Worldwide Rabbinic Condemnation Of Controversial Psak ‘Cancelling’ Marriage Due To Husband’s Mental State

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — A psak din (rabbinical ruling) issued confidentially by the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court regarding an aguna has led to significant criticism from leading rabbis around the world. The court is headed by Rabbi Yair Ben Menachem, who initially wrote the psak stating that a certain aguna who had been waiting for a long time to receive a get could get married, since her original marriage was void as the husband was not mentally stable. Rabbi Ben Menachem requested that two other rabbis join his psak before it would be implemented and later Rabbi Daniel Edri and Rabbi Efraim Cohen signed on the psak which would enable the woman to get married.

Criticism of the controversial psak stemmed from the fact that it was based entirely on the claims of the woman and her family and the dayanim had not heard the version of the husband, which is a totally unacceptable procedure according to halacha.

Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzchak Yosef and Rabbi Tzion Boaron, a member of the Higher Rabbinical Court , have both come our forcefully against the psak, stating that “even though the husband is wicked, there is no justification to void the marriage.” Many other leading dayanim in Israel have criticized the psak, stating that the woman is still married.

Rabbi Sariel Rosenberg, the head of the Bnei Brak rabbinical court, also sharply condemned the concept of voiding a marriage due to the husband’s physical or emotional impediments and wrote that one cannot rely on such rulings “since a dayan does not receive Divine assistance unless his goal is to reach the truth whether it is stringent or lenient and not when he is initially searching for a leniency.” A number of other leading rabbis, including Rabbi Yehuda Silman, Rabbi Yaakov Meir Stern and Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Stern, signed on Rabbi Rosenberg’s letter.

In the meantime the heads of the London rabbinical court were also informed of the controversial psak and criticized it for a number of reasons. Firstly, they stated that the Israeli court should have contacted them since the husband lives in London. Moreover they stated that the husband had appeared before them and did not seem to them to be mentally unstable. They therefore stressed that the woman is still halachically married and requires a get.

A new letter was issued with the signatures of Rabbi Chaim Kanievski and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein in which they also protested the psak and called on the rabbinic leaders not to appoint dayanim who could issue such rulings.

In the face of the rabbinic pressure from around the world, the three rabbis who signed the psak have apparently written a letter stating that the woman is not permitted to marry based on their psak. However they have not summoned the woman and told her that she is still married and the letter has apparently not reached the department dealing with agunos which has already closed the woman’s file and therefore the protests continue over the psak.