Convicted pedophile is legally raising adopted surrogate daughter

YNet   A sex offender convicted of sex crimes against young children who were under his supervision took advantage of a legal loophole and became the father of a girl through an overseas surrogacy arrangement.

The story was brought to the attention of the National Council for the Child by a woman who learned of the man's past convictions. "She told us of the screening tests candidates for adoption must undergo in Israel, and inquired why those seeking to adopt children abroad are not subjected to the same rigorous procedures," NCC Executive Director Dr. Yitzhak Kadman told Yedioth Ahronoth.

The NCC notified the welfare authorities, the educational institution where the daughter, four, is enrolled, as well as police. "We learned that none of the bodies was aware the man was a pedophile who is raising a surrogate daughter on his own," Kadman said. 

 They also learned there was no legal possibility to take the girl from the father, as the surrogacy procedures were intact. However, the father's relationship with his daughter is being carefully monitored by the welfare authorities, and he was made to attend special psychological guidance. [...]

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Get Me'usa: An apparent contradiction between Igros Moshe and Tendler's Mesoras Moshe

I have raised the issue of the usefulness and reliability of Tendler's recently published Mesoras Moshe as a source of knowing Rav Moshe Feinstein's views. Mesores Moshe: What is it?   [see also Review of Mesoras Moshe by Rabbi Hoffman]  Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst writes in his haskoma to Mesoras Moshe that he went over the material to make sure that there was nothing that contradicted the Igros Moshe [something I found rather strange]. However in spite of Rabbi Fuerst's efforts I found something of importance that seems to be an apparent contradiction that has serious consequences. I would appreciate it if someone can explain why my understanding is incorrect.

The issue is, What type of pressure invalidates a get and produces a get me'usa? In the following teshuva from the Igros Moshe (vol 7), Rav Moshe clearly states that pressure that is done for punishment such as financial pressure, jail or beating is unacceptable. However in contrast pressure caused by a bribe to give a get rather than punishment is acceptable. Similarly a promise of help to get the husband out of jail on an unrelated charge is a legitimate way of motivating the giving of a get - but punishing with jail for not giving a get is not acceptable. Even conditioning the giving of a civil divorce on the giving of a get is acceptable because it is viewed as a benefit that he can choose to forgo. 

In sum in the Igros Moshe he says that punishment produces a get me'usa while reward or bribe does not. In apparent contrast in Mesoras Moshe he is alleged to have said, if the husband is tortured to do something he really doesn't want to do by beating or imprisonment in a jail where he will be beaten or killed - then it is invalid as ge me'usa. However all other types of coercion -  if he can withstand the pressure and not give a get unless he wants to - then it is not a get me'usa. There are significant differences between these two sources as what type of pressure can be used. According to the Mesoras Moshe it should be permitted to publicly embarrass the husband as ORA is doing. While according to the Igros Moshe it would clearly be wrong. The Igros Moshe is also in accord with the use of harchas of Rabbeinu Tam while the Mesoras Moshe is definitely not.

The translations of both the Igros Moshe and the Mesoras Moshe are mine and can not be used without my written permission.

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Igros Moshe( E.H. 4:106): This that there is an effort being made to pass a law in the state legislature that whenever a Jew becomes divorced in a secular court he is also obligated to give his wife a valid get in beis din – this is definitely a very major accomplishment. Such a law does not constitute an illegal coerced get (get me’usa) because of the involvement of non‑Jews. That is because the husband has the free will not to divorce his wife according to the secular law. It is only because he wants to obtain a secular divorce in order to be exempt from the financial obligations of his wife and that he will be able to legally marry another woman – and the secular government will not give it to him unless he has given a valid get to his first wife. Therefore he is giving the get of his own free‑will. This is exactly equivalent to one who doesn’t want to give his wife a get but when they give him thousands of shekel – suddenly he becomes willing to give it. This is not considered coerced (me’usa) since he has the free will to decide whether desire for the money is more important to him than the desire not to give the get.  It is a daily occurrence amongst the Jewish people that a husband is given this choice.

The coercion which invalidates a get is when he is beaten or imprisoned or given some other affliction in order that she be given the get. Such cases are considered that he is being forced to give the get – only then is it in invalid. Similarly even in the case of financial pressure in a case where the government obligates him to pay as a punishment for not giving the get is considered as a get given with financial coercion because he doesn’t want to lose the money. An additional case is if someone takes a large sum of money from the husband and refuses to return it unless he gives a divorce – is also considered to be illegal coercion. [See the Shulchan Aruch E.H. 134.4 in the Rema and Pischei Teshuva (E.H. 134.11)] In contrast if the husband is given money to motivate him to want to give the get – it is obvious that this is not considered coercion and it is a daily occurrence. So this concern for obtaining a benefit is exactly the same thing as giving a get in order to obtain a civil divorce. Even if he is imprisoned for a different matter and the wife has someone who is willing to intervene to obtain his freedom on the condition that he give her a get – this is not considered that he was coerced to give a get. That is because the cause of his suffering was not caused by his not giving a get – but because of an unrelated matter. The giving of the get only provides a remedy for removing the suffering. Therefore a get given to stop suffering from an unrelated matter is considered to be total free-will. This is quite simple and logical. This is a valid get even in a situation where he has no obligation to divorce her. [...]

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Mesoras Moshe (Even HaEzer #133 page 440): ... Rav Moshe was asked ... Is it permitted to force a disgusting and criminal husband to divorce his wife by beating him as some are accustomed to do. Rav Moshe replied that a get given as the result of a beating is a get me'usa and it is prohibited to do such. However all other types of pressure are permitted to do since the husband has a true choice concerning what he wants. In other words when he can decide that he would rather not lose money or kavod [that is not considered a get me'usa]. In contrast regarding torture even though he doesn't wnat to give a get but it is impossible for them to handle the pain. We see this in the statement of Chazal, "That if Chananya, Mishal and Ezarya were beaten" [Thus torture produces a get me'usa]. [in a footnote it states] ( And he viewed that only a beating given by beis din was legitimate but that which was given by laymen it is not clear that the consideration that a person really wants to listen to the chachomim applies). I then asked Rav Moshe when prison is considered to be torture [and thus would produce an invalid get]. He replied that in Europe there is no question that it would invalidate the get since it was such a horrible place that involved torture and possibly death... However  here in America perhaps there are types of jail that are not so horrible [and thus would not invalidate the get]

Then I asked Rav Moshe if the husband was beaten but no one told him that the beating would stop if he agreed to divorce his wife but rather he was simply told "you think you can handle this torture. Perhaps now you understand the torture you have caused your wife by making her an aguna" and then stop the beating. If he gives the divorce after this without mentioning the beating..." Rav Moshe laughed and said that maybe the would be valid under these circumstances since the husband isn't t explicitly giving the get because of the beating it would not be considered a get me'usa. However in terms of actually poskening that way Rav Moshe did not want to take the responsibility for such a psak. He said, "Practically speaking it would be impossible for me to permit such an action."

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Rav Triebitz: Challenges of Modernity and Rav S. R Hirsch

This Thursday night at 8:45 Rav Triebitz will continue the discussion about the dealing with modernity - with a discussion of the Seridei Aish's article on Hirsch. Meeting will take place at his home at 6/16 Katzenellenbogen in Har Nof.

Please contact me if you are planning on attending

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Did the Gra strongly oppose the Maskilim as he did Chassidim

In Yale Professor Eliyahu Stern's recently published book on the Vilna Gaon - inserted below - asserts that he didn't publicly oppose maskilim such as Mendelssohn. 

In contrast in Rabbi Dovid Eliach's 3 volume work on the Gra - he cites letters which clearly indicate that the Gra was active in opposing the Haskala.

Prof Etkes in his biography of the Gra cites  the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe claim that the Gra was very pleased with Mendelssohn's translation and encouraged its distribution. Etkes rejects it as baseless. Any thoughts?

Update Prof Stern's Review of R' Eliach's book:MODERN RABBINIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
AND THE LEGACY OF ELIJAH OF VILNA:A REVIEW ESSAY (Modern Judaism 24 (1 )2004

Nowhere is the modern-day significance of the GRA highlighted more than in Dov Eliach’s The Gaon: The Story of His Life and an Explanation of the Teachings of Our Teacher and Rabbi the GRA. Upon opening his work, the author informs us of his cultural biases (though, of course, never calling them such). Eliach wastes little time publicizing that his unique and groundbreaking book has been blessed by his rabbi, Chaim Kanievsky, a leading figure in Haredi circles—a man who seldom if ever gives his blessings to such books. For our purposes, this blessing is mixed. On one hand, it signals an immediate red light to the critical reader. On the other hand, it also notifies the reader just how important and relevant this book is in present-day Haredi society. [...]

In volume 2 of The Gaon the strength and uniqueness of Eliach’s work emerge. Here, he offers one of the most comprehensive overviews of the GRA’s relationship to Torah study and secular knowledge. As is the case with every subject touched on by Eliach in this 1,300-page tome, it is obvious that he read through every book, manuscript, and document (though not all are cited) relating to the GRA’s stance toward knowledge not normally identified with Torah. [...]

However, the main novelty in Eliach’s analysis is his employment of the GRA as a historical marker. Specifically, Eliach uses the GRA as a figure through which he paskens (decides the religious status) on abroad range of different issues and figures identified with modern intellectual Jewish history. A paradigmatic example of Eliach’s historiography is his analysis of Maskillim such as the Av Beit-Din of Berlin, Tzvi Hirsch Levin, and Nafatali Hertz Wesseley. The GRA had little, if any, contact with these Berlin rabbinic figures. Yet Levin’s involvement in writing the only approbation for Mendelssohn’s controversial German translation of the Bible, coupled with Levin’s close ties to many individuals in the GRA’s inner circle, compels Eliach to ask how present-day Haredi culture should perceive these Berlin Jews’ religious identity. Unlike modern historians, such as Jacob Katz, who would have sought to verify whether or not someone such as Rabbi Levin was a Mendelssohnian modern, a Rabbinic apologist, or a Traditionalist, Eliach has concerns that are different but no less descriptive. Namely, he attempts to discern whether Levin or Wesseley should be termed “friend or a foe” of the GRA’s world and, by extension, modern-day Haredi culture. In Eliach’s narrative, historical categories are replaced with subjective sociotheological modes of definition. On some levels, this shift is only semantic. What the historian labels as modern is what Eliach calls “foe,” and what Eliach calls “friend” is what the historian might call traditionalist. However, in other respects this shift marks profound differences. Whereas the intellectual center for most modern Jewish historians is Western Europe and the universe and language of Moses Mendelssohn, Eliach makes the Vilna Gaon and the language and categories of the Eastern European rabbinic elite the basis from which to understand modern Jewish intellectual history. Eliach’s privileging of an Eastern European and rabbinic historiographic paradigm offers him the material to connect modern Jewish history to present-day Haredi society. This connection champions the claim of almost every leading Haredi rabbinic figure: namely, that Haredi yeshivot and social institutions are carbon copies of those thatexisted in pre–World War II Eastern Europe.[...]

Nonetheless, Eliach’s historiographic choices come with a heavy price. His attempt to make the GRA into a general in a war against the Haskalah is historically impossible. Ironically, in describing the GRA’ s relationship to the Haskalah Eliach employs a military trope. Somehow for Eliach the GRA goes from being the frail Talmudic Sage described in volume 1—a man who speaks glowingly about a diet consisting of bread and salt—to a powerful “warrior” “fighting” against the Haskalah described in volume 2. Nonetheless, the stark structuralist lines and oppositions that Eliach draws between the GRA’s Lithuanian community and Mendelssohn’s Berlin world simply could not have existed during either of their lifetimes. It was only after the GRA’s death that a demarcation between these two communities could be seen. As Edward Breuer and others have pointed out, during the GRA’s lifetime these two communities shared a great deal of intellectual currency and did not perceive each other in a hostile manner.

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A review of Masoras Moshe by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

 [see my previous post on this subject Mesores Moshe - What is it?

update: see my recent post  Get Me'usa an apparent contradiction between Igros Moshe and Mesoras Moshe

Five Towns Jewish Times   [...] R. Mordechai Tendler, who had kept notebooks and letters of his saintly grandfather’s rulings in his 18 years as serving as his grandfather’s Gabbai, has just printed a new book of Rav Moshe Feinstein’s oral rulings.  The rulings number well over one thousand, and most of the them are quite fascinating.

The book has approbations from both of Rav Moshe’s sons, Rav Dovid Feinstein Shlita, and Rav Reuvain Feinstein Shlita, as well as Rav Shmuel Fuerst from Chicago and Rav Dovid Cohen from Brooklyn, both leading and well-respected Poskim in the United States.  Rav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita, of Bnei Brak, appended his signature as well to Rav Dovid Cohen’s approbation. [Rav Dovid Cohen and Rav Chaim Kanievsky are very close]. [...]

It is interesting to note that a similar but much thinner volume of rulings from Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l was published approximately two years ago by Rabbi Aharon Felder from Philadelphia.  Indeed, the Rav Felder volume contains rulings that were significantly more controversial than this more recent volume.  Certainly, R. Tendler was aware of these rulings as well, yet either he or, more likely, the editors of this volume chose to exclude them.  Of course there have been rulings emanating from Rav Feinstein that appear neither in this most current volume nor in the Rav Felder volume. [...]

In this author’s opinion, the vast majority of Rav Moshe’s rulings that entered into general acceptance when he was alive still remain generally accepted.  There are some rulings, however, where the trend has been to look elsewhere.  For example, Rav Moshe permitted the use of rebar to prevent cement from cracking when pouring cement for a mikvah.  [Rebar is short for reinforcing bar which helps reinforce or compress concrete through either a bar or wires made of carbon steel]. He held that the metal was batel to the cement.  The tendency for the past number of years of Mikvah builders is to stay away from rebar.  Perhaps this can be explained by the development of greater proficiency in pouring, but conversations with Mikvah builders indicate that there is a halachic trend at play here. In a similar vein, numerous Bnei Torah now look at the U shaped insertable Cholent pot as a problem of Hatmana – insulating, relying on the view of Rav Elyashiv and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.  This is a position that was summarily rejected by Rav Moshe.

Perhaps only time will tell, but the question of how the arrival of this new volume will affect current halachic rulings of contemporary Poskim is certainly an interesting one.  Finally, family members have confirmed that there will be a total of eighteen volumes to be published. The Sefer is available at all major Jewish bookstores.

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Jerusalem Formula: Jewish solution oriented therapy by Dr. Shulem

  Jerusalem Formula Introduction

This is the introduction to Dr Shulem's new book. It deals with how to do sucessful solution-oriented psychotherapy while being consistent with Torah values. Focus is on the precise use of language to cause cognitive shifts and reframing. Dr. Shulem has successfully used this approach and taught it to hundreds of students over the years. On the one hand it seems simple - but it does require proper practice and guidance to be done properly. It clearly demonstrates that good therapy doesn't have to be long or focused on the past.

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Why Lapid is strengthening radical Chareidim or How not to draft the ultra-Orthodox

Times of Israel   by Rachel Azaria  a Jerusalem councilwoman representing the Yerushalmim Party

The government’s Peri Committee is offering a solution to the unequal burden of military service that is far from ideal. Why? Because it won’t result in the ultra-Orthodox joining the army, at least not for the next four years. If so, why are Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid determined to pass the law? Ah… It’s simple: they live in Tel Aviv. In other words, they have never actually met the ultra-Orthodox. 

Over the last decade, Jerusalem residents have witnessed a lengthy, difficult struggle over the character of our city. We have succeeded on a number of fronts: the fight against excluding women from the public sphere, retaining the pluralistic character of neighborhoods, and so much more.

We have succeeded because we became acquainted with the ultra-Orthodox community and we realized one key fact: the ultra-Orthodox community is undergoing significant changes, with two distinct undercurrents pulling in opposite directions. The first trend is an increasing interest in being part of Israeli society. These are people who feel Israeli and value the State of Israel. The other group is increasingly disinterested in joining society at large.

The ultra-Orthodox who wish to integrate into society face two main challenges. One is that they don’t know how to join society, so many don’t. But given the chance, they will gladly find their place. The second challenge is pressure from their more radical peers, who deny their religious devotion, threaten to not accept their children to schools, and other such sanctions. [...]

What we’ve learned in Jerusalem is to encourage the moderate voices in the ultra-Orthodox community, those who wish to join the Israeli and Jerusalemite public sphere and to resist the zealots.

The problem is that the Peri Committee does exactly the opposite. According to its plan, it will continue to exempt the entire ultra-Orthodox community from service. And in four years, anyone who doesn’t join the army – will go to jail.

This precisely empowers the more radical voices, who are waiting for a chance to prove that the secular want only to harass the ultra-Orthodox. Of course they’ll fight the Committee’s plan. It is clear that being jailed will be equated with “martyrdom for the sake of G-d,” playing right into the hands of the more radical groups [...]

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