The Safed divorce case continues to stir up the world of jurisprudence: The Gaon Rabbi Mordechai Moshe Farbstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Hebron, publishes another letter in which he attacks with rare severity the members of the Safed Beit Din - Av Beit Din Rabbi Uriel Lavie, Rabbi Chaim Bezek and Rabbi Yosef Yaguda. This follows the letter they published last month, in which they accused the Grand Rabbi Farbstein of shedding their blood, after he published a long letter against the ruling they issued, which permits the wife of a man married to a 'seed' by means of a get zikui.
• Safed Court to Hebron Rosh Yeshiva: "We are shedding our blood""
• Judges are afraid to sign a 'call to arms' against the Safed get
In a new and precedent-setting ruling, the Safed judges ruled that the 'get zikui' permit can be used to grant a get to a 'seed' wife who has been in a coma for several years, even though the husband did not order the get. The judges relied on this innovation in practice, wrote a get for the wife, and allowed her to remarry.
The great men of Israel came out strongly against the get and against the dayanim, ruling that the get is invalid and the woman is the wife of a man, and that there is no substance in the words of the dayanim of Safed. Now, as mentioned, the Grand Chamber is responding again to their claims.
Here is the letter as it reached the Haredim10:
""To the members of the Safed Court, Shlita, in response to your open letter to me.
""This letter of mine, like my previous letter, was written with heartache, about the great obstacle that is breaking through the barrier, and about the fact that it came out from under your hands. It seems that you did not understand the purpose of my statement of opinion: its purpose was not to enter into a halakhic debate, but to express my outcry and protest against the terrible burden of three judges, who are not among the oldest scholars of the generation, who dared to trust themselves to do something to divorce a man's wife in a way that our rabbis did not do, and to publish the matter only after the fact.
""Don't you see that even the great men of the generation, such as Rabbi Akiva Eiger and his ilk, did not trust themselves and made their permits conditional on the fact that before the permit was actually granted, more great men of the generation would join them, and you, before you made the get, should have sent your conclusion with its reasons and asked that several of the great rabbis of our generation join it in writing, and not relied on a statement that has nothing after it, 'We consulted, etc.'" or on various conversations that are not actually legal.
""The resentment as to why I didn't contact you is puzzling - if you are indeed listening to my advice, you are the ones who should have offered your opinion to me before you performed the get.".
And you, whose first use of the Gra"d Auerbach shlit"a (Chief Rabbi and Av Beit Din of Tiberias, 1999), wouldn't it have been appropriate for you to consult him first? The best thing you could do is have that guru write about you that you are exploring the Torah in a way that is not correct?
""And you added another sin in your last response, with words of disdain for the greatness of the scholars and elders of the generation.".
The claims in your words regarding hearing the facts concerning this divorce are also nonsense. The errors in the ruling are errors in halacha, in the laws of acquittal and writing a divorce for its own sake, and do not concern hearing the facts themselves and knowing the details of the divorce.
""My goal in writing halachic arguments was not, as stated, to enter into halachic negotiations on matters that are indeed not worthy of entering the walls of the Beit Midrash, as the Grand Rabbi Shlita wrote, but rather I thought I should add to my words some halachic arguments, which are a small part of what I have to say, so that everyone would know that I have carefully studied your arguments, and thus the words would receive great resonance and be given weight, as indeed happened.
""For the same reason, and also to give more force to my protest, I will not enter into halakhic negotiations, I will only say that I carefully read the entire letter addressed to me, and I saw that there is no substance in the words. The words are full of errors in simple matters, and you have given the rabbi a bad name with incorrect grammar. In your ruling and in your letter, you have caused serious harm to the courts. This ruling is not just a 'renewed ruling that is not agreed upon by other scholars of the Torah' (quotations from the ruling, Y.H.), but is a complete mistake and a dangerous precedent. From now on, I have no intention of continuing negotiations with you.
""The writer and signer regretfully regrets the stumbling block that has come from under your hand, and for the fact that you are holding on to your mistake. Moshe Mordechai Farbstein""
As you may recall, last week we revealed here at Haredim10 that a move to have judges sign a petition against the get was blocked, due to the fear of many judges not to be promoted by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on the committee for selecting judges.
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