[Avodah] Kofin Oso

[Zev Sero]

On 21/07/2011 1:50 PM, Chana Luntz wrote:
> Note also that from a straight reading of the maskana gemora, there is
> ultimately no requirement of beis din to be the one forcing, just a Jew
> rather than a non Jew (although in the hava mina there is, since there is
> clearly only a mitzvah to listen to the Chachamim if they are genuinely
> Chachamim)

How so?  How is "tolah atzmah beviryonim" any better than "biydei akum"?
The undesirable result is the same, "mafka'as atzmah miydei ba`alah".

BTW, thank you for citing this gemara, I've been trying to recall where
I'd seen it, because it's a major part of the source for the position I've
been advocating here, that a woman is not entitled to a get just because
she wants one.  Here the gemara says it explicitly; that the reason a get
me`useh is pasul is so that a woman who wants out of her marriage should
not be able to simply hire goons and force her husband to divorce her.

Now if BD were able to force any husband to give a get just because his
wife wanted one, then why would it occur to any woman to go to the akum?
She could go to beis din and get the same result!  Obviously a BD lacks
the power to order a get in ordinary circumstances; this power exists
only in the sort of case that Chazal listed, where the marriage is
objectively determined to be one that no reasonable woman could put up
with.  A woman in such a situation has no need for akum, because she can
go to BD, and if necessary the BD will hire the akum; but in an ordinary
case a woman has no recourse to the BD, so if a get me`useh were to work
she would go to the akum and obtain one, and by making it pasul we
prevent this.

And of course post-cherem-dRGMH Ashkenazi men are in the same situation,
since in ordindary circumstances a man can neither divorce his wife
without her consent nor marry someone else.  So if he wants a get he must
persuade her to consent.


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin