crazy sum of money in ketuba becomes meaningless

Sefardi ketubas seem to be good for interesting divorce cases. Obviously not interesting for the parties involved, but interesting for a bystander after the fact interested in quirky cases of halacha.

I say sefardi ketubas specifically because ashkenazi ketubas stick to the original text and basically keep the details generic, so there normally is not much room for unusual situations. Sefardi ketubas, on the other hand, customize them with, often, very large sums written in, in order to show honor to the woman and her family, sometimes using numbers that are meant o ward off  ayin hara "the evil eye". I actually find it ironic, in a sense, that they will put into the ketuba sums obligatng themselves to the tune of hundreds of thousands of shekel/dollars, or even millions, but will use series of the number 5 to ward off ayin hara.

But that is beside the point.

A recent divorce in Haifa had the wife claiming a payment of 5,555,555nis as payment of the ketuba. The couple has 3 children, and the Mrs discovered the the Mr was having an affair.

After much research into the various responsa over time regarding ketubas with illogical sums committed, the dayanim decided to award the woman a payment of the ketuba to the sum of 240,000nis after debating with each dayan suggesting varying amounts as reasonable, some high, some lower.
source: Actualic, Kikar and others

The dayanim also put out a call to people getting married and to rabbanim officiating at such services, to be more careful in the future and not use exaggerated sums of money in the ketuba. Being that it is a cultural thing, this is unlikely to change significantly. Obviously nobody getting married thinks they will be getting divorced, but still, with the high percentage of divorces, one would think people would not use such crazy numbers..

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