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I’m trying to obtain a beis din’s preliminary ruling without actually going to a beis din. My wife & I just want guidance on whether her reasons for wanting a Get are halachically sufficient or not. (I’m of course hoping they’re not.) If someone could post the name of a member of a beis din in NY or NJ who could provide such a service, which I of course would pay for, it would be appreciated. Thanks.
I am not going to comment on the Beis Din, However if you wife wants a Get and you dont want to give it to her so you stay married, that is not a good position to be in. Do you really want to live with someone who hates your guts?
What you are asking for is actually asking a shailoh. It’s not a ruling as much as an opinion of what the law is. Remember the same sorts of people who answer shailohs are the same as those who sit on Beitei Din.
Lenny:
Hisachdus Harabonim on Division St. in Brooklyn.
ZD,
Was there a private communication between you and the OP that you know that is the issue? Or are you commenting on something you know nothing about.
You want to know if your wife has grounds for divorce based on Jewish Law. My advice is to apologize and buy her some jewelry it will be cheaper both financially and mentally. But if you don’t want to, you can contact a Bais Horrah either in your neighborhood or in Lakewood . They will answer your question.
I think you need a marriage counselor more than you need a Beis Din or a Rav.
“My advice is to apologize and buy her some jewelry it will be cheaper both financially and mentally.”
Dumbest advice I’ve ever heard.
You’ve clearly never had an argument with your wife.
ZD, he never said she hated his guts. The fact that someone wants a divorce does not necessarily mean that she hates her husband. I do agree with you in principle that it is probably not a good idea to stay married to someone who wants a get, and your advice is probably wise advice for the majority of situations, but I am not sure there is enough information here to assume that it is accurate for this particular situation.
Sometimes things can be worked out, and I think that most Rabbanim and therapists would agree that it is kidai NOT to get divorced too quickly, and to try to see if things can be worked out first, particularly if there are kids involved.
The more someone resents the situation, the more they will hate you. Even if a spouse doesnt hate now, there is a good chance they will if you force the situation.
People shoot the messenger and not the message , probably have never been married or know someone in a similar situation where someone resents and resents more and more every day the situation
“What’s hilarious is that between the kids yeshiva schooling, new cars, vacations, sizable donations to our shul, etc… etc… we’re doing quite well.”
Why is that hilarious? And what does it have to do with this situation?
Money isnt the end all or be all
That being said, this really isnt the forum for your problem. you need to speak to a marriage counselor and if she refuses you need to speak to a Lawyer
Hatzlacha
Lenny, the Halacha in Shulchan Aruch, regarding gittin cases, is that any charges a wife alleges in order to procure a Get mandate, she needs to prove with evidence in beis din.
Btw, what do you mean they are super friendly?
On the other hand, reading Lenny’s comments, it seems like his wife may have a very valid point. He does seem to want to control her.
It is my understanding no Beis Din would “order” you to give a get unless there was some form of counseling to try and save the marriage.
“we’re doing quite well”
That may be true, but your wife might be looking for something more than an ATM machine as a spouse and she is using these charges against you as a means of “getting out” since she feels you are a hopeless case in the emotional needs department. Perhaps you are not physically abusing her, but you are emotionally. That is what counseling will help figure out.
You don’t need a court.
We will judge you right here.
And we don’t even need evidence.
Supposition and speculation are quite sufficient for us to come to a firm negative judgement.
ZD, as I wrote in my earlier post, in many situations, your words would be excellence advice. I just didn’t think there was enough evidence at that point (after Lenny’s initial post) that this was one of those cases. However, after seeing Lenny’s later posts, it does seem that this may be one of those cases and Lenny would be well-advised to take your words to heart.
Either way, they should definitely speak to a Rav, Beis Din and/or marriage therapist as soon as possible.
“What’s hilarious is that between the kids yeshiva schooling, new cars, vacations, sizable donations to our shul, etc… etc… we’re doing quite well.”
Marriage is not about money.I definitely think marriage therapy is needed here.
Lenny, I’m not sure I understand how the rabbi thought the charges are true if you said he was scratching his head because your wife couldn’t name a single incident in 25 years.
Nishtdayngesheft, wanting to remain married isn’t an example of controlling someone. Shulchan Aruch recognizes many cases where Halacha denies a spouse’s request to divorce.
“As an aside, my Rabbi & wife are super-friendly.”
Maybe THAT is the real problem. If you know what I mean.
“my wife has been telling him this for over 20 years.”
And he didnt say a word about this to YOU for TWENTY YEARS? Either he is a fool, or reuventree555 is on to something.
Reuventree555, from Lenny’s posts, it is quite clear that he did not mean it that way at all. He simply meant that he is her Rav and she confides in him and she is closer to him than Lenny is (since she goes to him for aitza more than Lenny does), so Lenny feels that he is more biased to her views than to his. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is good that she has had someone to speak to all this time, and there is no reason to read things into it and put suspicions in people’s heads.
In fact it probably is a much better to go to Rabbanim for Aitza than to the Coffee Room. I am very happy for Mrs. Lenny that she has an actual Rav to speak to and doesn’t have to resort to the CR!
“Nishtdayngesheft, wanting to remain married isn’t an example of controlling someone. Shulchan Aruch recognizes many cases where Halacha denies a spouse’s request to divorce.”
Joe, I think Nisht was saying this based on reading all of Lenny’s posts carefully. I also have the same feeling as him. He did not make this comment based on the fact that Lenny wants to remain married (since he did not feel this way after reading the initial post, but only after other posts).
Also, I’m not an expert on the topic, but I have never heard of a case in which one spouse wanted to get divorced, and the Beis Din would not let them (after going through marriage therapy and trying to work things out). I think that is probably extremely unusual, especially if it’s the wife who wants the divorce.
APY, I think your comment is Motzi Shem Ra. You may not know these people, but Lenny does. Why raise negative ideas in his head about his wife and Rabbi? And you have no evidence for your comments other than what Lenny wrote. There may be some very good reasons why the Rabbi didn’t say anything to him. Maybe he thought that it would make it worse. Or maybe he did say something and it went over his head. Or maybe he thought that it would be better for the wife to find a way to deal with it herself. I could definitely see why he thought that speaking to the husband directly wouldn’t be a good idea. After all, it was the wife who approached him and not the husband. He is not allowed to repeat what she told him w/o permission and she may not have wanted to. He also has no way of knowing if it’s true or not, and again, he may not have thought it would be helpful. His job was to try to help the wife find a way to deal with it.
In general, posters have to be very careful about jumping to conclusions. You only know a snippet of the story, and even that much may not be completely reliable or objective. You certainly have no right to judge the other people involved without hearing from them!
lilmod, I don’t see what you (and possibly “nisht”, if your understanding of his comment is correct) are seeing in the totality of Lenny’s posts. There’s nothing he said indicating he is controlling.
Also, Shulchan Aruch gives numerous cases where when one spouse requests a divorce and the other spouses wishes to continue the marriage, beis din al pi halacha will deny the request for a divorce. In fact, that is the default. Halachicly, where one spouse wishes to continue the marriage the other spouse cannot mandate a divorce absent proof that their spouse committed a wrong that halacha specifically recognizes as giving cause for a divorce. Absent that, beis din is halachicly mandated to deny the divorce petition.
LU
I am sure there are some cases where a Beis Din will refuse to grant a get, however while the Beis din can theoritically force the wife to remain married to the husband, they cannot force her to cook for him, clean for him, sleep in the same room as him or even stay in the house with him.
I know of a couple who were going through a divorce and the woman remained in the house and slept on the couch and they didnt eat together. It was terrible for the kids to see that
“You certainly have no right to judge the other people involved without hearing from them!”
No one is judging him. We’re sharing our thoughts based on what he told us. You’re the one judging us.
reuventree55- I wrote that you have no right to judge the OTHER people involved. I wasn’t referring to Lenny – he is not the other people involved. You are judging the other people involved without knowing anything about them. On the other hand, I was commenting on the posts that you yourself wrote.
ZD and Joseph – As I said, I don’t know much about the halachos, but I really don’t think it happens very often that L’MAASEH, the Beis Din refuses to allow someone to divorce. It may be true, as you wrote Joseph, that in halacha, there is theoretically such a possibility, but I don’t think that L’MAASEH, it happens very often. ZD only gave one example that he knows of and you haven’t mentioned any. Personally, I know tons of people who are divorced and I have not heard of a single person who wanted to get divorced but was not allowed to.
And I know for a fact that a Beis Din can allow people to get divorced even if neither of them did something wrong. There are plenty of people who get divorced because they are not a good match personality-wise, even though neither of them did anything wrong! I just checked out a divorced guy who was redt to me, and I was told by one of the Rabbanim involved that they got divorced only because of personality reasons (I decided not to go out with him, because I didn’t think his personality would work for me either.)
Reuven – I do apologize if I came across too harshly. I just find that this is a common mistake that people inadvertently make. Since they don’t know the other people involved in a situation, they forget that it is Loshon Hara to say negative things about them to the “poster” or “speaker” who does know the person.
This happens in every day speech all the time, and I have been nichshol many times myself. For example, let’s say Sara is telling me about someone who did something to her, if I say to her, “That was so obnoxious!”, that is Loshon Hara since Sara knows who the person is. The problem is that since I don’t know the other person, it is easy to be nichshol since it doesn’t “feel” like Loshon Hara when you have no idea who the other person is.
It is precisely because it is such a common and easy mistake that I wanted to be “m’orer” the oilam about it.
Lenny – I was simply saying that I (and the other posters) don’t know and we should not jump to conclusions. There are many, many possibilities and we do not have enough facts to know, and I did not think that some of the comments being made were helpful to you. You already have negative feelings about both your wife and your Rabbi (perhaps justifiably), and it will not help your situation if people add to those feelings. It certainly will not help you to maintain your marriage as you want to do, and in the advent that you do end up getting divorced, it will not help you make the divorce process as civil and less hard (I don’t want to write easy in connection with a divorce) as possible.
Lenny: “nishtday, per The Jewish Press, “controlling” is when the husband yells at & puts down his wife because the bathrooms weren’t cleaned well enough or the shabbos dinner is not edible. It’s like abusive type of mind-control. I’m very libertarian & the opposite of controlling. The funny part was the Rabbi thought controlling meant making my kids play baseball when they were little instead of playing video games because I was “controlling” their activities.”
Lenny, in common usage, the word “controlling” can be used in many ways. Personally, I use the word “controlling” very differently (and much more liberally) than you do, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. The word “abuse” as well can be used in many different ways. What is important here is that your wife feels that she is being controlled and abused, and therefore it is an issue that has to be worked out.
In terms of the way you treat your kids, your wife clearly thinks it is problematic even if you don’t. She may be right or you may be right, but it is definitely something you should speak about to and get feedback from a professional, if you care about your kids. Just the fact that the two of you have different views on the topic is cause for concern and something that needs worked out.
In terms of the baseball/video games example, that is the type of thing that really depends on the precise context -exactly what was said and how, and what your children are like, etc. It can be controlling or it might not be, and there is no way for anyone to know who doesn’t know all of the facts.
Lenny, if both spouses are agreeable to getting divorced, there is no shaila and any beis din will grant the Get (often after first discouraging it in an attempt to save the marriage.) The only time it becomes a shaila (or, rather, a beis din trial) is if one spouse wishes to continue the marriage (asking for “shalom bayis”) whereas the other spouse is insistent on getting divorced. In such a case the default halacha is that the beis din cannot grant the divorce unless the spouse petitioning for it provides proof in beis din that he/she was wronged by their spouse in a manner that halacha specifically recognizes them as becoming entitled to a divorce.
The circumstances that halacha recognizes as entitling a spouse to a divorce are very limited and very specific. And alleging them is insufficient in itself to allow beis din to order a divorce be granted, even if the party sounds believable. To take an extreme example, the Shulchan Aruch states that if a wife comes to beis din asking for a Get and says her husband physically hits her, the Mechaber rules that the Halacha is that beis din must give him warning that if he doesn’t stop hitting her they will require he divorce her. And if he continues being violent beis din can and will require he divorce her. But that is assuming she either proves he is violent (i.e. witnesses) or he admits it. But the Shulchan Aruch specifically says that if he denies her allegation of violence, beis din cannot accept it at face value to mandate a divorce. The Shulchan Aruch rules that beis din must place an agent of beis din in the marital home to witness the violence before halacha will permit beis din to mandate a divorce.
Joseph, people get divorced all the time because of personality issues. If what you wrote is true, almost no one would be divorced.
lilmod, as I just mentioned to Lenny, this point is only relevant if one spouse is insisting on shalom bayis whereas the other spouse is insisting on divorce. If both spouses agree to divorce then they can divorce for any or no reason, however silly the reason may be. I don’t know how many divorce cases where one spouse wanted to divorce while the other didn’t and contested the request in beis din, that you are very familiar with the beis din proceedings of, but I’d guess it isn’t very many.
Also note that the Halacha has significant differences when it is the husband contesting the divorce request of the wife versus when it is the wife contesting the divorce request of the husband. The wife’s right to contest a divorce request is only granted to her by a rabbinic decree of Rabbeinu Gershom, and even that is only applicable to Ashkenazim, as min HaTorah a husband is permitted to divorce his wife at will for any reason. OTOH, min HaTorah a husband doesn’t have to divorce his wife unless he wants to. The Torah says that clearly and that is the Halacha.
And beis din’s hands are tied to halacha. If halacha doesn’t require a divorce be granted then beis din cannot order that a divorce be given.
Lenny, I don’t know the details of most people’s divorces. All the people I am talking about have Gets. I did not know (until I read your post) that a civil divorce is considered Halachic grounds for divorce. That may be the way that many of the people that I know got divorced, and that may explain why I have never heard of a case in which the Beis Din refused to grant a divorce.
I agree with ZD that it is not worthwhile to stay married to someone who does not want to be married to you, and I think you should take his advice to heart. I think that in most cases in which one person wants a divorce and the other doesn’t, the other one usually realizes (perhaps with some help from the Rabbanim or therapists involved) that it not worthwhile to refuse to grant the divorce and to insist on remaining married when the spouse doesn’t want to. That is why there are relatively few agunos around.
ZD – I apologize. I see that you were right.
Lenny, in general men who refuse to give a Get to their wives when the wives want to get divorced are very much looked down on in the Frum world, and I do think that in most cases, Rabbanim try to get the husbands to agree to a divorce (after seeing if things can be worked out).
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