My father in law wrote a book about the issue of divorce refusers in Judaism, and the apathy of the UK batei din towards the victims of this abuse.
In it he argued that if the rabbanim had been willing to, they could easily find a basis on which to unilaterally dissolve such a marriage.
I personally think that’s true both as a question of historical fact (rabbis have found halachic justification to do just about anything when they really wanted to), and also from the perspective of his modern orthodox philosophy which recognises that as a legitimate flexibility important for Judaism’s survival.
But having grown up Hareidi, I had a better insight into the perspective of the extremely conservative ultra orthodox Jews who run the batei din. And from their perspective, Judaism is basically unchanging, and given that the authors of the Talmud clearly tried to find a solution to the issue of agunot, and could not, it’s a closed case. There’s nothing to do here.
So I explained to him that whilst I might agree with him, all his arguments will do nothing to persuade his target audience, and would get him branded as at best naive, and at worse a heretic. He would do better off by completely removing that line of argument from his book, and focussing purely on the legal issues, on which he is legitimately an expert. “Sure, you might be right, but you’ll never persuade people like that!”
To give a concrete example where I said this:
My father in law wrote a book about the issue of divorce refusers in Judaism, and the apathy of the UK batei din towards the victims of this abuse.
In it he argued that if the rabbanim had been willing to, they could easily find a basis on which to unilaterally dissolve such a marriage.
I personally think that’s true both as a question of historical fact (rabbis have found halachic justification to do just about anything when they really wanted to), and also from the perspective of his modern orthodox philosophy which recognises that as a legitimate flexibility important for Judaism’s survival.
But having grown up Hareidi, I had a better insight into the perspective of the extremely conservative ultra orthodox Jews who run the batei din. And from their perspective, Judaism is basically unchanging, and given that the authors of the Talmud clearly tried to find a solution to the issue of agunot, and could not, it’s a closed case. There’s nothing to do here.
So I explained to him that whilst I might agree with him, all his arguments will do nothing to persuade his target audience, and would get him branded as at best naive, and at worse a heretic. He would do better off by completely removing that line of argument from his book, and focussing purely on the legal issues, on which he is legitimately an expert. “Sure, you might be right, but you’ll never persuade people like that!”