History & Development of Divorce

The history of Jewish divorce is an ongoing attempt to rectify the biblically mandated imbalance of power in Jewish marriage–where the husband has the exclusive right to end a marriage. However, even the Torah, which allowed the husband to send his wife away for a severe breach of loyalty, qualified the husband’s absolute prerogative to grant a divorce: He had to write her a formal bill of divorce and pay a form of alimony; and in certain specified situations, he could never divorce his wife.

The rabbis placed additional limitations on the husband that somewhat improved the wife’s situation. They enlarged the number of cases where divorce was prohibited, increased the complexity of the divorce process, required the wife’s consent to a divorce; and expanded the husband’s financial responsibilities toward a divorced wife by placing a lien on his property to be paid in case of divorce.

Although the Talmud required that the get (bill of divorce) be granted with the husband’s “full consent,” the rabbis specified circumstances under which a wife could request that the beit din, or rabbinic court, attempt to “compel” the husband to grant a divorce, for example, if he did not fulfill his marital obligations. If a wife does not receive a get, she becomes an agunah, or chained wife, who cannot remarry.

Liturgy, Ritual and Custom

The divorce ritual itself is straightforward. The couple appears before a beit din, and the husband authorizes a sofer (scribe) to write a get in the presence of two witnesses. The husband then drops the get into the wife’s hands, declaring that she is free to remarry. The rabbi tears the four corners of the get so it cannot be reused, files it, and grants both husband and wife documents of release. This procedure is always adhered to by the Conservative and Orthodox movements and a form of it is used by the Reconstructionist, and sometimes the Reform, movements.

If a husband expects to face a situation of mortal danger, he may grant his wife a conditional get that will take effect only if he does not return in a specified period of time, thereby preventing his wife from becoming an agunah.

Contemporary Issues in Jewish Divorce

Contemporary Jews from all the movements have responded to the inequities in Jewish divorce law that have created the tragedy of the agunah. Some have created civil remedies through the secular legal system, but these can be problematic. Religious attempts to save the agunah include urging couples to sign halakhic prenuptial agreements that encourage the husband to grant a get or having a rabbinic court annul a marriage. Both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, troubled greatly by the situation of the agunah, accept civil divorce as fully dissolving a marriage. In Israel, the matter of divorce is handled exclusively by the Rabbinical courts and a woman seeking divorce is subject to their decision-making.

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Other than the traditional get ceremony, there are a number of contemporary rituals that can mark a Jewish divorce. The Reform Movement, for example, introduced a ritual of separation for divorcing couples known as Seder P’reidah (Ritual of Release). In this ritual, both divorcing parties declare their consent to the termination of their marriage and their willingness to release each other so that they may begin new lives.

Leaders of Reform Judaism ruled in 1869 that from a Jewish perspective, civil divorce was enough to dissolve a marriage; there was no need for a get. But they introduced Seder P’reidah in 1983 to add a spiritual dimension into what is often a sterile court procedure, and to create a sacred space and time for making the difficult transition from marriage to singleness.

The need for spiritual closure at the end of a marriage has led to the development of a number of creative new Jewish divorce rituals, not linked to any particular Jewish denomination. For some divorcing individuals and couples, these new rituals are an alternative to the get ceremony. Other individuals and couples choose to have a get ceremony, but then also mark their divorce with a ritual that aims to address their feelings of loss and to remedy the male-female power imbalance inherent in traditional Jewish divorce practices.

The richest resource for innovative Jewish divorce rituals is on Ritualwell.org. Its section devoted to “Ending Relationships” includes:

• Rituals for a woman to perform with her friends; rituals for a man to perform with his friends; rituals for a divorcing couple to perform together with their community
• Rituals to perform immediately following a separation; rituals to perform a year after finalizing divorce
• Appropriate liturgy including biblical verses, poetry, and songs
• Symbolic actions such as the tearing of a sheet or pillowcase (meant to evoke sexual intimacy, the wedding canopy, the rending of clothing in mourning, and the cutting of the get)
• Rituals that draw on Jewish mourning practices
• Divorce rituals for Havdalah, a time of separation and differentiation

All these rituals were written in a DIY-spirit, and with the specific needs of specific divorces in mind. Because every situation of divorce is different, individuals or couples seeking a spiritual marker of their divorce are encouraged to adapt elements of these rituals in ways that express their own emotions and help meet their own needs. Close friends or a rabbi can also be helpful in crafting a ceremony.

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Power Dynamics

Because husbands have so much power over the wife in a divorce situation, they sometimes use this power to extort money, property, or other concessions from the wife in exchange for granting her a get. If the husband refuses to give her a get or for some reason cannot do so, the wife becomes an agunah, a chained wife who, according to Jewish law, cannot remarry. The obstacle to remarriage is that any children she conceives will be mamzerim–who can marry only other mamzerim or converts. The husband, however, is free to remarry, because biblical law allows polygamy, and only a rabbinic ban prohibits it.

Before the modern era, the agunah issue was somewhat less of a problem. When Jewish communities were strong and rabbis had more power, the husband could often be persuaded to give his wife a get–through negative public opinion, social ostracism, and even excommunication. Today in Israel, the rabbinic courts still have the power to use sanctions against a recalcitrant husband or imprison him, but some have accused them of not using these tools extensively.

Solving the Agunah Issue

Potential resolutions for the agunah issue have been sought in both secular and religious realms. One example, known colloquially as the “first New York State Get Law,” withholds a civil divorce until all barriers to the spouse’s remarriage are removed. Such a law, however, has the potential to be ruled invalid because of church-state issues. And according to Jewish law, any coercion by a civil court must be at the behest of a Jewish court or a resulting get will be invalid.

Religious solutions to the agunah problem vary across the Jewish movements. For traditional Jews who accept that the children of a woman who remarries without a get are mamzerim, any proposed solution must be accepted as halakhically valid across the Orthodox movement. If a particular solution is accepted in some quarters and not in others, then the children of remarriages will still have the status of “mamzer.” A partial solution that has gained currency and halakhic approval in recent years is for a couple to sign a prenuptial marriage protection agreement. These agreements can help secure a woman’s freedom to remarry in case of divorce. Another course of action is for a rabbinic court to annul a marriage if it finds that the husband had some “defect” that the wife did not know about when they married (such as mental illness) or that some aspect of the marriage ceremony was not “kosher” (such as the witnesses were not valid).

The Conservative movement has developed its own form of a prenuptial agreement (not accepted by many Orthodox rabbis) and has a broader understanding of annulment than the Orthodox movement, allowing rabbis, as arbiters of Jewish law, to grant annulments more freely.

The response of the Reform movement to the situation of the agunah was to dispense with the get altogether and accept civil divorce as fully dissolving a marriage. The Reconstructionist movement also accepts civil divorce if the husband will not grant a get. Its concern with egalitarianism is reflected in the three types of get it does offer: traditional, woman-initiated, and mutual.

In both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, many divorcing couples are requesting some form of religious divorce to provide spiritual and psychological closure to a marriage. A religious divorce ceremony allows these couples to acknowledge the pain and loss of divorce in a meaningful way, and the movements are increasingly advising divorcing couples to pursue a get or other religious marker of the end of their marriage.

Beyond the mechanisms and rituals of the divorce itself, those who are divorced and the community-at-large are faced with questions regarding the relationship between newly single adults and their synagogues or other Jewish institutions. The Jewish emphasis on family can serve to alienate the divorced, and recently divorced people often look to their rabbis and synagogues for support that is sometimes lacking. As the divorce rate rises in the Jewish community, the problem becomes more acute.

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But the actual divorce is a little more complicated and may begin only after the couple has a civil divorce or has agreed to seek one. Then they arrange to appear before a beit din, or rabbinic court, which has expertise in the laws of Jewish divorce. A traditional divorce also requires two observant male witnesses as well as a sofer, or scribe, to actually write the get on a piece of parchment. (In America and elsewhere, the court may consist of a single rabbi who will then invite the two witnesses to join him to form an ad hoc beit din.) Usually the husband and wife will each bring along a friend or relative for emotional support.

The Actions Required for Divorce

Because the full authority to write a traditional get rests with the husband, he must authorize the scribe to write it on his behalf. To ensure that the get refers specifically to the couple at hand, it includes the names of the parties, the city, the date, and the name of the nearest river. Once the get is written, the witnesses read and sign it.

One of the rabbis then questions the participants. He ascertains that the scribe has written the get at the instruction of the husband; that the witnesses heard the husband ask the sofer to write the get; and that of their own free will the husband gave the get and the wife accepted it. The rabbi also gives anyone else present an opportunity to protest the divorce.

The wife holds her hands together, palms up, and the husband drops the get into her hands, making an oral declaration that she is divorced and “free to become the wife of any man.” She walks a few paces holding the get and hands it back to the rabbi.

To ensure that the get is correct, the rabbi reads it again with the witnesses, who must identify both the get and the signatures. Then the rabbi tears the get’s four corners so it cannot be re-used, files it, and gives the husband and wife a shetar piturin, a document of release, freeing them to remarry.

If the parties cannot or do not want to be present, they may appoint agent(s) to represent them before the beit din, but this is not the preferred approach.

Denominational Differences

Both the Conservative and Orthodox movements require a get for remarriage. The Reform movement accepts a civil divorce as fully dissolving a marriage, although recently has seen increasing interest in some kind of religious divorce ceremony. The Reconstructionist movement offers three types of gets: a traditional one, one initiated by the wife, and one initiated mutually.

The Jewish tradition has even developed an instrument called a conditional get–for situations in which a husband will be facing mortal danger and may never make it home. Before leaving on a dangerous journey or to fight a war, the husband can write a get that will take effect only if he does not return in a specified period of time. Such a get would save a woman from becoming an agunah (a woman without a get who could not remarry) because her husband was missing in action, with no witness to his death.

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Reform and Reconstructionist Movements Encouraging a Religious Ceremony

Samuel Atlas, the talmudist professor of philosophy at Hebrew Union College, determined that the meaning of “dina d’malkhuta dina” (“the law of the land is law in civil matters”)–a great principle of Jewish law–is that a civil divorce is a get. So the Reform movement’s posture is that the moment a man and woman divorce in a civil court in the U.S., it is considered dissolved in the eyes of Jewish law.

However, as Rabbi [Reeve] Brenner [rabbi of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland]… explains, the application of dina d’malkhuta dina in the case of marriage is not universally accepted in the Reform movement. For the sake of unity among all Jews, the Reform movement now urges separating spouses to get a religious divorce in addition to the civil one. They say that when a couple marries as religious people, then the dissolution of such a marriage should also be religious.

The Reform movement understands divorce not just as a legal matter, but as a spiritual one, as well. A religious get is sometimes needed psychologically to help the separating couple begin new lives after the divorce. A divorce is transformative just as a marriage is, and, therefore, akin to all lifecycle events, rabbis should be part of it.

The Reconstructionist movement will also accept a civil divorce as a get. However, as Rabbi Steve Segar of the Reconstructionist Havurah of Cleveland explains, he would strongly encourage a religious separation ceremony symbolizing the relinquishing of the relationship. Segar would encourage the husband or wife to undergo such a ceremony individually, even if the former spouse were to refuse to participate.

­– Nurete Brenner. Reprinted with permission from “Prenuptial accord good to ‘get’ prior to wedding” in the Cleveland Jewish News.

Religious Ritual Helps Couple Acknowledge Loss

The way we divorce is changing. These days, we’re more likely to choose a religious ritual to mark the end of our marriages. Says Rabbi Sharon Sobel, Regional Director of the Canadian Council for Reform Judaism, “Rituals help effect a transformation. With a civil divorce, when it’s done, it’s done. But how do you acknowledge the loss of a marriage and relationship, even if it wasn’t a great one?”

­– Jennifer M. Paquette, “Guide to Religious Divorce Rituals,” www.beliefnet.com

Jewish Divorce Recognizes the Pain, Allowing for a New Beginning

“When a man divorces the wife of his youth, even the altar of God sheds tears” (Gittin 90b).

In most divorces, God is not the only one to shed tears. Divorce is not only the end of a marriage, but also a kind of death that must be mourned before one can go on to create new dreams.

As a Reform rabbi, I had worked over the years with many individuals who were going through divorces. I thought I understood their pain, their shame, their anger, and their grief. I had often seen that civil divorce wasn’t sufficient to help people separate emotionally as well as financially and physically. I thought I understood the need for Jewish ritual to help them move through their loss to a place where they could begin again. I thought I understood that divinity needed to be present as a marriage ended just as it is present under the huppah [marriage canopy] when a marriage begins. I thought I had understood it all, but it wasn’t until my marriage ended after 12 years, two children, and a thousand shattered dreams that I really began to understand.

I know full well that a traditional get [Jewish divorce] is a patriarchal ritual in which a man releases his wife, and his wife is released. Therefore, I was surprised to discover that I wanted a get. It was not for political reasons–i.e. so that no one would even question the status of any children that might come from a subsequent marriage–for I was already 40; there was little chance of other children.

My reason was personal, not political. I felt I needed to be released, to be set free from the commitments and the promises I had made to this marriage and to the man I had loved since I was 20 years old. I needed to face him one last time and to hear him acknowledge through ancient words that our dreams had been shattered and that the sacred bonds that had connected us had been destroyed. I didn’t want the ritual that ended our marriage to be easy or pleasant; I wanted it to reflect the pain and dislocation that I felt. I somehow believed that only by facing the pain could I begin to reconnect with the holiness in my life.

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I have nothing against committed relationships formed between consenting adults, but I take issue with the current form of Orthodox marriage. After 10 years of being an agunah (chained-woman) from two different husbands, I was not going to remarry a third time. By my mid-thirties I had two teenage children, had collected four gets (Jewish legal divorces) from two different men (two that I was happy with and two that were deemed acceptable by others), had my story recorded by the media, and had been excommunicated by parts of the religious community. I spent less than five years being in marriages and more than 10 years freeing myself from the institution of marriage. When the time came for me to formalize my third committed relationship at 36, I was not going to get married again. Now, close to 10 years and thank G-d four more kids later, I found something that works. It is not marriage and does not require a get. I am a pilegesh (concubine). Or as my oldest son says, my partner is “his mother’s concubine.”

READ: What Is An Agunah (Chained Woman)?

The problem with Orthodox Jewish marriage is that it involves the acquisition of a woman, and the marriage can only be absolved through a gett. To put it bluntly, Orthodox marriage is institutional slavery wrapped up in a nice bow. Religious pre-nups, which have helped many women, work as a civil bandaid on this religious construct. But no pre-nup can guarantee you will get a gett in a timely manner, which is a serious issue for women who still want to have children.

The Talmud as well as other Jewish legal texts describe various types of relationships between a man and a woman. Included in this list is pilagshut (having or being a concubine). In this type of a relationship, a contract is drawn to make it halakhically (legally) permissible for a man and woman to have sex. Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may end the relationship at any given point. A gett is not required because you are explicitly not married. Since many of the benefits of Orthodox marriage (such as spousal support, child support, and inheritance) are guaranteed by civil law, it is conceivable to become civilly married while using the pilegesh construct to halakhically formalize a relationship.

When my partner and I decided to enter a committed relationship, we consulted my family rabbi — the same rabbi that conducted both of my marriages and divorces. Intimately aware of my painful history with marriage, he suggested that we use the pilegesh construct to formalize our relationship. This contract would stipulate our consensual, physical relationship, but it could also be used to outline the other terms of our relationship. This type of relationship offered me the opportunity to trade in being my husband’s property, for a negotiated contract that protects my right to end the relationship.

Our contract serves a purpose much greater than protecting me from needing a gett. It provides us with a tool to discuss, evaluate, and level our relationship on a regular basis. With full time jobs, four small children together, and two grown children from my first marriage, my partner and I live full, busy lives. The pace of this modern lifestyle has stripped families of their traditional roles, but has not replaced them with new ones. However our contract, which has been rewritten and signed over ten times (it expires every year by our choice), provides us with a framework for discussing the roles we play in our day to day lives.

The bulk of the contract is split into sections: self-care/exercise, community, family, religion, housework, finances, and personal/family goals. Not all of these are updated each year, but we always have a conversation about what’s working and what needs to change.  We have had years where budgeting was the focus, and others where we were able and interested in hiring people to help with the house. We talk about how we are raising our kids, the importance of community, and how we want to engage the communities in which we live. We always specify a date night, as well as other ways we want to support each other.  Because life changes all the time, the contract allows us to have an open discussion around what each partner is responsible for in the relationship.

Instead of a wedding or similar party, every year we have a “Celebration of Family” party to mark the fact that we have been a family for another year. We feel strongly in celebrating accomplishments instead of dreams, and every year as a family is an accomplishment.  We created a commitment ceremony for family and friends after our second child was born. We selected a reading that was meaningful, then my partner and I discussed what family and our commitment to each other meant to us. We included an activity with my older children, and ended with another reading. We used the ceremony to recognize the blending of our families and the bonds that we formed.

For our family, the pilegesh contract provides us with a tool to stay connected to what is important to us as a couple and as individuals. It is the basis of our committed relationship to each other and to our children. It allows us to renegotiate our roles in a non-threatening consistent manner as our lives change.

The purpose of this blog post is to encourage others to consider alternative types of relationships that could offer more protection to women who wish to be in committed relationships. I am not a rabbi, and I am not here to defend the halakhic legitimacy of the pilegesh construct. I am making a social case for a solution that works for me. Regardless of marital status, I do believe that writing personalized contracts is a valuable, healthy way to manage any committed relationship.

The post After 10 Years as an Agunah and 2 Gets Later, I Know Better. appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

The rabbis were not insensitive to the inequities in biblical divorce law. In talmudic and post-talmudic literature, they articulated many elaborations and emendations of this law (as they did with biblical law touching all areas of life), which gave women greater protection. Little by little, the imbalance of biblical law was tempered by numerous restrictive rabbinic measures. Thus, the theoretical basis of the law–that divorce was a man’s God-given right–remained intact: It was not challenged but rather modified in many practical ways to neutralize its force.

We can see this pattern–which characterizes much of rabbinic action, or nonaction, for many ensuing centuries–begin to emerge in an early rabbinic dispute between the schools of Hillel and Shammai (first century B.C.E.). Shammai, the strict constructionist of biblical law, maintained that the scriptural words ervat davar [meaning “some fault or indecency,” which was the standard biblical grounds for divorce] meant, literally and exclusively, “adultery.” Thus, a woman’s infidelity was the only legitimate grounds for divorce. Hillel, known as a liberal because he generally interpreted Scripture more broadly, interpreted ervat davar as anything that was offensive to the husband. As in most disputes, rabbinic law followed Hillel.

For the next few centuries, major talmudists reiterated the principle of the unrestricted right of the husband to divorce his wife. The opposing view restricting this right made itself felt in the many critical moral judgments against divorce (such as Rabbi Yohanan’s statement that “He who divorces his wife is hated by God”) and in the growing number of curbs on a man’s absolute right.

Husband’s Absolute Power Delimited, But Not Ended

Throughout much of rabbinic history, three interacting forces were adjusted in each decision concerning divorce law:

1.      the theory of man’s absolute right;

2.      the biblical precedents establishing some qualifications of this right; and

3.      the earliest rabbinic sources, which construed the biblical laws strictly or broadly.

These three variables could be juggled, depending on one’s teacher’s views, the climate of the times, one’s inclinations in these matters, and the particular divorce case at hand.

The rabbinic qualifications took several different forms… :

Enlarging cases of prohibition of divorce: One example of the absolute prohibition of divorce involved the wife who had become insane and would thus be unable to take care of herself. Another was of a wife taken captive: the rabbis obligated [the husband] to send even the dowry money to ransom her. A third example was a child-bride.

Embellishing [and making more complex] the formalities: ….The standard process of divorce was so exact and so detailed that those in attendance had to be experts at it. The real purpose of the complexity was to bring the couple into contact with the rabbinic court whose members understood their function as extending far beyond that of interpreting the law; they used their offices to try to effect a reconciliation. Furthermore, a significant effect of this procedural change was ultimately to undermine the notion of absolute right. In practice as well as in the popular mind, the husband now had to look to the rabbinic court for sanction.

Enlarging the husband’s financial responsibilities [toward a divorced wife]: These responsibilities, incorporated into the ketubah (marriage contract), entitled the wife to a return of her dowry and any property she had brought with her into marriage, plus support until she remarried…. The Talmud did not formalize the standard ketubah text. It did establish a minimum level of recompense; beyond that, it allowed many variations. Throughout the ages, there have been examples of tailor-made ketubot. In several recently discovered ketubot that are more than 1,000 years old, the wife stipulated that her husband must grant her a divorce if he takes a concubine. It is clear that some women negotiated their own conditions for a viable marriage.

[Enlarging the] wife’s rights of consent: The theoretical right of the husband to “put away” his wife, continually eroded throughout rabbinic times, was formally limited by the halakhic [legal] decree of Rabbenu Gershom of Mayence early in the 11th century. From that point on, a woman could not be divorced except by her consent. The woman’s will now carried legal force.

When a Wife Can Initiate a Divorce

Although the rabbis did not have the will or the strength to make a takkanah (a formal rabbinic decree) that would have granted the woman greater equality in divorce matters, nevertheless they did try to protect her and to limit the situations in which she was vulnerable to abuse. Some grounds entitling the wife to sue for a divorce were quite sensitive to her needs, among them her sexual satisfaction. In the case of the husband’s refusal to meet her conjugal rights, if she did not want to exercise her option for divorce, he could be fined, week by week (Ketubot 61b-62b)…. Impotence was also legitimate grounds for divorce, with the burden of proof upon the man (Yevamot 65b)….

Where We Are Now

By such legal fiction, the old theory of man’s right remained intact, whereas the wife’s real power increased. Thus, a pattern emerges. In the case of the husband, the original right was open-ended and absolutely private, but the historical development of the law served to continually limit it. In the case of the wife, there was but an initial hint of some sort of rights.

As halakhah [Jewish law] developed through the post-biblical generations, wider powers accrued to her. This unmistakable pattern is sufficient to refute the simple-minded charges that the rabbis seized every opportunity to keep women powerless. Quite the reverse is true; considering all the power the rabbis had–what with the biblical guidelines and their own transfer of male authority from one generation to another–there is an impressive degree of sensitivity and benevolence in the unfolding of the law. The growing set of obligations of the husband to his wife and the increasing formalization of her rights to redress through the beit din [Jewish court] are clear indicators of an attitude of concern for the women.

Still, we are left with some large and serious problems. First, instead of grappling directly with the sexist principle that only a man had the right to divorce, the rabbis used various legal fictions to subvert its original intent. The exclusive right as derived from the Bible was never challenged or abolished; it was simply chiseled away bit by bit. As a result, the rabbinic authorities in any given generation could revert back to the original notion of the husband’s power over the wife.

That brings us the second problem: that a woman is not empowered to present a get [Jewish bill of divorce] to her husband and thereby divorce him. A legal theory supporting this is that since he is the one who creates the marriage bond, he must also be the one to sever it. There is no proceeding in Jewish law whereby a divorce is granted by a court in the absence or without the consent of the husband. Thus, there is great potential for abuse built into this law–and there have been, in each generation, countless sinister tales of resistant husbands’ extortion and delay.

Moreover, this aspect of the law has led to the tragic situation of the agunah (“anchored wife”), a woman whose husband has deserted her, or is insane, missing, or presumed dead (though his death has not been verified by the requisite two witnesses). In every generation, the rabbis tried to alleviate the plight of the agunah….

Thus, in an attempt to close the gap between men’s power and women’s powerlessness in the divorce issue, the rabbis tried hard, but not hard enough. It would have taken little more collective maturity to close the gap altogether, to create a situation of real equality under the law. The rabbis assumed wide powers of interpretation–and even of innovation–in situations where the general needs of the community called for accommodation rather than rationalization of an unwieldy situation. Failure of contemporary rabbis to acknowledge that past improvements in divorce law are but part of a continuous process–“on the way to becoming”–leads one to conclude that, in their heart of hearts, many would like the gap to exist, apologetics notwithstanding.

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What had started out as a fairly just settlement turned ugly. Little by little, his demands accelerated. Finally, Tikvah’s lawyer told her to sign over to him her half of the apartment’s eventual resale rights and be through with him; otherwise, the case would drag through the rabbinic courts for years. And that is what she did. Despite some flashes of resentment, she considered herself lucky.

Traditional Jewish divorce law points up two things: how much change has taken place during the evolution of this halacha (Jewish legal system) and how much further development it needs to serve women more equitably and indiscriminately.

According to biblical law, a man is permitted to divorce his wife at will and send her away from his home. The second aspect highlights biblical women’s vulnerability: economic, physical, and psychological uprooting faced the woman who displeased her husband sufficiently to cause him to divorce her. She had no leverage to prevent or refuse the divorce. Neither could she divorce him.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if she finds no favor in his eyes because of ervat davar (some fault or indecency) and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house–and she marries another man, and the latter… writes her a bill of divorce… or dies–then her former husband cannot marry her again because she has been defiled…  (Deuteronomy 24:1-4)

Yet there were qualifications, important because the rabbis who interpreted biblical law for later generations built the legal structure on them.

1. The husband had to write a bill of divorce and present it to his wife before sending her away (Deuteronomy 24: 1-3; Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8). This served as protection for her, as a delaying mechanism so that in a fit of anger a husband could not simply pronounce a declaration of divorce and be done with her.
2. It was deduced from the biblical law on the accusation of premarital sexual experience that a husband was required to pay some kind of alimony settlement upon divorce. (It was this payment that the accusing husband sought to get out of; he had nothing else to gain from the procedure as he could divorce his wife at will.)
3. There were two specific instances recorded in the Bible in which a man could never divorce his wife: if he had falsely accused her of premarital sex or if she was a virgin he had raped and was forced to marry. (This law, which appears to us crude, was designed for the protection of the woman who, having lost her virginity through no fault of her own, would be otherwise unmarriageable.)

If a man takes a wife and… hates her and… spreads an evil name about her saying… ‘I found no signs of virginity in her,’ then her father and mother must bring forth the signs of the wife’s virginity to the elders of the city…. They shall chastise that man and penalize him 100 shekels of silver and give them to the father of the wife because the husband spread an evil name upon a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife and he shall not be free to divorce her. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

Though in themselves these limits represented very minor safeguards for women, they must be understood as the first breakthrough in establishing a crucial principle: the right of a community to set limits on a man’s absolute and private right of divorce.

Moreover, it appears from biblical narrative that the social sanctions against divorce were quite powerful and that it occurred rarely. In the isolated instances where a woman was sent away (e.g., Genesis 21:11-12; II Samuel 3:14-16), it was a great trauma for her husband as well. The fact that the divorce law appears as an aside (in the context of a law forbidding a man to remarry his ex-wife) can be understood both as a limitation of a man’s absolute control over divorce and as an indication of the general inappropriateness of his divorcing his wife.

Excerpted with permission of the author from “Jewish Divorce Law” in Lilith Magazine, summer 1977.

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A Problem Since Biblical Times

Actually, the novel describes only one of several categories of agunah. Fundamentally, the pathetic situation of these women stems from the fact that the rabbinic interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 places the initiative for the issuance of a get solely in the hands of the husband. The tragedy has been immeasurably compounded in modern times by the erosion of authority in the Jewish community, so that the community itself is now powerless to compel the husband’s obedience.
The problem has a long and painful history. The ancient and medieval rabbis were highly sensitive to the woman’s undeserved suffering and sought every conceivable method of freeing the agunah from her chains. Thus, the Talmud went so far as to rule that if the woman herself had evidence that her husband had died, her unsubstantiated testimony would be acceptable and she would be declared a widow, free to remarry.

The radical character of this decision becomes clear if it is recalled that this ruling sets aside three fundamental principles of halakhah [Jewish law]–first, the rabbinic rule that a woman is ineligible to testify as a witness; second, the biblical law that two witnesses are required to establish valid evidence; third, the rabbinic principle “adam karov etzel atzmo“–“every person is close and partial to himself”–and, therefore, his testimony on a case in which he is involved is invalid. Nonetheless, the rabbis accepted the woman’s sole testimony as a witness.

Furthermore, the rabbis in medieval and modern times left no stone unturned in searching for the missing husband and in the effort to persuade him to issue a Jewish divorce to his abandoned wife.

It is clear from the sources that customary law, as practiced over a period of 10 centuries in Egypt and Palestine, employed far-reaching procedures to compensate for the women’s legal inability to dissolve a marriage. These provisions dealt not only with the problem of abandonment; they also made it possible for the woman to demand and receive a divorce when she found her marriage intolerable. In fact, documents have survived that indicate that in some cases it was sufficient for the wife to come to the court and declare, “Lo erhemeh“–“I do not love him”–in order for the judges to compel the husband to issue a divorce.

Problem Becomes Insoluble as Jewish Community Loses Power

The problem of the agunah was relatively soluble as long as Jewish tradition retained its authority and the Jewish community had the power to enforce its decisions. This condition prevailed everywhere during the Middle Ages and, until our own century, in Eastern Europe. And because it did, there were extralegal procedures, such as public opinion and social ostracism, that could be used to secure the husband’s compliance. In addition, the court could impose a herem (excommunication), which meant total isolation for the offender. Generally, the threat sufficed to bring the husband into line.

Nevertheless, the responsa–the legal decisions of the great rabbinic authorities of the Middle Ages–include many cases of unfortunate women chained to a recalcitrant or nonexistent spouse.

The breakdown of the Babylonian center about the year 1000 C.E., and its replacement by a multiplicity of independent communities in North Africa, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe, led to a general fragmentation of authority that created many areas of local jurisdiction. The power of individual rabbinic leaders to compel obedience was now correspondingly reduced. The frequent uprooting of Jewish communities, the mass migrations and the transplantation of individuals, accompanied by the deaths of countless individuals through natural disaster, famine, or massacre, substantially increased the number of agunot. In spite of all ameliorative efforts, the lot of the agunah remained an unhappy one.

Beginning with the second half of the 18th century, the Enlightenment and the Emancipation wrought havoc with the traditional pattern of Jewish life. The admission of Jews into political citizenship, civic equality, and economic opportunity was directly and explicitly linked to the surrender of the authority of Jewish traditional law and to the loss of the legal status of the Jewish community, which now became in effect a voluntary association with no coercive power.

In some quarters today, both the Emancipation and the Enlightenment are decried as totally evil, though one sees little evidence of a wholesale stampede to turn in citizenship papers and return to the ghetto. (The only possible exceptions are some Hasidic groups that have never left it.) The fact is that both modern movements brought substantial benefits to Jews and Judaism–but they exacted a heavy price, in the form of assimilation and alienation.

The rapid growth of secularism and the establishment of civil marriage and divorce in nearly all Western countries coincided with the mass migration of millions of individuals from one country to another. These factors gave rise to a large increase in the number of agunot. Women loyal to Jewish tradition were, of course, the chief victims.

Categories of Agunot

In sum, four principal categories of the agunah have emerged in modern times and are on the increase:

1. A man divorces his wife in the civil courts and possibly even remarries, but refuses to give his wife a get, either because of malice or greed. All too often the husband tries to extort money from his wife in exchange for the get.

2. A man disappears without leaving a trace, so that he is not available to issue the divorce that halakhah demands. During the early decades of the 20th century , when mass Jewish immigration to the United States from Eastern Europe reached its height, Yiddish newspapers published a regular feature, “The Gallery of Missing Husbands,” asking readers to help locate the errant spouses. Together with photographs, there would appear pathetic pleas for help from the deserted wives.

3. The man is lost in military action or dies in a mass explosion. In modern war, combatants are often blown to bits. Where there is no hard evidence that the soldier is dead, the wife becomes an agunah, since halakhah has no such category as “declared” or “legally” dead.

During the Russo-Japanese war of 1905, some great Russian rabbis visited the troops before they left for the front and persuaded the Jewish soldiers to issue a get al tenai, a “conditional divorce,” so as to free their wives from the status of agunah should the men fail to return. But obviously this temporary procedure, however helpful in individual cases, did not meet the growing dimensions of the problem.

4. Not strictly a case of “desertion” but similar to it is the rarer case of a childless widow who, according to halakhah, requires halitzah (release) from her husband’s brother before she can remarry. [Biblical law requires her brother-in-law to marry her to perpetuate the dead husband’s “name” by providing his wife with a child. The ceremony of halitzah releases the widow from this obligation.] This situation has also served as an occasion for extortion.

Excerpted from “A Different Kind of Hostage,” originally published in Moment magazine. Reprinted here with permission from the estate of Robert Gordis.

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Why? Unlike a civil divorce, a get (Jewish writ of divorce) is largely in one direction – husband to wife. According to Jewish law, a marriage can only be dissolved once a husband voluntarily gives a get to his wife, and the wife accepts the get. If the get is not willingly given, the wife is still bound to her husband. The wife cannot remarry; any new relationship, without a get, is considered adultery. Moreover, any children from a new relationship are considered illegitimate under Jewish law. Such children may be excluded from marrying into portions of the Jewish community. Women refused a get are called agunot, chained women.

The husband, however, has a remedy if the wife refuses to accept the get. The husband can receive a heter meah rabbanim, permission of 100 rabbis to remarry. Once the husband receives permission to remarry, he is required to deposit a get with the Jewish court, which the wife may claim if she desires. It should be noted that a heter meah rabbanim is not easily available today, as responsible Jewish courts will not utilize this option. Nevertheless, it is a viable option that does exist for men. Women, on the other hand, do not have this option. The husband is therefore not chained to a dead marriage in the same way that a wife may be chained.

We need to not only view get refusal from a religious perspective; it is not just a religious issue. We need to start seeing it for what it is — domestic violence. Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior used to gain and maintain power and control over the other person in a relationship. Domestic violence is more than physical violence; it also includes emotional, verbal, spiritual, sexual or economic abuse. These are all ways one partner can intimidate and exert power over the other.

Why would a husband refuse to give his wife a get? There are many reasons, which range from spite, to not feeling the marriage is over, to feeling there is something to gain from withholding the get. All these reasons are focused on the husband using the power and control he has to keep the wife from moving forward. The wife is essentially up against the wall; she is completely restrained.

Typically, women suffer years of domestic violence before finding the courage and/or the means to leave their abusers. In the case of a Jewish woman, even when she leaves her husband, he can continue to exert his control through his refusal to give her a get. Get refusal is the ultimate form of abuse because he still has power over her after she has left.

Due to the deep power imbalance inherent in the granting of the get, women can be placed at an unfair disadvantage in divorce negotiations. The husband can withhold the get to extort concessions from the wife. For example, the husband might say he will only grant a get if the wife agrees to give up financial support and marital property, pay him a large sum of money, or even surrender custody of their children to the husband.

Agunot are stuck, with no escape route. While nobody but the husband can grant the wife a get, as a community at large, we need to recognize that this is not a private matter and we must rally around the wife to offer support and advocate on her behalf. We should acknowledge the principle that regardless of the rationale the husband gives for his refusal, when the marriage is over, the get should be given. Unfortunately, it is the women, the agunot, who are stigmatized, and not the men who refuse to grant a get. It is important for us to shift the paradigm to place the stigma where it should be: with the abusers who refuse to give a get. We must not accept the perpetuation of power and control.

It is true that often times we do not want to get involved in the relationships of others; we feel it is none of our business. But in this case, that is not true. It is our obligation to care for others, as we are all made “b’tzelem elokim,” in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). Further, the prophet Isaiah urged his people to “[u]phold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). Just as the widow and orphan are vulnerable, so too are chained women.

It is worth noting that not every husband who refuses to give a get abused his wife during the marriage. However, the dynamics of get refusal involve controlling the wife’s life, which is analogous to the dynamics of domestic violence. As a society, we are beginning to recognize that domestic violence is harmful behavior that the public must reject as unacceptable under any circumstances. Recently, we have been seeing an outcry against professional athletes for their abusive behavior towards their partners. The unfortunate reality is that it is easier to denounce a public figure than to confront the abusive behavior of the people in our own lives and our communities.

Some may argue we cannot change Jewish law related to the get. Nevertheless, we can still speak up as a community and oppose get refusers. We need to bring community pressure to bear on get refusers where it was not before. We need to expose get refusers as abusers, and recognize, as the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court ruled last week, even those who are providing financial support to get refusers are complicit in the abuse. In a groundbreaking decision, the rabbinical court issued a thirty day jail sentence to a father who has been providing support to his get refusing son. The court ruled that the father was an “active figure behind the captive situation” of the wife. This is a powerful statement in favor of protecting the victim rather than the abuser.

Agunot are our mothers, sisters and daughters. Take a moment and think about how you would feel if someone you love could not move on with her life because although her marriage was over, she was chained. Continuing to ignore the plight of the women in our community goes against our deeply-held values and teachings. We have an obligation to reclaim the power from abusers and get refusers, and place it back in the hands of chained women. When we recognize the rights of chained women and withhold our support of get refusers, we take a stand with our agunot. Today, on International Agunot Day, let us take a stand together.

The post There Are No Chained Men appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Since Jewish divorce is not a decree of the court but rather a transaction between two parties, various authorities maintain that a single expert suffices. (The prevalent custom in America is to require only one rabbi.) In either case, a sofer (scribe) and two male witnesses must also be present. The wife will often bring along a friend to help her get through the trying time; so will the husband. The appointment with the beit din or officiating rabbi can be scheduled by one’s own rabbi, lawyer, or by the parties themselves.

Writing the Get

First the scribe must write the writ of divorce. Before he begins the actual writing, however, he makes a formal gift of his materials to the husband, who must authorize the writing of the get on his behalf. The husband lifts the writing materials and offers them back to the sofer, saying, “I give you this paper, ink, and pen and all the writing material, and I instruct you to write for me a get to divorce my wife.”

The sofer hand-letters the get, filling in the details such as the names of the two parties, the city, the time, and the standard text of the writ of divorce in which the husband attests to divorcing his wife and setting her free to marry any other man. It generally takes an hour for the scribe to write the get in Hebrew lettering, during which time the man and woman to be divorced usually wait in separate rooms.

Questioning the Participants

After the sofer finishes his writing task, he and the witnesses make a distinguishing mark on the get. The witnesses read the document and affix their signatures to it. One of the three rabbis of the beit din will then ask the following questions:

To the sofer:

• “Is this the get you have written?”
• “Is there any special mark by which you can identify it?”
• “Did the husband tell you to write the get?”
• “Were the witnesses present, at least during the time you wrote the first line?”

To the witnesses:

• “Did you hear the husband order the sofer to write a get for his wife?”
• “Is this your signature?”
• “Did the husband tell you to sign it?”

Then the get is read again.

To the husband:

• “Do you give this get of your own free will?”
• “Did you perhaps make a statement you may have forgotten that might cancel all other statements you made?”

To the wife:

• “Do you accept this get of your own free will?”
• “Have you made any statement or vow that would compel you to accept this get against your will?”
• “Have you made any statement that would nullify the get?”

To those present: “If there is anyone who wishes to protest, let him do so now.”

Delivering the Get

The husband then calls upon the witnesses to witness the delivery of the get. The rabbi tells the wife to remove all the jewelry from her hands and to hold her hands together with the palms open, facing upward, so as to receive the get. The sofer folds the get and hands it to the rabbi. The rabbi hands it to the husband who, with both hands, drops it into the palms of his wife [she has to be sitting on a chair and not wailing since it is forbidden to transfer the get to a woman who is moving.]. He says, “This is your get, and with it you are divorced from me from this time henceforth, so that you are free to become the wife of any man.” The wife holds up her hands with the get in them, walks a few paces, and returns.

She hands the get to the rabbi, who reads it again with the witnesses who are asked once more to identify the get and signatures. The rabbi pronounces an ancient ban against those who try to invalidate a get after it has been transferred. Then the four corners of the get are torn, so that it cannot be used again. It is placed in the files of the beit din for safekeeping, and the rabbis give each party a shetar piturin, a document of release, stating that the get from X to Y is effective, and each is now free to remarry.

If either of the parties cannot, or desires not, to be present, he/she can appoint an agent to stand in. The husband must place the get that he authorized and was written for him by the sofer in the hands of the agent, who proceeds to deliver the get to the woman or her agent on a day that is specified in the get. The laws of agency are quite complex, which is why the rabbis of the beit din prefer both parties to be present. Nevertheless, agents for the principals are used whenever necessary.

Excerpted with permission of the author from “Jewish Divorce Law” in Lilith Magazine, Summer, 1977.

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The source of this ritual is found in the Book of Deuteronomy, which states that if a man dies without having borne a child, his brother is obligated to marry his widow — a practice known as yibbum, or levirate marriage. If the man refuses, the obligation can be nullified through the ritual of halitzah. The basic outlines of this ritual is described in the biblical text: 

But if that party does not want to take his brother’s widow, his brother’s widow shall appear before the elders in the gate and declare, “My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name in Israel for his brother; he will not perform the duty of a levir.”

The elders of his town shall then summon him and talk to him. If he insists, saying, “I do not want to take her,”

His brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and make this declaration: “Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house!”

And he shall go in Israel by the name of “the family of the unsandaled one.”

Deuteronomy 25:7-10

As described here, the ritual appears intended to publicly shame the recalcitrant brother, requiring the widow to spit on him and forever branding him as someone who declined to perform his duty by marrying his late brother’s wife. But the rabbis of the Talmud disagreed about whether such a marriage is actually the preferred outcome. One opinion suggests that since we can’t be sure that the surviving brother is marrying the childless widow for the sole purpose of fulfilling the biblical obligation — perhaps he is doing so because of his attraction to her or has some other motive — we prefer halitzah. (This is because a man is normally barred by religious law from marrying his brother’s former wife, so unless the motivation for the marriage is pure, the union might be considered an instance of a forbidden sexual relationship.) Other rabbinical authorities hold that yibbum is in fact the preferable outcome. 

This divergence of opinion remained the case for much of Jewish history. Maimonides and Rabbi Yosef Karo (author of the Shulchan Aruch, the most important Jewish legal code) — both Sephardic religious authorities — seem to prefer yibbum, and indeed it was practiced historically in many Sephardic communities. Rabbi Moshe Isserles, a 16th-century Polish rabbi who wrote a commentary (or a gloss) on the Shulchan Aruch, preferred halitzah. As a result, Ashkenazi Jews rarely performed yibbum.

In modern times, both communities have abandoned yibbum in favor of halitzah. In 1950, both Israeli chief rabbis, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, issued a ruling that yibbum should no longer be performed. But there were some holdouts — most famously Ovadia Yosef, Israel’s chief rabbi from 1973 to 1983, who argued that a Sephardic couple that wishes to perform yibbum should be allowed to do so. Israel outlawed polygamy in 1977, which made halitzah the only legal alternative in many cases. 

While yibbum has virtually vanished today, some 15 to 20 halitzah ceremonies are reportedly performed in Israel every year. In cases where the deceased husband’s brother declines to perform halitzah, the widow can find herself in a situation similar to that of an agunah — a so-called “chained woman,” whose ex-husband refuses to grant her a religious writ of divorce, effectively denying her the possibility of remarrying. Except, in these cases, she’s chained to her brother-in-law. But such situations with halitzah are extremely rare. 

The post Halitzah: The Ceremonial Release from Levirate Marriage appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Learn how the get is written here.

Learn more about Jewish divorce laws here.

Learn more about agunot (the plural of agunah) here.

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My husband picked the mesader kedushin, the Rabbi who would be the one to officiate the wedding. It was a rabbi he had built a relationship with, and who was also a very important man in the community. We found out that we would have the added honor of having the Rabbi’s own Rabbi be there to officiate the wedding as well. All I could think was how lucky we were, and how I could easily check that off of my list. What I did not realize was that I was missing a very important item from my pre-wedding checklists. It was something that neither of these great rabbis mentioned to us. It was the halakhic pre-nup, which protects women in case of divorce.

Nowadays, almost ten years later, the halakhic pre-nup is known and accepted by most. For many people, it is part of their pre-wedding checklists. There are many rabbis who will not even agree to officiate a wedding without proof of a signed halakhic pre-nup! Even when I was getting married, it was something I had heard about, but had no intention of signing. The rabbis didn’t suggest it, and my new and shiny fiancé certainly didn’t suggest it. How would you even bring that up in a conversation? “Hey, in case we get a divorce, let’s make sure to sign that halakhic pre-nup!”

The answer is, that is exactly how it could be brought up! The conversation would be about suggesting to the other person that if, God forbid, the marriage does not work out, you both come out of the marriage with the same amount of respect and understanding that you had going into the marriage. It should be a way of saying that as much as I never would have wanted anything to hurt you in our marriage, so too I wouldn’t want to be the one hurting you at the end of the marriage.

Unfortunately for me, no one advised me to sign the halakhic pre-nup. The rabbis instead made sure to ask the “pressing” questions that “pertained” to the wedding, like if I had ever slept with another man. But something that would show the beginning steps of shalom bayit (peace in the home), and of working together in the most important relationship you could have, THAT they did not question! This misstep of guidance ultimately led to the downfall of my life.

If I had signed a halakhic pre-nup, I would most likely have my gett, bill of divorce, now. Sadly, after seven years of marriage, my husband and I agreed that we should get a divorce. Except it is now two and half years later, and I am still waiting for that divorce. Within the first month after we made the decision together, he was anxious to give me my gett already. I moved out, as you must live separately in order to end the marriage religiously, and I am still waiting for the gett. If he were still adamant about not giving me the gett, and we had signed the pre-nup, then he would owe me OVER $100,000 to make up for every day that the gett was not given.

I can’t help but feel so ignorant and helpless. There I was, a young girl excitedly waiting for my wedding. If only the rabbis, any of them, had insisted on the pre-nup. My life would be so different. Instead, I am coming up on my ten year anniversary, in a dead marriage. And there is nothing I can do about it, and no way out.

To find out about more ways of preventing agunot, please join JOFA next Tuesday July 18 – Thursday July 20 for an online conversation titled “How to Prevent a Modern Day Agunah.”

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Chanie happened. Chanie Wilenkin, a complete stranger to me, ignited a fire in my soul and in my gut; a fire that continues to burn to this day. When I heard that her dying wish to receive her get was being completely ignored, I just couldn’t take it; the match was struck, and the desire for justice was ablaze.

Having come from an abusive and broken home myself, I’ve felt the pain of not being heard — of not having a voice. The day Chanie passed away, I promised myself that I would be the voice for those who try to speak but are never heard. In the past year, my voice has grown louder and stronger than ever before. More importantly, my roar has made it possible for people to start hearing the voices of agunot.

Shortly before the Fast of Esther last year (also International Agunah Awareness Day), I created a t-shirt that shows support for agunot in order to remind and educate passerbys that there is a crisis.

Purim morning Chanie passed away, and I (among others) felt we had to take a stand. I helped organize a rally in the heart of Chabad — the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn — something unheard of in a community where people pretend their problems don’t exist. With the permission of my mother, who is an agunah, I spoke at the rally about the injustice of the agunah crisis, my personal connection as the son of an agunah and a possible solution. Needless to say, that rally and speech went viral.

A few weeks after the rally, Harav Moshe Gutnick (Head of the Sydney Beit Din and a strong supporter of agunot) visited Crown Heights and we organized a public lecture and Q&A with him on the topic of agunot. As a direct result of this event and with the help of Harav Moshe Gutnick, we were able to help free two agunot, including my sister.

When I returned to my hometown for Passover,  I reminded people that my mother was still an agunah and that problems don’t just get solved on their own. During this visit, I realized how hard it could be to disagree with people close to me. On Mother’s Day, I finally met Chanie, by visiting her grave. I sat by her grave, praying for the agunot and crying for justice. In honor of my mother’s birthday, I arranged a public screening in Crown Heights of a film showing the plight of agunot and wrote about how the suffering of agunot affects the entire family especially the children and grandchildren.

Throughout this time more and more agunot were reaching out to me asking for help, and my work was becoming more and more well-known around the world. I worked with an ex-agunah to help create an organization for agunot in Argentina (Agunot Encadenadas), to raise awareness, support and funds for Argentinean women trapped by the crisis. Multiple women have already gained their freedom as a result of this organization. I also set up a GoFundMe campaign to help raise the funds for an agunah in England who couldn’t afford to pay the exorbitant Beit Din fees and therefore was unable to receive her get.

In the US, I traveled from Detroit, Michigan to Dayton, Ohio for a rally arranged by ORA to protest a recalcitrant husband. The rally also showed people that unity and public pressure does work, as the agunah got her freedom shortly afterwards. Because the Detroit Jewish News wrote an article about the Ohio rally, with my picture on the front page explaining that I was there to support my mother, the Detroit community was again reminded that things don’t just fix themselves, that my mother is still chained.

My picture was also proudly displayed at JOFA’s 18th anniversary banquet, as an agunah activist, thereby helping even more agunot reach out to me, and allow me to direct them to the best help they need.

At this moment I am part of a committee comprised of approximately eight or nine groups, from countries all over the world, that are fighting for justice for agunot. We worked together on a campaign for International Agunah Awareness Day, one that humanizes the crisis and shows that unity is the best weapon. For Purim, I dressed up as “Gett-Man” – a superhero helping raise awareness of the tragic crisis.

All of this happened because one woman raised her voice to speak, and others opened their ears and hearts in order to listen….

The post A Year of Fighting for Agunot appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

In this era of human rights and personal autonomy, Orthodox Jews no longer turn to their rabbis to ask them about a principle of common sense: if a marriage is over, each spouse should be freed in order to rebuild a life. There may be no need to ask the rabbi about that clear value, but there is a need for a rabbi’s intervention when a spouse is disdainful of it.

Unfortunately, for a growing number of victims of get-refusal and Jewish society at large, rabbis’ intervention has many times proven to be ineffectual, more so in the Diaspora than in Israel. There are two manners in which to dissolve a marriage – divorce or annulment of the sanctification bonds (kiddushin). In a Jewish divorce, as opposed to a civil divorce, the marriage is ended when both spouses agree to do so. The ability to change their personal status from married to “remarriageable” lies literally in their own hands. The man must willingly drop the writ of divorce from his hand into the woman’s open hands. The Rabbinical Court does not have the power to decree they are divorced. In fact, in the Diaspora the rabbis have no legal jurisdiction over the couple and cannot even haul a recalcitrant husband into the court. This is as opposed to the Israeli Rabbinical Courts which not only have legal jurisdiction over personal status, but have the power to levy sanctions against a recalcitrant husband or wife – although they too do not have the authority to dissolve the marriage through a divorce decree.

In the second type of dissolution of a marriage, namely annulment, the power actually lies in the hands of the Rabbinical Court. If the rabbis find cause in accordance with Jewish law to annul a marriage, they can rule accordingly even in the face of protestations of a recalcitrant husband. However, the laws governing annulment are so numerous and complex, with multiple disputes, that one could probably count on the fingers of one’s hands the number of rabbis today that are willing to render such a decision. As the rabbinic establishment says – one needs very broad shoulders to carry such an opinion.

In coping with the agunah problem there have been instances of laypeople and rabbis taking matters into their own hands. Several decades ago the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) developed the halakhic prenuptial agreement for the prevention of get-refusal. The prenup continues to be promoted by the arm of the RCA – the Beth Din of America. This has proven to be a strong, effective preventative solution. The hands that sign a halakhic prenup protect a woman from get-abuse.

In cases where there is no preventative solution in place, the International Beth Din (IBD) in New York has taken upon itself the challenge of developing deep halakhic methods of annulment of the marriage in a hopeless situation. The number of hands that are raised in support of the IBD’s halakhic methodology will determine the endorsement of its rulings.

In parallel, laypeople who understand the responsibility handed to them by virtue of parenthood, make sure that their marrying children sign a prenuptial agreement for the prevention of get-refusal. Recently, communities have demonstrated support for the requiring of marrying couples to sign – by holding postnuptial signing events. The hand that signs a postnuptial agreement is a hand that lays down a family and communal minhag – binding custom: every couple must sign a halakhic prenup.

In outrageous cases of get-refusal, the agunah herself or members of her community have taken matters into their own hands with or without rabbinic sanction, utilizing the tools of the internet, the press and social media to employ “shaming” of the recalcitrant husband. Others have pulled their hands away from business dealings with a get-refuser.

What other creative ideas can be developed within Jewish law to solve instances of get-refusal and the agunah problem in general? I leave it in your hands.

The post International Agunah Day: Taking Matters into Our Own Hands appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Approximately two years ago, I looked around a full room of my friends and neighbors, all with smiles on their faces, dressed up in their finest with champagne glasses in hand. It was quite the affair for Skokie, Illinois. Pictures were taken by a professional photographer, in addition to selfies galore, to capture this great festivity. It was Chicago’s first halakhic postnup event. Davar Skokie organized a fun night out, including hors d’oeuvres, wine and other delicacies from the upscale Shallots restaurant. The room was filled with those who had signed a halakhic prenup before marriage, but wanted to support spreading awareness. Others attendees had not signed a prenup before marriage, and this was their opportunity to sign a postnup.

In addition to the social element of the evening, attendees had the added benefit of hearing Rabbi Yona Reiss, the Av Beth Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, share the motivation behind and the effectiveness of the prenup in preventing agunot.  I was surprised to see how many lined up to sign a postnup, the highlight of the evening.  It was a long line and surprisingly included a number of young couples. The prenup was introduced in 1994 by Rabbi Mordechai Willig, Sgan Av Beth Din of the Beth Din of America, and a Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University. As a member of the planning committee of the postnup party, I was expecting to see an older crowd in line to sign the postnup as anyone in their 30s or younger should have certainly signed the prenup. About half of those signing fell into the younger age bracket. Why would they have not signed the prenup? They obviously cared and wanted to prevent agunot. When asked, couples responded that they just forgot, they weren’t sure why; it simply was not important to sign it. They were not against the notion, it was just not a priority.  

Rabbi Shlomo Weissman, Director of the Beit Din of America, shared the findings of a recent study of the prenup at the 2014 OU Convention. The study found that there is no correlation between signing a prenup and marital dissatisfaction. It also found that only 24% of those Modern Orthodox couples surveyed signed a prenup. While the prenup has been endorsed since 1994, why are these numbers so low?

To be clear, I do not believe that a halakhic prenup solves all of our problems. There is still room for abuse, by women or men with a halakhic prenup, although instead of hundreds of agunot we would be down to dozens of agunot. For the past two decades, organizations, including JOFA, ORA, Mavoi Satum, Kolech, the Center for Women’s Justice, Go Get Your Get, The International Coalition for Agunah Rights and others have tried to spread awareness about the prenup. It has been taught, written about, blogged about, presented about at conferences, weddings and pulpits and has even garnered the media’s attention. Nonetheless, the numbers of couples who sign are low. The question is how can we make the prenup a standard part of the wedding and marriage?Rabbi Jeremy Stern argues that we should take our rabbis to task and require them to require the use of the prenup.

According to the Beit Din of America, “The Prenup has been successful in preventing cases of agunot in 100% of the divorce cases that have come before them, so long as the Prenup was properly signed and a copy available.” Rabbi Weissman refers to it as the “magic potion.”

It seems that engaged couples do not think of the prenup as a priority, but they do not seem to be against or disagree with the innovation. An easier way to protect women from becoming agunot, to protect women who regularly call ORA or JOFA for help, would be to make the prenup a universal standard for Orthodox couples. How would that happen? If all Orthodox rabbis required couples to sign a halakhic prenup as a condition of officiating their weddings. The solution is simple.

While the prenup is not foolproof, an abusive husband could enjoy his wife’s suffering even to the tune of $150 a day, it has helped in 100% of cases thus far. It would save years, decades for some, of suffering and despair. In those rare cases where the prenup proved to be ineffective, women could take advantage of the new International Beit Din.  

The International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), has a policy that all members can only officiate at weddings where couples sign a prenup. 100% of couples married by these 180 rabbis will have the halakhic prenup. While the RCA does not require their members to only marry couples who have a halakhic prenup, there are individual prominent RCA members who have publicly taken stances on this question, even turning away couples who refused to sign.

JOFA would like to help us bring Rabbi Jeremy Stern’s call to fruition. We are asking all of you to help by clicking here. We are launching a campaign to create a list of Orthodox rabbis’ stances on the halakhic prenup. We are asking you to identify your rabbi or clergy person as falling into one of the following categories:

1. Those who require couples to sign a prenup in order to be married by him/her.
2. Those who will allow and possibly encourage signing the prenup, but do not require it when marrying couples.
3. Those who will not marry a couple with the prenup and/or ban the use of the prenup.

What can you do? Add people to the list. Allow those who are taking this obvious, simple step to be recognized for doing the right thing. Some rabbis may change their position because of this list. As Rabbi Stern suggested, we will be encouraging our rabbis to take a stand and hold them accountable.

Once the list is posted on our website, check the list.  If your rabbi is on it, share the page on your Facebook wall, tweet it, email it, etc. to praise your rabbi for doing the right thing. If your rabbis are not on the list, set up a meeting. Let them know about this initiative. Get them on the list.

When a solution that would prevent suffering, hardship, depression and the inability to bear children, has been around for two decades, it is time to ensure that the “magic potion” is used. It would help hundreds of women and their loved ones. Do your part.

Click here to add your rabbi to the list of Orthodox rabbis who require the halakhic prenuptial agreement.

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Jewish history also has its fair share of heroes and heroines. One of the outstanding figures in the Talmud, a book that unfortunately is short on heroines, is Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. In the Jewish imagination, he is forever linked in the struggle with Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus in the dispute about the tanur shel achnai, a specialized oven. Their halakhic argument over the purity of this oven – Rabbi Eliezer considered it pure and Rabbi Yehoshua deemed it impure – escalated into a confrontation of epic proportions. When Rabbi Eliezer failed to persuade his colleagues of his position, he invoked three miracles to prove his point: an uprooting carob tree, a stream that flowed uphill and collapsing walls of the Beit Midrash, study hall. Rabbi Yehoshua refused to budge and defiantly rejected all of Rabbi Eliezer’s proofs. As the assembled crowd cowered beneath a roof that was about to fall on their heads, Rabbi Yehoshua ignored a divine voice saying that Rabbi Eliezer was right and uttered the famous phrase, Lo ba’shamaym hi, the Torah is not in heaven. At once, Rabbi Yehoshua was transformed into a liberal hero, ready to challenge authority. He became the humanist scholar, one who welcomed the contribution of all his colleagues into the study and development of the halakha, Jewish law.

One would think that Rabbi Yehoshua would be a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) favorite. Not so fast. The Talmud tractate Ketubot focuses on the laws surrounding the marriage contract and the financial obligations it creates for husbands to their wives. The amount due the wife if the marriage ended in divorce or death of the husband was contingent upon her being a virgin at the time of the marriage. In the first chapter, there are a series of mishnayot, or passages in the Mishnah, that address different circumstances in which there is uncertainty about the virginity of the woman. The wife asserts that she should receive the full amount of the ketubah, or marriage contract, (200 zuz) while the husband claims that she was not a virgin and is only obligated to pay her half that amount. Rabban Gamliel accepts the wife’s assertion or testimony from a single witness about her status and requires the husband to pay the full amount. Surprisingly Rabbi Yehoshua argues in every case and dismisses the woman’s claim. He follows the money. Since the husband is in possession of the money and a decision by the court would be required to enforce payment of the full ketubah to the wife, he adopts the legal principle that money stays where it is until there is incontrovertible proof that it should be transferred. Rabbi Yehoshua demands standard legal testimony from two valid witnesses about the woman’s virginity before accepting her claim to full payment of the ketubah. He is no friend of women here. Rabban Gamliel’s lenient position is especially surprising because he is usually depicted as a demanding leader, one who tolerates no breach in his authority. In fact, Rabban Gamliel’s legal positions are generally supportive of women in contrast to his authoritarian image.

What happened to our liberal hero? We will never know because the only place we can speak with him is on the pages of the Talmud. There are many other incredible stories in the Gemara that depict Rabbi Yehoshua as an inspiring figure who had the courage to confront the powers that be, Rabban Gamliel in particular, and win the support of his peers. But in this case, when it came to defending the integrity of women, he disappoints.  

What does this say about heroes and heroines? We pick them because we admire who they are and what they stand for. We are inspired by their willingness to stand up for their principles even under the most difficult of circumstances. But we forget that heroes are complicated people. Real heroines will be fully engaged with the world and, as such, will be multidimensional individuals. They are likely to have some internal conflicts and weaknesses. But because they weigh in on the full scope of human life, we may not abide by all of their opinions and respect all of their actions.

There is another relatively obscure Talmudic figure who one could imagine saw JOFA in the Jewish future. Rabbi Zecharia ben Hakatzav is mentioned only a few times in the Talmud. But on every occasion, it is to speak up on behalf of women and to advance their legal status. In the same opening chapter in Tractate Ketubot, Rabbi Zecharia ben Hakatzav speaks in defense of women who were captured in war and asserts that they are still virgins. As proof he claims, in one of the only truly romantic moments in the Talmud that I know of, that of course the women’s claims of virginity should be believed. He never left his wife’s side and stood by her through thick and thin. How could it be otherwise for all Jewish women? Their husbands must also have been protecting them from harm, and the women’s claims about what happened during captivity should be believed. In the tractate Bava Batra, the eighth chapter deals with the laws of inheritance. Rabbi Zecharia ben Hakatzav is the sole proponent of the position that daughters should inherit along with sons. His arguments were persuasive and from the discussion in the Gemara they seemed to be getting a foothold among the Rabbis. However, ultimately the powers that be squashed his opinion without refutation.

Why don’t we know more about this man, and why isn’t he cited prominently in the literature about expanding the role of women in Orthodoxy? I suggest that because we do not know him very well, we are reluctant to embrace him as a hero. I imagine, that like Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, he also had strong ideas about everything, from politics to aesthetics. But since they were not recorded, we just do not know enough to be sure where he stood. He was a one-issue rabbi, admirable as his position on that problem might be to us. We intuitively know that our heroes and heroines need to be full-bodied and will be involved with the entire range of human activity. Sometimes their actions and opinions may surprise us or infuriate us or even embarrass us. Only people we are not so familiar with will meet all our expectations. Rabbi Yehoshua is a hero because he did stand tall in the beit midrash and was present to be counted on every issue. Rabbi Zecharia ben Hakatzav may have been a champion of women in his day. But he has come down in history as a one-dimensional figure, not big enough to be a hero.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah, Avraham will become a central figure in our prayer. Avraham and Sarah are undoubtedly the heroic couple. But sometimes they disappoint – Avraham hides the identity of his wife and Sarah banishes Hagar to the wilderness with her son. Despite these human failings, we still recognize their greatness. We should be mindful of this when we take stock of our heroines. If they are large enough to merit the title, we should be big enough to know that on occasion they may let us down.

When is Rosh Hashanah 2015? Click here to find out.

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Over the past week I’ve come to realize that electing judges can be even more important than voting for our state representatives and school board officials. In Oakland County, Michigan, where I live and work, Judge Lisa Gorcyca was first elected to the 6th Circuit Court back in 2008. Last November she ran unopposed and won another six-year term that began on Jan. 1, 2015. I didn’t know much about Judge Gorcyca, and like most citizens of Oakland County, I filled in the bubble with my pen in the voting booth and didn’t think much of it. After all, I had no alternative but to vote for her.

To the eldest of the three children, a 14-year-old boy who refused to have lunch with his father, Judge Gorcyca chastised, “You’re supposed to have a high IQ, which I’m doubting right now because of the way you act … You’re very defiant. You have no manners … There is no reason why you do not have a relationship with your father. Your father has never been charged with anything. Your father’s never been convicted of anything. Your father doesn’t have a personal protection order against him. Your father is well-liked and loved by the community, his co-workers, his family, his colleagues. You, young man, have got it wrong. I think your father is a great man who has gone through hoops for you to have a relationship with you.”

To his younger brother she said, “You need to do a research program on Charlie Manson and the cult that he has… You have bought yourself living in Children’s Village, going to the bathroom in public, and maybe summer school.”

And to the 9-year-old sister, Judge Gorcyca asked if she would also like to apologize to her father. When she didn’t give a response, the judge told the girl, “I know you’re kind of religious. God gave you a brain. He expects you to use it. You are not your big, defiant brother who’s living in jail. Do you want to live in jail? You want to have your birthdays in Children’s Village? Do you like going to the bathroom in front of people? Is your bed soft and comfortable at home? I’ll tell you this, if you two don’t have a nice lunch with your dad and make this up to your dad, you’re going to come back here (after lunch) and I’m going to have the deputies take you to Children’s Village.”

My community in Oakland County was livid when news broke of Judge Gorcyca’s decision and the way she spoke to the children. Following public outrage over the children’s two-week long stay at the juvenile detention center an emergency hearing was convened and the children were released to a popular Jewish overnight summer camp where they will spend a couple of weeks with their peers. In the days that this story was covered by local and international media, my Facebook news feed was full of comments from people who couldn’t believe a judge would abuse her authority to separate young children from their mother in this fashion. As I read through the court transcripts I felt ashamed that I had voted for this judge, but I had no alternative as she ran unopposed.

This is why we cannot take the commandment to appoint judges lightly. Even if the Torah is referring to religious justices (beit din) to uphold Jewish law, we must place a higher emphasis on ensuring that suitable candidates run for judgeships. Voting in an unopposed, unsuitable judge to the bench can have devastating circumstances for the innocents among us as I saw in this case. Too often we casually dismiss the less influential political races, especially in off-year elections. We must exercise our democratic right to vote, but we also must make certain that only qualified candidates are running for judgeship. To do otherwise is to leave the most vulnerable in our society unprotected.

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