Get Coercion

Forget breaking the non-Jewish laws these thugs engage in, they are breaking Jewish laws and producing invalid Gets. The Halacha in Shulchan Aruch is very clear in stating that a Get produced via coercion is a Get Me’usa.

How can it be a chilul hashem to ease the plight of agunos???

How does the valid goal remove chillul Hashem?

akuperma: Nowhere does the kesuba obligate the issuance of a Get. Your definition of halacha is inaccurate. And it is quite rare for someone to petition for a secular divorce whilst declining to issue a Jewish one. Typically the secular divorce is obtained without his requesting it. By default Jewish law does not obligate one to divorce if the other party seeks one without halachicly recognized “cause”. There is an entire section in Shulchan Aruch dedicated to defining invalid Gets that were procured under coercion.

There are very few circumstances where halacha, as recorded in the S”A, permit kefia. All of the following have to have occurred for coercion to be halachicly permissible: 1) There had to have been a beis din trial with both spouses and the dayanim all present at the same time in beis din and 2) both spouses were given the opportunity to present their case in beis din and 3) the dayanim after hearing both sides determined that based on the circumstances halachic cause exists that obligates him to issue a divorce even if he wishes not to and 4) he refuses to issue the Get and 5) the dayanim further deliberate and rule that halacha permits kefia under the circumstances.

Even when he’s obligated under halacha to give a Get, halacha still says he cannot be physically coerced under most circumstances. (He’s a rasha if he doesn’t and beis din may be permitted to authorize lesser forms of pressure such as harchokos Rabbeinu Tam.) And halacha doesn’t even obligate a Get in the first place in most typical cases unless there is an unusual factor that Chazal specifically and explicitly say mandates a Get. Some of the few such scenarios that Chazal authorized it are a) an illegal marriage (i.e. Kohen and gerusha) b) he has a physical deformity or c) he engaged in physical violence against her, and was warned by beis din to stop but he continued after having been warned. (Shulchan Aruch says if he denies it then beis din needs witnesses testifying to it.) Shulchan Aruch lists various types of cases where a spouses request for a divorce is denied and the couple is told by beis din to go back to living together as husband and wife.

I’m sure great poskim in other cities have had similar cases as well. It unfortunately happens that such cases occur where such action is warranted; fortunately they’re infrequent. But when they do transpire those poskim are correct to act.

The problem arises when vigilantes such as the unrecognized or non-poskim act outside the framework of a recognized beis din that duly has jurisdiction of the case, and act upon their own initiative and their own sense of right or wrong to engage in coercion, where the circumstances of the case do not halachicly warrant it.

Rav Nachum Eisenstein said that over many years of dealing with contentious gittin cases he only saw two cases of real agunos, where the husband refused to give a Get out of spite. All the other cases he dealt with where someone cried they’re an aguna were cases that did not qualify as such, as often it was simply the parties not having settled the divorce in a halachic manner and the aguna card was played to either generate sympathy or obtain unwarranted concessions without agreeing to settle the case on halachic terms in beis din (i.e. one party was using non-Jewish/secular courts to obtain judgements in contradiction to halacha.)

If one of the parties refuses to accept any beis din, then beis din can issue a Siruv and put him/her in Cherem. But even in such a case beis din cannot halachicly issue a ruling that a Get is mandatory without first having an actual trial with the parties to determine whether or not the halacha is that a Get is obligated to be given/accepted.

Joseph, which Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein? The one in Israel or the one in Lakewood (formerly of Detroit and Boston)?

Joseph: the case of a “get me-usah” is complicated so I will not enter into this halachic thicket. However, someone is misleading the world- I don’t want to accuse a Rov of that- when you say that there were only “two cases of genuine agunos”. This is preposterous. “Puk mo amo diber”. There are multiple such cases and they run into the hundreds,maybe thousands.

Pikuach nefesh is not docheh chillul Hashem, at least some forms (I’m thinking changing shoelaces), so you’d have to know how this fits in.

It’s simple, itsokay.

Materialism is lots of fun.

Gittin, sadly, are not.

Apukerma: The law is very clear that if a man gives a woman a kesubah he has agreed to give her a “get” when the marriage ends. It is no more against the “law” to coerce a man to obey the law and give the “get” than it is to coerce a robber not to take your possessions. It is a tremendous kiddush ha-Shem for people to show that they consider Ha-Shem’s law superior to the law of the goyim. A man who refueses to give a a “get” while divorcing his wife under the goyim’s law is a traitor to klal yisrael, and the coercion against him is justified. Dina Malchusa Dina, which protects such men and encourages such behavior, does not apply for laws that require a clear violation of Torah law and are directged tgowards destroying klal Yisrael.

This is a bizarre comment. If a person doesn’t follow halacha, no one coerces another to do so. Please cite the source where halacha encourages physical violence to comply with a halacha. I also think you don’t understand what chillul Hashem means, otherwise you would not have made your comment that physical violence by frum people to force a get that gets widely publicized is somehow a Kiddush Hashem.

Joseph, I very much doubt if the two Nachum Eisensteins are brothers. George Foreman might have given all his sons the same name, but we don’t do that.

Lesschumras, it’s a Mishnah.

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“How can it be a chilul hashem to ease the plight of agunos???”

“How does the valid goal remove chillul Hashem?”

According to the halachic definition of chillul Hashem, if something is a Mitzvah, it can’t be a chillul Hashem. Actually, it is a Kiddush Hashem, even if (maybe especially if) others look down on you for it.

Avi K.: “5. Once someone in Posen became a Reformer so Rabbi Akiva Eiger, upon the wife’s request, ordered him to give a get. He refused so RAE read him the first mishna in Kiddushin regarding how a married woman becomes single. The guy laughed, walked out of the office and fell down the stairs.”

The last two words should be “and died” (thereby making his wife single).

(I’m not sure if that would be clear to s.o. who doesn’t already know the story).

“I don’t know of one case where social pressure caused a husband to give a Get. The only thing that is accomplished is that the husband has been embarrassed. It should be noted that the second Bais HaMekdash was destroyed because Bar Kamtza was embarrassed even though he was an evil man. It should also be noted that one who embarrasses his fellow Jew loses his portion in the next world.”

That would only apply if he embarrasses someone when he is not allowed to (which is most of the time). If it’s a situation in which he is halachically required to, it would not apply. I believe there are situations in which a Beis Din may be required to embarrass someone publicly.It’s not a topic I’m so up on, but I think that I have heard stories from the past.

If someone is chayiv misa, they are obviously being embarrassed publicly, so clearly there are cases in which Beis Din can publicly embarrass someone. Nowadays, it’s probably much more complicated, but it’s possible that there are situations today where they are allowed to.

This sentence, “I believe you should never embarrass someone without a constructive purpose.” is not a contradiction to this sentence: “I believe there are situations in which a Beis Din may be required to embarrass someone publicly.”

In fact they are the same thing. If the Beis Din is supposed to embarrass someone in a specific situation, it is because there is a constructive purpose. (which does not mean that it is allowed any time there is a constructive purpose, but in order to be allowed, there must be a constructive purpose.

“In this case they are trying to embarrass him as pressure to give a Get. Also is this social pressure sanctioned by Bais Din?” “I am not saying it’s 100% prohibited to use social pressure in this case. What I am saying is that it’s a minefield, as you can lose your portion in the next world and should be avoided.”

If the Beis Din says to do so, then it is a Mitzvah to do so, and you are not allowed to worry about losing your portion in the next world. If you refuse to listen to the Beis Din, you will be greatly punished in the next world.

The concept of losing your portion in the next World for embarrassing someone should not come into the equation. The only question one should be asking is: “What does the Beis Din/Rabbanim say to do?” If you do the right thing, you will be rewarded. If you don’t, you will be punished.

“This why Bais Din would be stupid to authorize it as they gain nothing by authorizing it but can lose fined so severely that they loose everything they own.”

If they rule that way, then it is not stupid. If it’s stupid, then they don’t rule that way.

“What is happening is that zealots take the ruling as a license to embarrass the husband and in some cases resulting in the husband fleeing the jurisdiction making it more difficult to collect alimony and child support besides making it harder to get him to give a get. Even if he doesn’t flee he can sue in Civil Court the ex-wife, Bais Din and the people defaming him at least here in the US. This why Bais Din would be stupid to authorize it as they gain nothing by authorizing it but can lose fined so severely that they loose everything they own.”

I have been thinking about what you said that there is nothing to gain. Obviously, if the guy would give in and give his wife a get, there is a lot to gain, which is why people would do this.

So I was assuming that you are assuming that most men in this situation won’t give in anyhow. Which made sense to me.

But, when I thought about it some more, I realized that there is a point. The point is that if people know that this can happen to them if they refuse to give their wife a get, then they will make sure not to put themselves in this situation.

That is why Lenny keeps asking if he will be ostracized if he refuses to give his wife a get. No one wants to be ostracized. So the men who are already refusing to give their wives a get may not give in, but ostracizing them will prevent others from doing so.

It’s like jail. Going to jail doesn’t help the criminals who end up there, but fear of jail prevents crime.

Obviously, one should only do these thing if the Rabbanim say to. I know nothing about the matter, so I have no idea if the Rabbanim ever say to or not, and maybe they never do. But if they do, then obviously it’s a Mitzvah to do so, and you will get Olam Haba if you listen, and you will go to gehinnom if you don’t listen. And you may be saving lives by listening. So you definitely have a lot to gain (if the Rabbanim say to do so).

Again, if you do what Hashem wants, you don’t get punished, but if you don’t, then you do. Hashem makes the rules, and He decides who gets punished.

If you listen to Beis Din, you won’t get punished, but if you don’t, you will.

You don’t lose your World-to-Come for embarrassing someone when Hashem says to, and in fact you may lose it if you don’t.

As you already know, the Torah tells us in certain situations that we are required to embarrass others.