Weiss-Dodelson: A Dodelson supporter calls for collectively finding a solution - not ad hominem attacks

The following is a post written by one the participants to the discussion as an articulate and sensitive supporter of the Dodelson side.  We have been carrying on off the blog discussion and he asked if I would post this Only on the condition that comments will be approved if they have solutions and not ad hominem attacks. which I agree.

I agree fully with what he has written.

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Guest post by A Concerned Jew

This sad parsha causes people to behave irrationally. Most of you guys are just interested in belittling others & not, as Rabbi Eidenson calls for, finding a pragmatic solution. Name calling doesn't help anyone, & repeating things that one side says that the other side says are lies doesn't help anyone. How about you look at the two sides as presented by Rabbi Eidenson, or how you understand them to be, & instead of fighting out who is "right" or "wrong" try coming up with a solution that both sides would accept, even the side that is wrong(whichever side you think that is). Don't fight over who did or didn't do what when, that stage of this story is already in the rear view mirror. 

 

Bottom line is, there is tangible suffering in this parsha now for everyone involved. There is the girl who wants to be free of a marriage that has been over for years (doesn't matter whose fault that was) & feels like her only recourse is to go very public with her story, & there is the boys family, where the father & uncle are now without employment & the grandfathers yeshiva is the focus of a PR campaign. 

 

And last but not least, there is the child, who is being deprived of any stability in his young & formative years, as his parents are fighting with each other in a very public way, & both sides are using him as a bargaining chip to use against the other. There is no way anyone can justify the long term damage being done to this child- from either side.

 

I've asked Rabbi Eidenson to carefully moderate the comments in this guest post. There will be no he said/she said here, you can do that in other posts. No attacks, only proposals for a final agreement that can be palatable for Weiss & Dodelson.

Thank you.

The need to give a Get: A father, husband and ex-husband

Guest Post

R’ Eidensohn

 I apologize for having added to your pile of e-mail, but I am in a somewhat unique position in all this.  I am a proudly “modern orthodox” Jew who learns and lives by halacha and attempts to hew to R’ Soleveitchik’s hashkafa and derech halimud – which is important only in as much as I am not chareidi and have no particular attachment to either the Dodelson or Weiss families.  (Full disclosure: if anything, I have some connection to the Weiss family, as R’ Moshe Meir Weiss, who knows my in-laws, spoke beautifully at my chuppa . . . more on that in a moment).

 I have also had the “pleasure” of going through the divorce process.  I have children – three wonderful, amazing young kids who I would absolutely die for. I worked out custody with my ex-wife cooperatively (though we don’t do much cooperatively these days); she has them during the week, and I get them 3 weekends out of every 4.  That works out to 6 days with my children out of every 4 weeks, less than the 12 every 4 weeks that Mr. Weiss gets with his son on the “every other weekend plus 2 days a week” schedule the Court ordered (I decided I did not want to seek mid-week custody, as the children need the stability of being in one home for periods of time, rather than being shuttled back and forth every other day).  I am, unfortunately, fully conversant with the pain of not being with my children every day, of not being able to tuck them into bed every night, of aching to see them more than I can, and of hearing them cry on the phone because they miss me.  It is a torment I would not wish on anyone.

I also have the pleasure of being remarried to a wonderful eishes chayil; a tremendous human being who the children look to as a third parent.  (Yes, third.  One of the first things they asked me and my ex when we told them we were divorcing was “what happens if you marry someone else.”  Without having talked about it beforehand, we simply said “well, now you have an Abba who loves you and a Mommy who loves you. If Abba gets remarried, then you’ll have a Mommy who loves you, an Abba who loves you, and an Ima who loves you.  If Mommy gets married again, you’ll have an Abba who loves you, a Mommy who loves you, and a Daddy who loves you.”  There is room in a child’s heart for 3 or 4 parents, and the introduction of a step-parent into a relationship does not inherently imply that step-parent is “taking the place” of the ex in the child’s heart).  The joy of that relationship, which began after I gave my ex-wife a get  but before the terms of our civil divorce were worked out, sustains me through the most difficult moments of being away from my children. 

 It is from that perspective, and with all of my heart and soul, that I say to you: “Avraham Meir must give Gital the get.  Without conditions, without delay, without demands.

I say this for two reasons.First, regardless of what his halachic “rights” might be, refusal to give a get after a marriage has irredeemably broken is never justified.  We are all well aware of the principle of “m’nuval b’rshus haTorah” – that one can act unethically while scrupulously adhering to Halacha.  I can think of no greater example of this than a willingness to withhold a Get in order to receive financial reimbursement even for money halachically owed (assuming that it was halachically owed).  The very act of doing so is a proclamation that “my financial benefit is of greater concern to me than your emotional torment.”  Prizing repayment over another’s emotional well-being – let alone the mother of your child, whose emotional state will impact the child – is reflective of warped priorities.  I am well aware that money is critical to many things, and of the stress that comes from its lack.  (My own divorce is financially onerous).  Still; unless the money will make the difference between privation and survival, that is irrelevant.  Give the get.

Second, for Avraham Meir’s own sake, and divorced (pun intended) from any benefit to Gital, he must give the get and move on.  Staying in this stage of limbo is doing him no good.  Fighting to “win” is only causing him more misery.  Give the get, and let everyone move on.  Please.

A father, husband, and ex-husband

Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births

NY Times   The idea came to Jorge Odón as he slept. Somehow, he said, his unconscious made the leap from a YouTube video he had just seen on extracting a lost cork from a wine bottle to the realization that the same parlor trick could save a baby stuck in the birth canal. 

Mr. Odón, 59, an Argentine car mechanic, built his first prototype in his kitchen, using a glass jar for a womb, his daughter’s doll for the trapped baby, and a fabric bag and sleeve sewn by his wife as his lifesaving device. 

Unlikely as it seems, the idea that took shape on his counter has won the enthusiastic endorsement of the World Health Organization and major donors, and an American medical technology company has just licensed it for production.[...]

 Doctors say it has enormous potential to save babies in poor countries, and perhaps to reduce cesarean section births in rich ones.

Weiss Dodelson: Gital threatens to destroy Rav Reuven Feinstein's yeshiva for supporting her husband

Times of Israel   Gital Dodelson is quite likely America’s most famous agunah. In recent weeks, the 25-year-old Orthodox law student has jumped to the headlines of major media outlets because of her struggle to force her ex-husband, Avrohom Meir Weiss, to give her a Jewish divorce, or get. On Tuesday, Dodelson’s enthusiastic and increasingly well-mobilized supporters noted a key victory as ArtScroll Publishing confirmed that Weiss’s father and uncle had taken unpaid leaves of absence from the prestigious publishing house. On the heels of their successful public pressure campaign, Dodelson’s supporters are now turning their sights toward the prestigious Yeshiva of Staten Island, publicly shunning the yeshiva’s leadership for allowing Weiss to continue to study there.[...]

Dodelson’s backers have taken extreme measures as well. In recent months, over 2,000 people signed on to an Internet petition calling on ArtScroll to fire Weiss’s father and uncle who both serve as editors at the publishing house. On Tuesday, an organization established to advocate for Dodelson’s right to receive a get published an email confirmation that Weiss’s father and uncle had taken leave of absence from the ArtScroll Publishing House under intense public pressure. [...]

“We have confirmation from a trusted party that the ArtScroll board heard us loud and clear, and they did exactly what we asked of them,” wrote one of the activists who run the “Free Gital” Facebook page. “It’s now time to move on from ArtScroll and put our focus on the Yeshiva of Staten Island, where Avrohom Meir Weiss is in Kollel, despite the Kol Koreh stating that he should not be allowed.” [...]

 Now, Dodelson’s supporters are calling the Staten Island Yeshiva to ask for Weiss’s removal — a difficult request for a yeshiva run by his mother’s family. As an additional step, supporters are being encouraged via Facebook to work to disinvite the yeshiva’s head from guest appearances at local synagogues. Supporters have already contacted a Highland Park, New Jersey, synagogue that is expected to host Feinstein this Saturday night, asking it to withdraw its invitation to Feinstein. [...]

Weiss-Dodelson: Why don't you want to hear lashon harah about Gital and her family?

I am being flooded by hundreds of emails and comments dealing with the Weiss -Dodelson case. While there clearly are halachic issues that intelligent and sincere people can disagree with - there is the incredible problem of the information people are relying on to form their opinion. In particular, the extremely one sided and distorted collection of misinformation that appeared in Gital's interview with the N.Y. Post. While everyone nods their head and says in divorce cases there is the wife's version, the husband's version and then there is truth - in reality most people are simply accepting Gital's account as being objective and true.

I was at a chasuna last night in Mitzpe Yericho. It was truly a beautiful chasuna in a beautiful setting overlooking the Jordan Valley. I was talking with an old friend when a rosh yeshiva came over with one of his talmidim and asked me, "Could you explain the Weiss-Dodelson case to him? He read the NY Post article and doesn't understand how anybody could be so abusive and controlling and consider himself a Jew." I spent about 15 minutes going over the issues and the rosh yeshiva backed up my understanding of the halachic issues. The bachur kept repeating, "but she says he did...".  At the end, I told him that it was clear that he had accepted her view without hearing the other side - a clear violation of halacha.  I asked him, "I have received many emails describing Gital and much negative information about her and her family. Would you like to hear the lashon harah?" He was shocked at my suggestion that he listen to lashon harah and he walked away. He totally missed the point that hearing lashon harah from me about her - was the same as reading lashon harah or motzi shem rah from the NY Post about him.

So I ask you - "Would you like to hear the lashon harah about Gital and her family that Avraham Meir could have said if he had responded to the N.Y. Post's request for his side of the story? I hope the answer is no. Their son will grow up loving both his parents  - and one day he will have to face what his mother said about his father. It is time to stop trying to prove who was wrong - and get on with life.

Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman: Was Hebrew the first language?

update:Guest post: YD Rosenberg Translation added November 13, 2013

 

“Therefore, [t]he[y] called its name Bavel, for there Hashem confused the language of the entire earth, and from there Hashem scattered them upon the face of the entire earth.”

Genesis 11:9

קָרָא [lit.] “he called” means “they would call its name 'Babel'”  *(See Radak for similar peirush.)

שְׁמָהּ “its name” – i.e. the name of the city.

בָּבֶל – [to be understood as] מבלבל - confused. [i.e. With an added מ and ל] like the word קיקלון = מקלקלון in Chabakuk 2:16.

וּמִשָּׁם הֱפִיצָם “and from there He scattered them”.  This was an outcome of “there He confused”.
    [i.e. This 'scattering' was an outcome of the mixing-up of languages related in the verse.]

The coming into being of different languages, then, was not an occurrence caused by an incidental "going of separate ways" of the people. Rather, it was an act of Heavenly Divine Providence that brought about this dispersion, which in turn bought in its wake the formation of different languages.

Now, Scripture is not relating to us the nature of the first language, i.e. the most ancient one to ever exist. The Authors of the Aggadah, however, do [express a definite view on this subject] in Br. R. 18:4, and maintain that this original language was L’shon HaKodesh. 

Yet, even if the modern researchers of linguistics maintain that this first language was a different one, we shall take no issue with it.

Furthermore, as a related point, even if the Babylonians would have constructed the name of their city from the words 'BaB' & 'BaL', or 'Beith' & 'BaL', or – according to [the sounds as they are] written – BaB - EL; behold, even then, the Scriptural explanation [that Bavel is named for the jumbling-up of languages] would be justified unequivocally. For so, too, is the name of the city an act of Divine Providence!  — in order that Yisrael remember the confounding of languages that took place there and the Blessed One’s intervention in nature, so as to educate humanity and save them for the future.

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Someone directed me to a section [see English translation above] from Rabbi Dovid Zvi Hoffman's commentary to Bereishis 11:9 where he says something along the lines of, "If someone will prove that Adom HaRishon spoke Sumarian, it will not be a problem." 

Here's how I understood his commentary:

Point #1: The formation of the multiplicity of languages comes from Divine providence and not from evolutionary happenstance.

Point #2: The baalei aggadah maintain that the original language was L'shon HaKodesh. Current academia maintains that the original language was something else (e.g. Indo-European), but this is insignificant.

(I understood this to mean that to prove or disprove the identity of the Original Language has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity of the Torah since the Biblical account deals only with the dispersion of languages at Bavel but never says anywhere that L'shon HaKodesh was that original language. My question on this is: Why isn't there a problem of casting aspersions on the baalei aggadah? [Perhaps I partially answered this in the e-mail?])

Point #3: The inhabitants of Bavel didn't necessarily have in mind the Torah's meaning of "Bavel" at the time they named their country. Rather, hashgachoh directed that they would give it this name.

Point #4: Rav Hoffman seems to hold that the mixing-up of language didn't have to be a one-time event or something that was noticeably a result of Divine intervention or retribution. (This point emerges from how he explains points #1 and #3.)

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Comment #1: I noticed one small typo. I put red parentheses around the letter that I think is a mistake —

עַל־כֵּן קָרָא שְׁמָהּ בָּבֶל כִּי־שָׁם בָּלַל יְיָ שְׂפַת כָּל־הָאָרֶץ וּמִשָּׁם הֱפִיצָם יְיָ עַל־פְּנֵי כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ:

קָרָא, פירוש היו קוראים. — שְׁמָהּ, כלומר שם העיר. — בָּבֶל מבלבל, כמו "קיקלון" מקלקלון. — וּמִשָּׁם הֱפִיצָם. זו היתה התוצאה של " שָׁמ(ה) בָּלַל"....

Comment #2: The following two statements seem to be a contradiction:

א] וּמִשָּׁם הֱפִיצָם. זו היתה התוצאה של " שָׁמ(ה) בָּלַל".

ב] ...אלא מעשה ההשגחה העליונה הוא שהביא לידי התפזרות זו, שבעקבותיה התהוו הלשונות השונות....

Statement א tells us that the dispersion was a result of the confusion of languages; statement ב says that it was the dispersion that brought about a multiplicity of languages. Statement א seems to fit better with the possuk:  כִּי־שָׁם בָּלַל – there the languages were mixed up. (i.e. it did not happen only after they were dispersed, but right there.)

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I know that Rav Hoffman, zt"l, was appealing to a specific audience, but it's definitely a point that the Torah doesn't identify the Original Language. To complicate matters, one opinion in the Yerushalmi holds that all 70 languages were spoken even before the Tower of Babel. Maybe I’ll try to send you more info on that soon. Would you like that?

update for additional information:  "The Holy Tongue and How It Changed the Course of History" by Benjamin Gross, PhD discussed the two approaches in the Rishonim on the issue of the Divinity of L'shon HaKodesh. (Chapter 4 [p. 45] continuing into Chapter 5) e.g. Kuzari, Rambam... Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Tongue-Changed-Course-History/dp/1934440019 

Bnei Brak yeshiva teacher arrested for sexual abuse of minor students

JPost   A teacher at a Bnei Brak yeshiva was arrested Sunday night on suspicion of sexually assaulting several of his underage students over the past few months, Tel Aviv police said Monday.

The man, a 43-year-old Ashdod native, is suspected of sexually assaulting several of the pre-teen and teenage boys while he was teaching at the yeshiva. [...]

Campaign to have father fired from Artscroll for supporting son

With the apparently successful boycott against Artscroll to have the father and uncle removed from their jobs  because they supported R Avraham Meir Weiss - the question is what was the halachic justification?

 

  Kol Koreh (translation)

Kol Koreh (Hebrew) says:

We also turn to Artscroll (where his father and uncle who support him work) to protest against his family and to remove them from their positions, for it is not fitting that Torah should be transmitted through them. 

There are a number of major problems with this statement.  Their sin was to support the husband. The Kol Koreh claims that the husband is in nidoi and apparently they hold that those who support a person  in niddoi should themselves be placed in niddoi.  However the sources that are cited in the Kol Koreh to ostracize the husband (Y.D. 334) are  1) Refusing a summons of a beis din (CM 11). However that only applies if he refuses to go to beis din at all not even one of his own choosing (C.M. 14). That wasn't true here and he had a beis din nullify the seruv. 2) They claim he went to a secular court without permission (C.M. 26) - but he did get permission from a posek to do so. 

Therefore if there is no justification to place the husband  in niddoi - then obviously those who support him can not be placed in niddoi. Furthermore Rav Dovid Feinstein said even for those who believe that there had been justification for a seruv - it no longer applied in this case. That is because the husband had been working together with the Dodelson's to negotiate a binding agreement to give a Get.Therefore Rav Dovid Feinstein paskened that he was not guilty of being in contempt of bein din [Rabbi Greenwald's letter doesn't contract this and Rav Dovid Feinstein was fully aware of the nature of Rabbi Greenwald's efforts].

Therefore the campaign to fire the Weiss brothers seems to be a serious miscarriage of justice.  I would appreciate enlightenment by those who think they have a justification for depriving the family of parnossa.

Does Rav Malkiel Kotler approve of Gital's NY Post Interview?

One of the rumors that has circulated after Gital gave the NY Post interview was that it was approved by Rav Malkiel Kotler and Rav Aaron Kotler. It is claimed that it also had the approval of the gedolim who signed the Kol Koreh against her husband which states:

We state that, according to the Torah, it is permissible and it is a mitzvah to protest against him, to gather publicly in front of his house and in other places, and to make the matter known publicly and in the newspapers in order to save an oppressed woman from her oppressor and an Agunah from being chained.

Can anyone verify that Gital received permission from Rav Malkiel Kotler to give an interview to the New York Post? If he did give permission did he also approve of the following views she expressed?


1) The dating process is problematic and too short. It leads to disaster because families and friends put pressure on the couple to get married and to ignore their own feelings. Dating should be over a longer period of time before engagement.

2) Time between engagment and marriage is too short without allowing time to determine or develop compatibility. The couple should have more time to get acquainted before marriage.

3). Wife shouldn't have to follow the customs of the husband.

4) Husband should not have control over the finances - especially if she is the breadwinner

5) A wife has the right to demand a Get and thus break up the family - even when she thinks he is not a bad person but simply isn't right for her.

Gital Dodelson brings her story to Newsweek

Newsweek   “Only three days into the marriage, I knew I made a terrible mistake.”

Gital Dodelson, 25, wrote those words about her 2009 marriage to Avrohom Meir Weiss in an explosive essay in the New York Post last week. [...]

Dodelson’s friends launched a website, SetGitalFree.com, to help publicize her situation. A Facebook page, Free Gital: Tell Avrohom Meir Weiss to Give His Wife a "Get," has over 13,000 likes. Weiss’ side of the story, however, remains largely absent from media reports. Newsweek has been unable to reach Weiss or his family. However, Weiss’ father, Rabbi Yosaif Asher Weiss, spoke exclusively to the Staten Island Advance, saying: “Our family is horrified by the vitriol, lies and hate that permeate Gital's article… This is a very, very heart-wrenching and ongoing dispute. We've been trying desperately to resolve this for a long time. This has destroyed my family health wise and destroyed my family financially.”

Dodelson’s story is not unique in the world of Orthodox Judaism, where men hold all of the power when it comes to terminating marriages. [...]

“I consider this to be the most pressing issue facing the Orthodox community in America,” says Rabbi Avi Weiss, the longtime leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in New York. “It’s an outrageous situation… If there is someone who is recalcitrant, they are not welcome — I have actually escorted such people out of my synagogue, which is so contrary to my work.”[...]

ORA, which has handled around 500 controversial get cases since its founding in 2002, helped Dodelson organize two peaceful demonstrations outside of Weiss’ home on Staten Island, the first in June 2012 and the second a year later. The group’s tactics — a concoction of social, communal and financial pressures that involve ostracizing a husband from his community and publicizing his name online and in the media — assist women who are often unable to advocate for themselves.

“Get refusal is the last stand of men who want to hurt their wives. It’s the act of desperation: ‘You will never leave me,’” says Elana Maryles Sztokman, executive director of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. “The moment of exit is the moment of greatest danger for abused women — it’s the moment when some abusive men will take out a violent weapon and try to kill their wives. In Judaism, men don’t need to take out a gun. They can take out a get and say, ‘I will own you forever.’”[...]

“I don’t agree with people living their lives out in the public eye like this, and using publicity to get something without everyone knowing all of the facts,” says HaDassah Sabo Milner, 40, a blogger for the Times of Israel. “You’ve got to think of the child. He’ll grow up and read vitriolic posts by each camp. He’s an innocent in all of this,” she says, adding, “I understand she’s totally desperate, and I get that, but at the end of the day, the husband has to give his divorce of his own free will.” [...]

Orthodox Judaism is replete with the vestiges of bronze-age patriarchy, and change in the community takes time and consensus. [...]

“I’m waiting for the email to say that Avrohom gave her the get,” says Shira Dicker, the publicist behind Dodelson’s Post article. “If we succeed here, we will have used a 21st century solution — Facebook, social media, the media — to combat a centuries-old law that is really in need of change.”

Weiss Dodelson: Rabbi Greenwald's 3 statements regarding his role

update Tuesday Novembe 12 2013:  Update: November 22, 2013 Explanation of apparent inconsistencies between 3rd letter and first 2   In particular the claim of Dodelson supporters based on Gital's webpage that the Weiss's are lying regarding the role of Rabbi Greenwald. 

I was told by someone who spoke with Rabbi Greenwald on Sunday that he fell down after writing the November 7th letter which was annotated by Rav Dovid Feinstein. As a resultof the fall he is in great pain, suffering from a broken wrist, two broken ribs, and an injured hip, and he is on strong painkillers.The stress from dealing with this case has taken a severe toll and he is being flooded with phone calls from all over the world, and he feels overwhelmed. The next day Monday he produced the email.
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The following are the three documents in which Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald states his relationship to the Weiss-Dodelson dispute. The two emails were posted on the Dodelson website Set Gital free   I have sent an email to Rabbi Greenwald asking for an explanation for the apparent contradiction as to what he claims is his role in this matter. The second clearly states that both sides approached him to mediate the dispute. The 3rd one denies that he was ever accepted as a mediator or arbitrator in the manner and indicates that he was pursing this role but not that he was asked by both sides. Rav Dovid Feinstein's psak in the second document is predicated on the belief that Rabbi Greenwald was in fact accepted as the mediator in the dispute.  I will post whatever comments Rabbi Greenwald wishes to make.