Does Rav Schachter permit beatings?! 3 tapes

Guest Post Yitzy HillelApr 29, 2012 10:27 PM

 

For all those who haven't listened to Rabbi Schachters 3 shiurim on Agunot on yutorah.com, I will briefly summarize them.

1) In his shiur called "Options for Agunahs" listen from 10-14 minutes. He does state what Rav Dovid Eidonsohn Shlitta has claimed and says that in 99% of the cases today where marriages are broken and two are no longer living together of course we can be kofin oso bshotin (use force with sticks!!!) Listen for yourself minute 13 to be exact: He brings down 3 categories and says almost all cases today are in the category of kofin oso bshottim. (He doesn't tell people to go do it but he says the cases fall into the category where physical force is permitted)

2), In the "Plight of Agunah" shiur, Rabbi Schachter clearly explains that force CAN NOT BE USED (minute 50-101 to be exact). He states clearly in minute 52 (WE DON"T EVEN DO THE HARCHAKAS OF R'TAM today like the Gevoras Anishim of Schach quoted by Pischa Teshuva 154:21) then he says in the end we just humiliate which is a much lesser pressure then cutting the guy off financially. He states we are machmir for (the gevoras anashim the shach). In minute 58 he says if we can't solve this issue we may have to go back to the takanas of the geonim (and the shitta of the Rambam) where forcing with actual violence is permitted in cases of meus alai if we have no choice...

In his most recent 2012 shiur ("Fighting the Agunah Crises" minute 23 to exact)), Rabbi Schachter claims that today we are actually following the harchakas of R'tam and bases the actions of the ORA on Chacham Ovadias teshuvot. He mentions that R' Tam held that one can't use force but could humiliate the husband, and He says that is what he relies upon today)

In Summary: (Please listen to the shiurim yourselves and you will find that Rabbi Schachter says 3 different approaches in all 3 shiurim.

1) todays cases are almost always where physical force can be used because the couple is no longer living together. (He doesn't say to do it but he says the cases fall into the category in Shulchan Aruch where physical force can be used.

2) Today we DONT do the harchakas of R'tam and are machmir for the pitcha teshuva (shach) which says (according to Rabbi Schachter)to cut off the guy financially. He says we only humiliate which is much less from of pressure that doesn't invalidate a GET. He states if things get much worse we may have to use actual force like the Rambam's oppinion (but he never mentions to use actual violence)

3) He says we DO follow the harchakas of R'tam based upon Chacham Ovadia. In this shiur he calls humiliation as part of the harchakas of R'tam unlike shiur 2, and he doesn't state or imply any allowances of actual physical force.

Can someone please listen to his 3 shiurim (to save you time just listen to the minutes that I quoted above) and try to explain his shitta in a coherent manner. I personally feel the above 3 shiurim totally contradict themselves and am wondering if anyone can explain how the shiurim don't contradict each other.

Mamzerim from Forced Get in Ma'us Alei

Yachin uVoaz(1:124):[15th Century Algeria] You should know that there are two different types of moredes and they have different laws. There is a moredes who despises her husband and she asserts that he is disgusting to her. On the other hand there is a moredes who says she wants her husband but she wants to torment him In the case of ma'us alei the view of the Rambam is that the husband is forced to divorce her immediately and he learns this from a deduction from the gemora as the Rosh writes. The Rambam states in Hilchos Ishus  (14:8) that if a wife refuses sexual relations that the husband is forced to give a a get since she is not like a prisoner who can be forced to have relations with someone she hates. However there has long been an outcry against the ruling of the Rambam by all the commentators and poskim such as Rabbein Tam, Ramban, Rosh, Rashba and many others. They agree concerning forcing the husband to divorce. Whoever forces the husband to divorce in accordance to the ruling of the Rambam increases mamzerim in the world. And they reject the view of the Rambam with clear proofs from the Talmud as the Rosh does. And many proofs are brought to refute and reject the words of the Rambam. And even the Magid Mishna who normally devotes  himself in all places to justify the words of the Rambam and to firmly establish their validity with clear proofs - in this case he refutes the Rambam and goes into detail with proofs to contradict the Rambam's reasoning and to reject it. It is unnecessary to repeat them here. The halachic view that has become univeral is that one does not force the husband to give a get when she claim ma'us alei and we do not rely on the ruling of the Rambam nor others who agree with him in this matter. And furthermore that even if the halacha was in accord with the Rambam it would be correct to make a protective fence in this matter to prevent immorality amongst the woman because of the degradation of the contemporary generation. Because woman have become haughty and arrogant in their immorality. We are therefore concerned that a wife might have become interested in another man and she wants to disgard her husband by declaring he is disgusting to me (ma'us alei). If it became known that that would be sufficient to have her husband forced to give her a get then it would surely cause problems. But in fact the Rambam is not the halacha because of the proofs that the opponents of the Rambam bring [And even in Algeria where they always follow the Rambam there are three exceptions and this is one of them and not those who agree with the Rambam...]. However I saw in the Rosh who writes that if in fact the psak of the Rambam was followed and the woman was divorced by force and she remarried - we don't force her leave the second marriage. However many others disagree with the Rosh and they say that if she remarries after a forced get - she must leave the second marriage.

Jewish criminals shouldn't be jailed - Mishpacha Magazine

Mishpacha Magazine (April 4, 2012 p62): ... but does that give Rabbi Stein license to help Jews who have broken laws themselves? 'About 30 years ago, the Tosher Rebbe called me in the middle of the night," Rabbi Stein remembers. "He wanted me to get in touch at once with two top attorneys, Nat Lewin in Washington and AIan Dershowitz in Boston. 'But Rebbe,' I said, 'it's 2 a.m.!' He said, 'I want to teach you one thing, and keep this in mind always: a Yid vus zitz in tfisah ein sho iz ein sho tzi lang [A Jew who sits in jail one hour sits one hour too long] Prison is not a place for a Jew, and it doesn't matter, guilty or innocent.'

"There are many other ways to penalize someone who's deserving of punishment," continues Rabbi Stein, who is passionate about this controversial point. "For example, there are alternative sentencing programs, which are much more cost-effective, where the person is guided by counseling and is actually helped. Prison accomplishes one thing. It makes criminals out of everyone."

He says much of his efforts - for which he's never taken payment - involve finding the right attorney for someone who's in trouble The Beirach Moshe of Satmar once sent him to help a man who was awaiting sentencing for child abuse and other family-related crimes "The fellow wasn't too bright, and he had no idea how to protect himself. He had taken a divorce lawyer instead of a criminal lawyer," say. Rabbi Stein. "Lawyers are like doctors. You don't go to a podiatrist when you need open-heart surgery."

According to Rabbi Stein, the wife and her mother wanted to put the husband away and so they fabricated evidence and coached the daughter to give incriminating testimony. He discovered this after speaking to the involved parties, including teachers who denied ever filing the reports that had been submitted as evidence. “we found so many discrepancies that the DA agreed to reopen the case post-sentencing. But by the time we reopened the case, the child, her mother, and grandmother had fled the country and moved to Eretz Yisrael. We brought the teachers to testify that the documents were forgeries, and the judge said, 'Okay, now where are the plaintiffs?  The defense attorney said they couldn’t take the trauma so they left the country. The judge announced that if they didn’t come back in two weeks, he’d dismiss the case. Of course they didn’t come back, because the case was a fabrication - so the man was released. But he went to jail in the first place because he had the wrong lawyer.”

See the following regarding Rabbi Efraim Stein's efforts turned up by simple Google search
He is featured prominently on a number of anti-Semitic internet sites
Los Angeles Times 1997
Dror - Organization for Jewish Prisoners
Guilty plea to divert federal money
Jail for Rabbi Stein
Jail for Rabbi Stein

============================================
From my Child and Domestic Abuse Vol II
============================================

Rambam (Hilchos Chovel u’Mazik 8:11) and Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 388:12): “All those who disturb the community and cause it distress it is permitted to give them over to the secular government to be punished whether by beating, imprisonment or fines…”

Shevet HaLevi(4:124.3): Concerning a well known thief who has stolen from many people and has harmed the public and now he is begging to be released from jail. Is it properly to do that? … From all these sources we see that there is no concern at all to have him remain in jail in order that he not harm others since his life is not in danger there. The Chovas Yair (139) says there is only a concern when jail is actually life threatening… My opinion is that as long as there is no danger to his life by being in jail, there is no obligation to make any efforts to free such people…

Rav Moshe Halberstam(Yeschurun 15 page 651): An additional factor to what we have discussed is a question mentioned in Shevet HaLevi (4:124.3) whether it is appropriate to help free a well known thief who has begged that efforts be made to get him released from prison. Rav Wosner answers that since the thief’s life is not in danger by being in prison there is no obligation to make efforts to free people like this. In my opinion it is not only not an obligation to try and free a person in these circumstances but in fact one who tries to free a thief from prison is actually committing a sin. Who says that he won’t seek revenge for his imprisonment or at least return quickly to committing more crimes. Who can say that things will work out differently and that he will cease his crimes if he is freed?  Therefore it is prohibited to make efforts for him and to listen to his plea to be freed…

Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Ve’aleyhi lo Yuval, volume 2:113-114 from R’ M Broyde’s Informing on other’s): R’ Yehuda Goldreicht said: “I asked Rav Auerbach about a particular Jew who stole a large sum of money and he was caught by the police in America. He was sentenced to a number of years in prison in America. Was it proper to assist in the collection of money for him [we were speaking about a large sum of $200,000] in order to fulfill the mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim to have him released from prison? When Rav Auerbach heard this he stated “Pidyon shevuyim?! What is the mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim here? The mitzvah of redeeming captives is only when the goyim are grabbing Jews, irrationally, for no proper reason, and placing them in prison. According to what I [Rav Auerbach] know, in America they do not irrationally grab Jews in order to squeeze money from them. The Torah says “do not steal” and he stole money—on the contrary, it is good that he serve a prison sentence, so that he learns not to steal!”

Supreme Court reaffirms psak of Rabbinic Court on Gerim

Haaretz

The High Court of Justice has affirmed the validity of thousands of conversions called into question by the Rabbinical Court of Appeals in 2008, but refused to discuss the rabbinical courts' authority to annul conversions in general. [...]

The women and various organizations that joined their petition thus asked the High Court to rule not only on their particular cases - which had already been resolved, since their Jewishness had since been affirmed by the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court during a new hearing on their original cases - but on the rabbinical courts' authority to overturn conversions in general. This, however, the justices declined to do. Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, writing for the court, said the justices preferred not to intervene in this issue right now "out of hope that the buds of systemic change that have sprouted since the petition was filed [in 2008] will develop and bear fruit."  [...]

While Sherman's ruling was ostensibly based on Jewish law, it was also part of a broader power struggle between the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox ) community, represented by Sherman, and the religious Zionist community, represented by Druckman. The government originally set up the special courts headed by Druckman to circumvent the rabbinical courts' monopoly on conversions, because the Haredi-controlled rabbinical courts had adopted stringent requirements that were seen as deterring potential converts.

Rav Gestetner - Kuntrus on Get Meusa

Rav Gestetner - Kuntrus on Get Meusa

Procedural Summary of Epstein-Friedman matter

Procedural Summary2

Forcing a get - Unresolved issues & Rabbi Broyde

I want to express appreciation of Rabbi Michael Broyde for writing a defense of Rav Hershel Schacter's position as well as writing a clarification of that defense. I also want to thank Rabbi Gil Student for taking the initiative of asking Rabbi Broyde. Having spent many hours going through the volumes of Otzair Hapoksim dealing with this issue as well as researching the teshuvos directly - it has become clear that Rabbi Broyde is apparently the first one to try and answer the issues regarding contemporary society and the tactics of ORA - and publish the results.

 I have three choices,  1) Explain why Rabbi Broyde's explanation is inadequate or at least not convincing 2 ) Write my own teshuva concerning the use of force . 3) List the issues that have not been properly resolved and ask the poskim of our generation to establish the parameters in writing. The third option is more productive.

 =============================================

Concerning pressuring a husband to give a get when wife claims ma'us alei.

1)  What type of pressure is permitted? Harchokas Rabbeinu Tam? Simply labeling him an avaryan? Putting up wall posters? None?

2) Are ORA's demonstrations against the husband, his family or employer and stories in secular press - are they  permitted? Is this considered harchakos of Rabbeinu Tam?

3) Must a husband always be pressured after 12 months to give a get  -  if it is clear that the marriage is over - no matter what the reason is for the breakup - even if she went to secular court?

4) Can a beis din issue a seruv - when the husband refuses to show up - that states the husband must give a get and the public should pressure him to do so?

5) If the husband was pressured to give a get  - by ORA or Harchakos of Rabbeinu Tam  or beating - is the get valid and the wife remarry l'chatchila?

6) Can a husband withhold the get as a tactic to get money or custody in a case of ma'us alei.

7) Does it matter why the wife says ma'us alei concerning what pressure is permitted?

8) Should every woman have the right to a get simply because she thinks she can find someone better

9) Is there a moral obligation to give a get when the woman wants to end the marriage - or is it only because of concerns for mamzerim.

10) What can be done to control the use of the get for extortion - either for the husband or wife?

11) If the husband or wife refuses to go to beis din but go to secular court - should he/she be punished or penalized in some way?

12) In ma'us alei - does wife get kesuba? Does husband have to pay alimony or child support?

Rabbi Druckman's Conversions Upheld

Arutz 7

The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Wednesday that conversions supervised by former national Conversion Court head Rabbi Haim Druckman are valid in the eyes of the State.

The ruling was in response to a 2009 decision to a panel of three judges on the Great Rabbinical Court which declared any conversion made by Rabbi Druckman was nullified.