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Nov 12, 2020

The hetter mea rabbonim in use again, but only for some

A number of news websites last night posted about something that happened with a well known Israeli personality. All the sites have since removed their articles on this matter (one explained they had been asked to and even though he report was allowed legally and halachically they decided to agree to remove it), so in this post I am not going to name the person (if someone posts it in the comments I will not remove it), because the post is not about him.

A well known Israeli performer has been in a bad relationship for a while and it has been fairly public. About a year ago this couple split up and it was messy and in the news a lot, at the time. 

It seems that she has been refusing to accept a divorce, turning him into an agun - a chained husband. I don't know if she was making demands he wouldn't or couldn't acquiesce to, or if she was just flat out refusing. Ether way, he was stuck.

The news reports can still be found in some places, sans the names of the involved parties. Beis Din decided to give her the status as a "get refuser" and thus enacted the "hetter mea rabbonim" to allow him to remarry even without divorcing his wife first. She is, obviously, shocked and opposed to this and has protested the decision (beis din responded she has the right to appeal to the Beis Din Hagadol in Yerushalayim) and calls it bigamy. The truth is I never understood how the hetter mea rabbonim gets around the bigamy issue in western societies that have laws against bigamy and polygamy. In halacha, sure, but legally in the secular world I do not know how this works. How can he legally get married in Israel if he remains married to his first wife? I don't know, but that's a side point I guess. Maybe it is an explicit exception in the law in Israel, but the question would still remain open in other countries with similar laws.

I am not going to comment on the granting of the hetter mea rabbonim. I know so little about the case, nothing about the psak beside for the headline summary and almost nothing about the details of the dispute, that it would be inappropriate to comment on that - beyond my assumption that beis din judged fairly and honestly and surely went through all the possibilities before settling on this as the viable solution.

What I will comment on is the sad state of affairs that in just a year or so this dispute could end up with a hetter mea rabbonim, while so many others continue to drag on for years with no solution in sight or possible. And so many women in a similar situation have no solution at all. I am not going to solve the problem, and some problems don't even necessarily have a solution - many have been trying for a long time, and it is a halachic quandary that has yet to be resolved in a halachically acceptable manner for the masses (individual cases at times do have solutions) (hopefully soon some rabbonim will find an acceptable solution), but I can commiserate and lament the ease of implementation of a solution for men and the difficulty of having any solution for women.






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4 comments:

  1. I don't know any of the details of this case, but I find it very surprising. I have heard from a very senior person in the Rabbinate who has personally worked on all the open cases of gett refusal that:

    - Under the current chief Rabbis, there has been a dramatic shift to put pressure on gett refusers, and the Rabbinate will use everything in it's power to help Agunot, including confiscating passports and drivers license, sanctions at work when possible, and if necessary prison. This was not the case with the previous chief Rabbis.

    - There have been more cases of women refusing to accept getts than of men refusing to grant getts, however in the majority of cases involving women refusing to receive a gett, they are normally resolved with the threat of sanctions. Often women refuse to accept a gett as they are angry with a husband who had an affair, and want to stop him marrying his mistress, however when threatened with confiscation of their drivers license they often back down (therefore most long-term gett refusers are men)

    - Heter Meah Rabbonim is almost never used in Israel. The only exception is if there is a physical reason why the woman cannot accept a gett (for example she is in a long-term coma)

    As I said, I know nothing about this particular case, but Heter Meah Rabbonim is extremely rare through the Rabbinate in Israel (I don't know if private Batei Din such as the Eida Charedit have a different policy)

    ReplyDelete
  2. there was just another case of hetter mea rabbonim being used by a rosh yeshiva. He just got engaged the other day (I forget his name but I saw an article somewhere about it). His [previous] wife has been in a coma.

    the story is a bit strange, but this woman has gotten the reputation as being strong and vengeful. She was abusive in the relationship (allegedly), and perhaps their attempts to intimidate her were unsuccessful and they saw it would not lead to anything. I dont know

    ReplyDelete
  3. "The truth is I never understood how the hetter mea rabbonim gets around the bigamy issue in western societies that have laws against bigamy and polygamy."

    This is actually quite easy in most countries. You just get a secular divorce. In the eyes of the secular law, you are now divorced and free to remarry. That the Torah still considers you married makes no difference.

    Of course, that would not work in Israel, which only has religious marriage and divorce.

    It can also sometimes lead to unusual complications. There was a case in Monsey a while back (maybe 20 years) where a man got a secular divorce from his wife, but refused to give her a get. He then remarried another woman. The Va'ad Harabonim of Great Monsey protested this flagrant breach of halacha. So he sued them for libel! The secular court ruled that this was purely a religious dispute, over which the First Amendment forbids secluar courts from resolving.

    You can read the court's opinion, and all the background, here: https://casetext.com/case/klagsbrun-v-harabonim

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the case of a heter meah rabbanim, the beit din accepts a get on the woman's behalf. So technically they're divorced.

      Rav Soloveitchik always refused to sign one, feeling it was unfair for a man to have the out and a woman not.

      Delete

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