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| Volume 8 Number 32 | Sat Sep 5 23:55:02 US/Pacific 1998 |
From: Art Kamlet <kamlet@infinet.com> Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 20:22:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: The "Agun" in Divorce mgo@iwaynet.net <Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D.> writes, >Men are also victims of abuse. Otherwise sane women who do not wish to >receive a "get" can go to a qualified counselor/therapist and obtain >certification that they are mentally ill, and thus unable to form the "da'at" >necessary to accept the "get." It is a cabal used in Israel quite often, >thus making the man an "agun." There is nothing that men can do about this >but live "in sin." Divorce often brings out the worst in poeple, and this is sad but true. Here in the same little town that Howard and I live, one or the other of a couple, soon to be uncoupled, have been known to go so far as filing false criminal charges against the other. Needless to say, lying happens. Common today, yes? Howard's example relies on one of the cherems (bans) we believe was promulgated by Rabbenu Gershom ben Yehuda, "Light of the exiles" and the acknowledged leader of the Ashkenazik community about 1000 years ago. He is said to have convened a council of rabbis to consider a number of important matters, and that council issued under his name a series of rulings. There are no copies of any of these, but some commentaries that assume we know the gist of what they were. One of the most important, prohibited a man from marrying more than one woman at a time. Either that ruling, or one issued at the same time, also required a woman to accept a get or else the divorce has not happened., and the man cannot remarry. Another important ruling prohibited opening someone's private mail. These rulings, depending on the authority who commented on these rulings, were to run either for 1000 years, or until the end of the Hebrew year 5000. (We are now near the end of year 5758.) In any event, orthodox and conservative Ashkenazic authorities today, and many Sephardic authorities, accept this ruling. With that background it is clear that a woman can pretend to be mentally incapable of granting her consent to receive the get and that places the husband in what Howard calls an Agun status. With a few differences, when compared with an agunah, a woman whose husband cannot or will not or did not give her a get: There is a concept of halacha that applies before the fact, and halacha that applies after the fact. In this case, before the fact the husband will not be able to get married in this situation. But if he lies, and if he manages to get married anyway, that marriage is perfectly valid and legal, although some rabbis might try to persuade to him to divorce his present wife, while other rabbis might speak loudly but carry a small stick. Another difference is that since the agun husband's remarriage is valid, the children are as well, while an agunah who remarries risks having her children declared illegitimate--one of the cases where the "sins" of the parents can get passed down to the children, and one which many--unfortunately not all--modern authorities attempt to avoid at all costs. And finally, since Rabbenu Gershom's decree that a woman must accept the get before the husband can remarry is what causes him to be an "agun" Rabbenu Gershom, or his council, built in an escape clause for him, though not a cheap one. If he can find 100 different rabbis in different cities who will grant him permission to marry a woman while his first wife cannot or will not accept a divorce, then he is free to marry a second wife. This procedure has been done both in the US and Israel, several times. ** There's anotrher possible "out" the rabbis can use if the wife wishes to remarry without accepting the get. Of course if she does this she will be breaking all sorts of laws, but some wives just might not care. In that case, bet din (a rabbinical court) can appoint an agent for the husband to attempt to deliver the get to the wife (3 times). If she refuses to accept the get, the court can rule to accept the get on her behalf to prevent her from committing the greivious sin of adultery -- play along now -- this is how the rules work --- is really for her own good, and so can accept the get on her behalf. That done, the husband is relieved of his "agun" status. Accepting on behalf of another is done in other cases. For example, when an infant converts to Judaism, the infant is too young to make a knowledgable decision, but since the parents will raise the kid as a Jew, it is in the kid's best interest to be converted. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com
From: Sheldon Glickler <sheldong@opustel.com> Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 07:35:35 -0400 Subject: Re: Changes in the Orthodox Community Re: Divorce Jeanette Friedman wrote: >As for the Reform rabbis, someone should tell them to mind their own beeswax. Jeanette misses the point entirely with this sidebar. Any intrusion by government into religious practices is unwarranted and extremely dangerous. By holding civil law over someone's head so that the person will respond to a religious issue is (a) unwarranted and (b) unconscionable. When we ask government to do this we enter on the slippery slope to disaster -- as you know which religion will be among the very _first_ to eventually suffer. It _IS_ very much the Reform rabbis "beeswax". That Reform does not require a get is totally irrelevant. It is the intrusion into religion by government that is the issue. The get situation is entirely wrong (IMO). There should be equality and it should not be male dominated as it is. However, that is entirely a _religious_ issue. Shelly P.S. That my wife's name, Susan, appeared on another entry on this was accidental. I used her computer at the time.
From: s.meric@ix.netcom.com (Polar) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1998 05:06:43 GMT Subject: Changes in the Orthodox Community Re: Divorce On Wed, 2 Sep 1998 05:15:06 -0700, you wrote: Yaakov Menken wrote: > [...] It is quite true that just as marriage (and every other Jewish > contractual agreement) is initiated by one party, one party must terminate > it as well. [...] >From this, can one gather that marriage can be initiated by the woman and be terminated by her as well? Polar (email copies welcome)
From: mshulman@ix.netcom.com (Moshe Shulman) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 20:15:52 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Changes in the Orthodox Community Re: Divorce Jeanette Friedman <FriedmanJ@aol.com> writes >I am really trying to control myself here, but what you have written is really >way beyond the beyond, and part of the problem. Orthodox men remarry all the >time, leaving their former wives in limbo forever. They are never put in >cherem, even Goldstein, who married off his 11 by proxy and deliberately >turned her into an agunah like his wife, was never put in cherem. As far as >heter meah rabbanim is concerned, they get it if they want it. And as far as >more liberal congregations are concerned, do they even know who is walking >through their doors? I do not know about Mr. Goldstein, however I know someone in my shul who didn't give a get when our Rebbe told him to. He was thrown out and was not allowed back in until almost 5 years after he had given the get. (BTW this fellow grew up in the community.) Unfortuinatly it is not like this in other places. mshulman@ix.netcom.com Chassidus Website http://www.pobox.com/~chassidus
From: Steven Schiff <steve@guiguy.com> Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 18:10:44 -0700 Subject: God and Man John Schlager quotes Will Herberg, approvingly: "So with freedom, justice and personal dignity- -the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality. Morality ungrounded in God is indeed a house built upon sand, unable to stand up against the vagaries of impulse and the brutal pressures of power and self- interest" What are the implications of this quote? Should I, a secure non-theist, feel bad? Should I attempt to talk myself into a belief system that does not work for me? Or perhaps I should just give in, succomb to immorality, since that is inevitable when my moral house is built on sand? Steven Schiff
From: Scott Ryan <jscottr@matinfo.com> Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 09:29:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: God and Man John Schlager quotes Will Herberg's _Judaism and Modern Man_ as follows: >The moral principles of Western civilization are, in fact, derived from the >tradition rooted in Scripture and have meaning only in the context of that >tradition. The attempt . . . by secularist thinkers to disengage these values >from their religious context . . . has resulted in . . . our "cut-flower" >culture. Cut flowers . . . wither and die. So with freedom, justice and >personal dignity -- the values that form the moral foundation of our >civilization. Without the life-giving power of faith . . . they possess >neither meaning nor vitality. Morality ungrounded in God is indeed a house >built upon sand . . . . Presumably the purpose of this view is to secure our confidence that ethical standards are rooted in the way things are, built into the fabric of reality, so to speak. With this purpose no responsible humanist would disagree. But as stated, the above view has the unfortunate corollary that "if God is dead, everything is permitted." When people with doubts about God reject objective ethics along with supernaturalism, it is this view that allows them to do so. Herberg is therefore unwittingly fostering the very "withering" he ostensibly wants to prevent. It is precisely "disengag[ing] these values from their religious context" that keeps these values available as our understandings of God change. The corollary is false. The rightness of our conduct does not in itself depend on supernatural revelation; murder and theft are wrong, period, and no divine commandments could have made them otherwise. Suppose the "moral foundation of our civilization" had been not "freedom, justice and personal dignity" but slavery, injustice and personal debasement; could a human community have survived for three millennia on _that_ basis? If not, then to make those values dependent on supernatural revelation is to make the more certain dependent on the less. L'shalom, Scott Ryan home: SandGRyan@worldnet.att.net work: jscottr@matinfo.com
From: Marian H. Neudel <gmneudel@bgu.edu> Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1998 23:29:43 -0500 Subject: Kashrut and Mad Cow Disease After reading this month's Atlantic Monthly, in which is a very thorough article about mad cow disease which tells me a lot more than I want to know about raising, feeding, and slaughtering cattle, I am wondering if anybody knows whether the rules of kashrut in any way regulate what can be fed to a meat animal. The idea of feeding "cows to cows", as Oprah so picturesquely puts it, sounds as if it *ought* to be unkosher, but is it? Sorry if this reaches anybody at dinner time. Marian Neudel
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