[Avodah] Kiddushin and Bigamy

[Zev Sero]

On 3/12/2010 1:42 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 03, 2010 at 01:29:24PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> I was wondering if the qiddushin would even be chal. Presumably he said
>>> "kedas Mosheh veYisrael". Isn't minhag part of "das Yisrael"?
>
>> You obviously didn't read the story.  The man gave his first wife a get,
>> and al pi halacha is completely free to marry someone else...
>
> You're right that I missed that important part from the story. I just
> saw the big about him threatening a heter mei'ah rabbanim, the first
> part of that paragraph.
>
> I still wonder about the question I asked -- if he is getting married
> "kedas Mosheh veYisrael", why would a bigamous marriage be chal?

Why not?  It's not bigamous al pi torah.  Oh, I see, you mean a real
bigamous marriage.  Could R Gershom could have decreed that such
marriages wouldn't be chal?  I don't know; it seems presumptious for
a local rav, making a local takanah, to equate himself to the "rabanan"
on whose daas one is mekadesh.  It makes sense to me that "das moshe
veyisrael" means the law of *all* yisrael, not including local takanos
of recent vintage and set to expire soon, which is what R Gershom's
cherem was at the time.  He wasn't to know that it would spread to the
majority of Jewry, and be made permanent by minhag.

In any event, though, whether he could or couldn't have made such a
tenai, the fact is that he didn't.  So the marriage is chal, and the
violator is in cherem.


>> no reason why he should wait for the civil divorce to come through.

> That depends why it's taking so long. I can't comment on a real case
> without knowing why the first wife is making the divorce difficult.

Why does it matter?  What does halacha care about the civil divorce?
What if the couple decided, for one reason or another, not to even
bother with a civil divorce; why would that be a problem?

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher