[Avodah] Shaming a gett refuser

Ben Waxman via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Sun Feb 21 11:17:15 PST 2016


[Reposted from Areivim. RCN's position on kofin oso vs. gett me'usah belongs
here. -micha]

My translation of a piece Rav Chayim Navon wrote about the Rabbinate's
decision to allow public shaming of a gett refuser:

    The shaming of gett refuser Oded Gaz is justified. Why? Because
    this is what the beit din ruled to do. Once, when kehilot were
    kehilot, this what a cherem was: effective social excommunication. A
    beit din would use this sparingly, against various types of evil
    people. The weakening of communities, along with social mobility
    weakened this weapon.
    Because these developments, anyone put in cherem simply ignores the
    beit din, or at most, moved somewhere else and started anew. At most,
    social media is rehabilitating excommunication's effectiveness,
    bringing it back to what it should be. Lynching someone on the web
    simply because he's different, or because I'm suspicious of him,
    or I don't like his opinion, or he said something wrong (faux pas),
    that's disgusting. It is something completely different to cooperate
    with the opinion of the beit din, that checked, investigated, looked
    into (a case), until it reached the point that this step was needed.

The original:
https://www.facebook.com/haravnavon/posts/981916848553635?fref=nf&pnref=story



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