Advising Against the Use of the International Beit Din: A Translated Letter From Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Shlita

 https://jewishlink.news/features/9425-advising-against-the-use-of-the-international-beit-din-a-translated-letter-from-rabbi-hershel-schachter-shlita

 https://jewishlink.news/features/9425-advising-against-the-use-of-the-international-beit-din-a-translated-letter-from-rabbi-hershel-schachter-shlita

It is a tremendous chutzpah that these three rabbis joined this beit din. Questions of this most serious nature—permitting a woman to remarry without a divorce—were brought to Rav Yitzchak Elchanan, after him to Rav Chaim Ozer and in our time to Rav Moshe Feinstein, all of whom were recognized as the greatest of their generations. It is forbidden for average rabbis to involve themselves in these matters because whoever does not understand the nature of marriages and divorces cannot be involved with them. In our generation, we present these questions to the few Torah scholars who have specialized in these laws and apprenticed under greats, and who therefore have a tradition about where to be lenient and where strict.

I encourage my colleagues and students not to rely on any ruling from this beit din because they have no standing. I heard that one of the judges resigned and I asked the other two to also remove themselves in the future from this bad activity and to inform the public not to rely on the lenient rulings they already issued, since their entire approach is not according to the law.

(Rav) Tzvi (Hershel) Schachter, Tammuz 5775