A Clarion Call to Our Rabbonim, Shul Presidents, and Shul Members

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

For whatever reason there is, there is a hidden and relatively invisible group of people in our community – the single mothers of Klal Yisroel.  And although many in our communities have tried to institute programs where people volunteer to bring their sons to shul or volunteer to bring them to father-son learning programs, by and large, these programs kind of fall apart after a few months.

And the divorced women who live in our communities are a group whose numbers are growing dramatically.

Most of these women are not members of our shuls either.  These women have children, they have struggles and questions too. 

These women need a Rav who can address the important issues of their lives, and of their children’s lives.  They need a Rav who can help them decide which two of their five children should be the one to go to summer camp.  They need advice that only Daas Torah can give them.

THE SUGGESTION

Each shul should consider taking in between five and ten single mom families to this effect and offer them free or heavily, heavily discounted membership.  True, everyone else is a paying member, but this is a huge need in Klal Yisroel.

In the Far Rockaway/Five Towns community alone, this author has a list of over seventy-five single mothers who could use such assistance and there are, of course, many more. 

Please reach out to me at [email protected] if your shul can offer this to any of them.

THE HALACHA

What does Halacha say about these women and their plight? The pesukim in the Torah tell us about orphans, widows and converts. But what about the growing number of divorcees? And if, in fact, the answer is that we should devote more resources to this invisible group – then we really have to do it.

A few years ago, a woman approached a number of gedolim in Eretz Yisroel about the plight of divorcees and obtained a remarkable letter. [Because there was a slight factual miscommunication in the recipient of the letter, it was never published at the time.] The three gedolim? Rav Aron Leib Shteinman, zt”l; Rav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l and Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, zt”l. The letter is translated below:

To the Honorable Organization..

We have heard of the remarkable acts of chesed that you do with widows, rachmana litzlan, in a most befitting manner. Now you approach with a question in regard to divorced women:

Do they have a similar halachic status in regard to tzedaka and in the manner in which to deal with them on an equal basis?

Our opinion is that the circumstances and situations are equal in their importance.

May the Holy One Blessed Be He enable you to continue in your blessed handiwork.

One who signs with wishes of blessing,

[Rav] Michel Yehudah Lefkowitz, Bnei Brak 5769 [zt”l]

We too join with what has been mentioned above,

[Rav] A.L. Shteinman [zt”l]

[Rav] Chaim Kanievsky [zt”l]

Please consider this and reach out.

The author can be reached at [email protected]