A core group of people have figured out virtually the entire outline of how the Heter for Tamar Epstein to remarry came about. It took years, finesse, a team of people in America and in Eretz Yisrael to piece it together, and Siyata D'shmaya. I give Hakaras HaTov to all who've contributed to discovering the details in an effort to strengthen the Torah.
Rabbi Greenblatt gave the Heter. To do so, he compared the case involving Aharon Friedman and Tamar Epstein to a theoretical model. Since the Friedman-Epstein case matched the model, in the Rabbi's estimation, then the Heter was issued.
There is a basis to attack the model on multiple fronts. In a previous post I demonstrated that the model leads to absurdity. I'm going to focus here on demonstrating that the model does not seem consistent with requirements for a true Mekach Taus.
Once I show the model is invalid, it follows that the Friedman-Epstein case, even if it follows the model, does not merit the issuing of a Heter to Tamar Epstein to remarry.
Let's first examine the model.
Take the case of a Jewish man and woman who get married with valid Kiddushin.
After the marriage takes place the husband manifests speech and behavior that causes the wife to want a divorce.
Nevertheless, she stays in the marriage.
At some point, her husband has contact on some level with a mental health professional. The professional diagnoses the husband with a mental illness.
The professional determines that
-the husband's condition is incurable
-the wife was unaware that her husband had an incurable mental illness before she married him
-she only became aware of her husband's condition after the marriage
-she leaves immediately after realizing her husband has the condition.
This is a model of Mekach Taus. The wife says that the marriage was based on a mistaken premise. In this case, the presumption she had was that her husband did not have a mental illness as defined by mental health professionals. Had she known her husband had a mental illness as diagnosed by a doctor, then she would not have married the man.
I say that that this model is fundamentally flawed.
Let's examine why.
Mental health professionals generally make mental illness diagnoses through observations of someone's behavior and speech.
Therefore, there is nothing about the husband's behavior and speech that the professional observes that the wife did not also observe. For example, if the husband mumbles incoherently, the doctor notes it. The wife also notes it.
And if the wife happens to miss it, than it can't be a basis for her making a claim of Mekach Taus anyway.
Thus, the entire cluster of symptoms that led to the diagnosis was known to the wife while she continued to live with her husband.
The only thing that the doctor's diagnosis does is give that collection of symptoms a name. The condition, though, is well known to the wife before that.
You might say, though, that the wife was unaware that the condition was considered incurable by mental health professionals.
But it is generally known that mental health professionals use the term "treat mental mental illness", not "cure mental illness". Thus, mental illness, as defined by mental health professionals, is incurable.
To summarize: the wife did not become aware of her husband's condition when she received the diagnosis. The woman was aware she was living with a man with behavior and speech that made her realize she wanted a divorce for quite awhile.
The argument could be made that the wife only knew her husband was "strange", but not "ill". I say that that distinction is irrelevant. The way mental health professionals diagnose people is on a spectrum. According to the mental health profession, virtually everyone suffers from mental illness. "Strangeness" is not far from "illness" and vice-versa within much of the universe of the mental health profession. Anyone requiring proof of this need only research how historical figures are routinely retroactively diagnosed with mental illness by forensic mental health professionals. Even the President is not spared such armchair diagnoses.
Thus, the model fails, I think, because it's difficult to find a case where a wife doesn't stay with her husband for a while after becoming aware that her husband has what mental health professionals describe as an incurable, pre-existing mental illness. The only thing she may have been unaware of was the name that the mental health professionals assign to the behavior and speech she was observing.
Perhaps the model would not be internally inconsistent in a case where a husband spontaneously and with no basis accuses his wife of trying to kill him and she runs out of their home never to return. If a mental health professional diagnosed the man with a pre-existing incurable mental condition that the wife was unaware of until her husband accused her, then the wife might have a case of bona fide Mekach Taus.
Yet Rabbi Greenblatt's position is that most women would not marry a man "L'chatchila" who will eventually be diagnosed by a professional with an incurable pre-existing mental illness. He gives no weight to how the man's speech and behavior actually affects the marriage. Whether the man goes stark raving mad, or whether he acts and speaks in a way where the wife puts up with it for years, it's all the same to Rabbi Greenblatt.
