vanderwoude wasn’t on 67th Street when one of the attacks took place; he was at his desk, sending e-mails, and seen on video opening a door for lunch deliveries. He wasn’t behind City Hall another time, but out to dinner with two people in Greenwich Village, and they had receipts from the cab and restaurant to back it up. 

All charges were dropped this week, and prosecutors announced that Mr. Vanderwoude could not have been the attacker. “The Police Department agrees,” Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said Thursday.

This was the criminal justice equivalent of a plane crashing, brought down in a publicity hurricane. Wrong man arrested and smeared; right man still out there. Could it have been prevented?

Chareidi Abuse: D.A. has different rules

NYTimes    Marci A. Hamilton, a professor of constitutional law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, blamed Mr. Hynes for not speaking out against the ultra-Orthodox position that mandates that allegations must be first reported to rabbis. The position potentially flouts a state law that requires teachers, social workers and others to report allegations of sexual abuse immediately to the authorities.

She said Mr. Hynes was essentially allowing rabbis to act as gatekeepers. 

“That’s exactly what the Catholic Church did, what the Latter-day Saints did, what the Jehovah’s Witnesses did,” said Ms. Hamilton, author of “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children.”

 

Victims’ rights groups say Mr. Hynes has also failed to take a strong stand against rabbis and institutions that have covered up abuse, and has not brought charges recently against community members who have sometimes pressed victims’ families not to testify. 

Ms. White, his liaison to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, said the district attorney had few options, in part because some victims declined to implicate those who threatened them, fearful that if they did, they would face even more pressure. 

“I always feel so bad for those parents, because you watch the shock on their face when they find out that their child has been abused, and then they get all of the pressure,” Ms. White said.

Head of massive prostitution ring gets 18 years in prison

YNET   "We've yet to see a case that compares in its severity to Rami Saban's activity," Tel Aviv District Court Judge Khaled Kabub said Thursday before sentencing the head of a massive human-trafficking ring to 18 years and seven months in prison.

Justice Kaboub called the operation “one of the most complex and extensive human-trafficking affairs to be uncovered in recent years, if not ever."

According to the indictment, the defendants smuggled hundreds of women into Israel through the border with Egypt. They used a network which located hundreds of young women in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Uzbekistan.

Judge M. Elon: Harchakos are passive sanctions

Justice Menachem Elon (Status of Women page 349): The parameters of the harchokos of Rabbeinu Tam are accurately described by Ariel Rozen-Tzvi: “The sanction of harchokos - whose source is in the teshuvos of Rabbeinu Tam – is separation, distancing and withholding. In other words, they are passive activities involving not doing something (shev v’ahl ta’aseh). In contrast kefiya (force) and also nidoi (shunning) require active steps. According to Rabbeinu Tam the harchokos are not considered force. Rabbeinu Tam chose an indirect path in circumstances where beis din preferred to avoid force. The harchokos are a withholding of the benefits of society. It is directed to the actions of the community and not the husband. Many other poskim followed in the footsteps of Rabbeinu Tam. However there were other poskim who viewed the haricots as also a type of force and therefore they should only be applied when force is permitted.”