Daas Torah - Issues of Jewish Identity

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Washington Post The long and sad task of burying the children killed in the Newtown massacre began Monday afternoon, under dreary gray skies.

The first two children’s funerals took place 25 miles apart, one in this city on Long Island Sound, and one in Newtown itself.

Here in Fairfield, family and friends gathered to remember Noah Pozner, the very youngest of the shooting’s young victims. Noah had just turned 6 on Nov. 20. He had a twin sister who survived the attack. [....]

Veronique Pozner’s memories of her son brought many mourners to tears, several said after the service.

“She said ‘Whenever I used to tell him I love you, his answer would be, ‘Not as much as I love you’,” Rabbi Edgar Gluck, a clergyman attending the funeral, recounted after the service, which was closed to the media.

“It was very powerful — everybody had tears in their eyes,” Gluck added. “If you didn’t, you weren’t human.”

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Must husband be informed of wife's adultery II - Ben Ish Chai

[See previous post of Rav Fisher and Rav Wosner] Rav Pe'alim (E.H. 1:1): ... Question: A man sinned with a married woman a number of times and afterwards repented. He came to a talmid chachom to be told how to properly repent for doing this sin. He told the talmid chachom that he had been involved in an adulterous relationship and the question arises as to whether the lover is obligated to tell the husband that his wife had committed adultery. Perhaps he would believe him and divorce his wife and thus be saved from sinning through ignorance. Furthermore if the lover absolutely refuses to tell the husband because of a number of reasons – is there an obligation of the talmid chachom who heard the confession to tell the husband because he might be believed and therefore divorce his wife. Or alternatively should the husband not be told since it will lead to fights and conflict. That is because if the husband believes the accusation he will obviously have to explain the reason he wants a divorce and his wife will definitely deny the accusations and thus there will be fights and arguments – especially if she has children from her husband. Thus it will result in a stain on the family reputation and who knows what will result from this controversy. Consequently it is necessary to see whether there is a leniency that can be relied upon not to reveal the adultery or not. Answer: I saw that the Noda B’Yehuda (1:35) was asked a similar question. A person who was involved in an adulterous relationship and now is married to the daughter of the woman. He wanted to know whether he had to tell his father in law that he needed to divorce his wife or was it better to remain silent since the family was a distinguished family and they had children who were important in Torah and with high reputation. Consequently there is concern that the revelation would destroy the reputation of the family. Therefore in order to avoid the severe embarrassment to them it would be best that this repentant sinner should do nothing and not tell his father in law anything. The Nodah B’Yehuda replied that is was obvious that human dignity can only be considered when a person is not actively sinning.... He added that when the person sinning i.e., the husband – is unaware of the sin it is a major dispute between the Rambam and the Rosh concerning a person who is unaware that he is wearing kelayim in the street.... Therefore according to the Rosh it is best to be silent because of the degradation of the family while the Rambam would obligate notifying the husband to prevent him from sinning... It is important to note that the Noda B’Yehuda is generalizing from the case of kelayim. However it appears to me that there are significant differences between the two cases. In the case of kelayim the person directly sees that the person is wearing kelayim but in the case of adultery he doesn’t see the transgression since intercourse doesn’t take place in front of him. Perhaps the husband doesn’t have relations with his wife at all because of some other factor that interferes. This is also reasonable to assume in the case of the Noda B’Yehuda since the husband was already an old man. There is an additional doubt in that we are not sure that if the information is revealed to the husband that he will believe it and if he doesn’t then it doesn’t help as the Nodah B’Yehuda mentions himself. Thus we have a double doubt. 1) The first is whether the husband is actually going to have intercourse with his unfaithful wife for whatever reason. 2) And even if you say he will have intercourse it is uncertain that he will believe it and divorce her. Furthermore the Noda B’Yehuda wants to distinguish between the obligation to tell the husband between the lover himself who created the problem and people in general. But it is also not clear that this is true. Because it is possible that the woman committed adultery before this with another man and thus she was already prohibited to her husband before the present adulterous relationship. Furthermore there is basis to object to the approach of the Noda B’Yehuda in learning the halacha from kelayim – but I don’t have time to go into detail. Briefly, where there is disgrace to the family then the halachic reason of human dignity exists and because of the concern that the husband might not believe the information and therefore will not divorce her. Consequently there is a need to find a leniency for both the lover and the talmid chachom who heard the confession not to reveal the information. A possible basis is the Maharish (Sho’el U’Meishiv Kama #262) that some rishonim hold that if the adultery was not witnessed then she is not prohibited to her husband and therefore the husband does no sin when he has relations with his adulterous wife. He cites the Bnei Ahuvim (Chapter 24 of Hilchos Ishus) that has an extensive discussion of this. Consequently regarding the case of the Noda B’Yehuda where the husband doesn’t know about his wife adultery and there were no witnesses she committed adultery – the lover is not obligated to tell the husband. That is because it is possible to rely on these rishonim who hold that there is no prohibition for the husband to have relations with his adulterous wife when there are no witnesses and surely this is true when this is combined with the reasons mentioned before of disgrace of the family and embarrassment. An additional factor is that the lover does not see with his own eyes that the husband is having relations with his wife because perhaps there are reasons that he is no longer able to. Finally there is the reason that it isn’t certain that the husband will believe him. I am surprised that the Nodah B’Yehuda does not mention the reasoning of the Maharish that there are gedolim who say that the wife is not prohibited to the husband when the adultery has no witnesses. I also surprised to see that the Chida (Chaim Shaul 2:48) also doesn’t mention the Maharish... You should also be aware that you cannot utilize the view of the Ran (Nedarim 3) who says that when the husband doesn’t believe the wife assertion that she committed adultery that the Kiddushin is abrogated and she becomes like an unmarried woman- because the Ran himself rejects this reasoning as the Chida points out. However based on those who say that if she committed adultery without witnesses she is not prohibited to her husband when combined with the other reasons we mentioned – she is not prohibited to her husband. Consequently concerning our question, we can state that the lover and surely the talmid chachom who heard his confession – do not have to reveal the adultery to the husband - based on all the reasons we have mentioned...

Accused former YU staff resign or placed on leave

Forward Rabbi George Finkelstein has resigned his position at the Great Jerusalem Synagogue after the Forward reported that he had sexually abused students at Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan during the 1970s and ‘80s.

“He sent us an email saying he’s resigning because he does not want to expose the Great Synagogue to embarrassment,” Zalli Jaffe, the synagogue’s vice president, said in an interview. Finkelstein had served as the institution’s executive director since 2001; last month, he began serving as its ritual director. [...]

Around the same time as Finkelstein resigned, senior staff of the Orthodox Union in America and Jerusalem held a teleconference regarding the position of the other Y.U. high school staff member investigated by the Forward, Rabbi Macy Gordon. They decided to impose a “leave of absence” on Gordon’s teaching duties at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem, where he gives a weekly class on the laws of the Sabbath, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive vice president emeritus, told the Forward on December 16.

He said that the unilaterally-imposed leave of absence will last until the OU can “clarify exactly what happened.” This is in spite of the fact that the OU has “to presume that he’s innocent until we find out more about it.”