Reply To: Is it ever proper to withhold a get?

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#1032152
Joseph
Participant

DY, so lets address the situations where that’s not realistically going to happen.

You’re a dayan. A woman petitions the beis din for a Get. She says that she and her husband disagree on too many things in life so therefore they’re not compatible. That’s her basis. You and the other two dayanim determine that objectively her concerns, even if provable and true, do not fit into any halachic category that requires a husband to give a Get if he does not wish to. The husband, in the evaluation of the beis din you’re sitting on, earnestly and sincerely wishes to continue the marriage. He states he is ready and willing to fulfill all his marital obligations to her, as he had until she left. You and the dayanim agree there is no halachic basis to order a Get. What do you do at that stage (soon after she first walked out); order her to stop being a moredes and return to her husband? Is that what halacha requires?

Okay, that was when the case first came to court soon after the breakup. Now it is two or three years later. Literally nothing changed. She still didn’t return and wants the Get – and he sincerely still wants the marriage. They come back to beis din. At this point you’re sure there’s no realistic chance she’ll ever change her mind or go back. But you also see he is sincere in his stated desire to continue the marriage. You think he is being completely unrealistic and perhaps even delusional in thinking that might happen but you acknowledge his sincerity. You and the other dayanim strongly advise him that you highly recommend he give it since you believe there is no realistic chance she’ll change her mind. He politely declines following the suggestion. I maintain halacha doesn’t obligate he give it and he gets no aveira for not giving it (and she is continually sinning by having walked out), and doesn’t even allow beis din to advise him that he is halachicly required to give it or to demand or pressure that he do so.

Do you disagree and maintain that he, at this stage, is halachicly required to give it? Do you as dayan order him to give it? I maintain that if the beis din does order or pressure it, even if he says even though I don’t want to give it but if beis din orders I am obligated to give it, then I will give it on that basis, it constitutes a Get Me’usa.

What do you, as a dayan, do to insure halachic compliance by both parties as well as insure the beis din itself follows proper halachic requirements here that doesn’t result in a get me’usa or worse?