Yehuda Smith writes: Background: A very one-sided article appeared in a heimishe weekly magazine several weeks ago and was written by a Rabbi who wished to remain anonymous claiming wide scale abuse of the Hetter Meah Rabbonim which allows a man to deposit a get with a Bais Din if his wife refuses to come to Bais Din and also to come and collect her Get, in order not to make the man an Agun, thereby preventing him from remarrying due to his wife’s recalcitrance. According to this purported Rabbi, Botei Din are frequently being bribed large sums to issue the hetter and then the requisite 100 signatures are obtained because those signing the hetter are negligent in checking into its validity.
The following rebuttal was sent to this heimishe magazine but it would appear that it is refusing to publish it. Obviously the truth is the first victim of the relentless campaign of the feminist thugs so prevalent in our frum community and that one can only conclude that this magazine either is afraid of the truth or afraid of annoying its feminist constituents. Either reason is equally disturbing. Please publish this or create a blog in the interests of truth and in the interests of all the men out there who have fallen victim or will (bar minan) fall victim in the future to the corruption out there when a marriage fails, an event becoming more and more prevalent unfortunately.
The Editor
xxx Magazine
Dear Madam
The recent letter from a Rabbi involved in divorce disputes published in your weekly magazine and his subsequent response cannot be left unanswered.
No person with Yiras Shomayim and any sense of decency can condone the Halachically unlawful abuse by men by withholding a Get after a reputable Bais Din has paskened that the husband is obliged to give his wife a Get. However as someone involved in Gittin for several years now, his claims of abuse of the Hetter Meah Rabonnon of Rabeinu Gershon are not only greatly and very wildly exaggerated but are totally one sided.
Far more frequently, on a scale of at least a hundred to one being a very conservative estimate, is the phenomenon in the USA in general, and in New York in particular, of the prevalence of women going to secular court (Arko’oys) with no valid reason and no valid HETTER. To obtain a valid hetter to go to arko’oys is very far from a simple matter. Yet over the last few decades, literally hundreds of women have chosen the path of being Mechalel Sheym Shomayim and being Meirm Yad Kneged Toras Moshe Rabeinu and chosen to litigate in Arko’oys instead. This is often accompanied by Mesirah of the very worst kind. These women obtain not only custody and excessive sums of money that have absolutely no basis in Halochoh (including alimony and equitable distribution to which there is no basis in halochoh) but also impose very dubious Orders of Protection against their husbands, brainwash the children against the husbands, make false allegations of inappropriate behavior against their husbands towards the girls in the family, prevent the husband from having adequate access to the children and bankrupting the husbands in court because of the extremely high cost of litigation. The aim of this litigation, which the wife and her lawyer deliberately drag on for many years is purely revenge, to wear down the husband so that he will not have the strength or resources to continue to fight for his rights. It is also intended to make sure that the husband has no resources and will be unable to remarry or move on otherwise with his life.
This practice has become so widespread that it has become “naasis k’hetter”, “ish hayoshor be’ainov ya’asse” and when a man who rightly demands that a woman leave arko’oys in order to settle monetary issues and child custody issues according to Halochoh before a Get is issued, Rabbis who claim to be yirei shomayim (when in fact they are avaryonim) issue siruvim and charomim when in fact someone who is lo tzeis ledin IS NOT ENTITLED TO ANY RELIEF FROM BAIS DIN, LET ALONE A GET. This is the halochoh, not the words of some ultra conservative women hating Rabbi, please consult Shulchan Oruch Choshen Mishpot 26, not some chumrah or pious behavior for the yidden in Meah Sheorim: Someone who is in arko’oys is considered to be oyved avoydah zoro and loses all rights in Bais Din. There have been several very well publicized instances where Rav Elyashiv and other Gedolim in Eretz Yisroel have been forced to repudiate the Gittin in America because of this problem.
Rabbi Akivah Eiger goes “so far” as to pasken that a woman who is betrothed (mekadesh) with money obtained from arko’oys in excess of what the halohoh mandates is not mekudeshes.
As already mentioned, the problem of women going to arko’oys k’neged halochoh has become extremely prevalent since even before the deaths of Reb Moshe and reb Ya’akov. Yet where is the outrage of this same rabbi for this very prevalent but very destructive behavior from these women so as to destroy any future for these men?
The time has come for Yidden before the Yomim No’roim to stop looking for all types of segulas and chumras and focus on basic Halocho: all Jews get out of arko’oys, you have no business being there. Find an honest Bais Din where the Dayonim do not charge huge sums of money and follow the Halochoh scrupulously and do not dupe you into giving up your rights.
All over we are bombarded with Pas Yisroel, Yayin Mevushal, Cholov Yisroel etc. No child today is called by a non-Jewish name. Yet hypocritically, when it comes to money we reject Hashem, show we have no Bitochon and try and grab what we are not entitled to al pi halochoh. Is it not the biggest Kitrug for Klal Yisroel that at the time our biggest enemies are attempting to implement their Sharia laws globally, we are busy running to Arko’oys?
It is brought down that whoever saves a single life, it is as if he saves the world. Unfortunately, the reverse surely also holds true. Clearly these women in arko’oys must be stopped from destroying worlds. The time has surely come for the Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshivas to mount a very public campaign against going to arko’oys and holchei arko’oys as required in Shulchan Oruch and stop sitting on the sidelines while many, many men are being destroyed.
Yours sincerely
Y Smith
Israel Fathers Rights Adv Council emails: While we want to encourage the general observation of Mr Smith’s comments re the present day lynch mob attitude towards divorcing fathers and, as a result, the crisis of false claims and assertions by divorcing wives in the religious community, we must take exception with one basic premise of his argument:
Find an honest Bais Din where the Dayonim do not charge huge sums of money and follow the Halochoh scrupulously and do not dupe you into giving up your rights.
It pains us no end to say this, but the experience of our membership, from California to New York to Paris to Israel, is that no such Bet Din remotely exists when matters of significant monetary value such as division of property under divorce come into play.
Worst of all are the modern orthodox.
That is a communal tragedy of the 21st century, but it would be irresponsible to keep sending new members down a path of corrupt dayanim and improper rulings.
The bet din system, particularly in the diaspora where no appeal to higher secular courts exists, was never envisioned nor intended for its present application, and never had to contend with the temptations of wealth that now corrupt the lines between adversarial parties and ostensibly neutral rabbis. As a result, the wheels have simply fallen off the process.
Tragic, bur it is irresponsible to continue advocating sending the uninformed into corrupt processes of Halacha simply because it is not your personal Tuchus in the fire.
