[Avodah] Conditions upon a gett

[Motti Yarchinai]

I have a question on the subject of making a gett subject to a condition. There are quite a few anecdotal cases mentioned in the Talmud (Gittin), where a condition created by the husband is attached to a gett. The condition is usually of the form, "let this gett take effect if I don't return by a certain date." However my question concerns something I have not heard of before - whether it is halachically valid for a bet din to unilaterally impose a condition on a gett, requiring the parties to the gett to agree to it in advance by including it as a clause on the application form that the parties must sign as a prerequisite to initiating gett proceedings at the bet din.

Compounding this, the validity of the condition itself is highly questionable, because it is in violation of the domestic law of the jurisdiction in which the bet din and the parties reside and two legal opinions have said that the clause is void ab-initio, by that law. So the bet din is in the position of making the gett contingent (or at least giving the parties to it the impression that it is contingent) on the parties abiding by a clause that is legally void by the law of the land, which, by that law, is the same as if the clause did not exist.

For details of this see this webpage devoted to this issue, which has, over the last two weeks, become a hot topic of discussion on social media in the country concerned. (If the above link does not work for you on first attempt, close the browser tab and try a second time.)

This is not a hypothetical question. There is a gett application pending before that bet din in which one of the parties has crossed out the offending clause in the application form. This occurred in the presence of the bet din's registrar, presumably at the signing and submission of the application form, which must have been done in person. I don't have any information as to whether this will result in the bet din refusing to take on the case or whether it will proceed regardless of that party's rejection of the offending clause.

I would like to know: (a) if the bet din would be halachically justified in taking the former course and, (b) whether, if a couple signed the application form without protesting that clause, but, after the gett was executed, one or both of them violated the terms in that clause, the bet din could, halachically, rescind the gett? My insinct tells me that the answer to (b) is most likely no. I am not so sure about (a).

Even if the bet din never tried to enforce compliance with that clause and would never rescind the gett in the circumstances described in (b), the very existence of the clause is damaging, because it could put off a party to a prospective gett from going ahead with it, and my feeling is that it is not only dangerous to the bet din because it could get it convicted of contempt of court, but is also bad for Judaism because of its tendency to put off a party to a gett from participating, and the clause should therefore be removed.

If there is no-one on this list with the necessary expertise in hilchot gittin to give a competent opinion on this, could someone on the list refer this to a halachic authority for a more authoritative answer?
Motti

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