Private Kiddushin and the Chief Rabbinate
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The plan for upcoming lectures and the connection to private marriage ceremonies
- The Chief Rabbinate as a governmental institution rather than a Sanhedrin
- The “Zionist vs. Haredi” axis versus the “conservative vs. open” axis
- Slogans versus practice and the disconnect from reality
- Topic examples: conversion, Ethiopian Jewry, and “Zionist” questions
- Criticism of the Rabbinate as a monopoly and a proposal for a regulatory model
- Bypassing the Rabbinate and the chaos that results: Cyprus, non-registration, common-law spouses, and bigamy
- Conditional marriage: fundamentals, the French controversy, and the distinction between validity and policy
- The personal case: a private marriage with a condition, registration, and the “two years in prison” law
- The rabbinical court’s refusal to register and claims of “doubtful marriage”
- A power struggle, a demand for a commitment, and a comparison to a kohen and a divorcee
- The expected appeal, a High Court petition, and preserving the status quo
Summary
General Overview
The speaker presents the issue of private marriage ceremonies as an opening into the broader question of halakhic ruling, tradition, and autonomy, and places it within a wider critique of the Chief Rabbinate as a governmental institution that is not a Sanhedrin, but rather a supposed regulator that has turned into a monopoly. He argues that public discourse around the Rabbinate is trapped in outdated slogans of “Zionist versus Haredi” instead of focusing on the real axis—conservatism versus openness—and on distinguishing between spiritual dreams and institutional practice. From that perspective, he arrives at the view that the Rabbinate is harmful, creates massive workarounds—Cyprus, common-law couples, unregistered marriage ceremonies—and worsens both legal and halakhic chaos. Therefore, he says, it should be shut down and replaced with a transparent model of regulation rather than coercion. Within that framework, he describes a case in which he married a couple in a private ceremony with a condition and led them to register legally, and the Rabbinate’s refusal to register them using halakhic arguments that, in his view, do not hold water and reveal a power struggle.
The plan for upcoming lectures and the connection to private marriage ceremonies
The speaker sums up that until now they have been dealing with Torah study—its meaning, ways of learning, the purpose of learning, and the relationship between learning and halakhic ruling. He lays out three topics for what comes next: how Jewish law is ruled; the status of tradition and autonomy in relation to what was given at Sinai and what was later innovated; and the status of Torah scholars and various exemptions, including exemption from taxes, military service, Maimonides’ “tribe of Levi” at the end of the laws of the Sabbatical year and Jubilee, and Maimonides’ prohibition against making a living from Torah study. He says that since he was asked to speak about private marriage ceremonies, he will begin with that, and if there is time he will touch on a point connected to Passover.
The Chief Rabbinate as a governmental institution rather than a Sanhedrin
The speaker explains that Rabbi Kook initiated the establishment of the Chief Rabbinate before the founding of the State, out of an aspiration to create a supreme Torah institution modeled on the Sanhedrin. But in practice, the Rabbinate is a governmental institution whose authority comes from the legislature. He says the Rabbinate functions by setting procedures within a slot allocated to it by law, and sometimes behaves—or is described—as though it were a supreme authority, even though it is not. He argues that there is no principled problem with such an institution serving as a regulator on behalf of the state, but the problem is that both the Rabbinate and the public keep speaking in the language of “who will lead us,” as though this were supreme Torah leadership, while in practice “nobody” turns to the Rabbinate with halakhic questions and it is perceived as a patronage institution.
The “Zionist vs. Haredi” axis versus the “conservative vs. open” axis
The speaker argues that describing Chief Rabbinate elections as a struggle of “Zionists versus Haredim” is absurd and reflects a lack of understanding. He gives the example of David Lau, whom he does not see as non-Zionist in the usual senses. He says the decisive fault line is not whether someone says Hallel on Independence Day or has a redemptive attitude toward the state, but rather the question of conservatism versus liberalism, and the ability to respond to the spirit of the times in areas such as divorce, conversion, personal status, and kashrut. He argues that there are open Haredi rabbis and very conservative knitted-kippah rabbis, so these debates cannot be mapped according to external identity markers like types of kippot or Zionist declarations.
Slogans versus practice and the disconnect from reality
The speaker argues that religious thinking tends to examine institutions and issues through slogans and representations rather than through what is actually done in practice. He gives the example of “tradition” in Brisk as a place that talks more than anyone about tradition while in practice being extremely innovative, and also cites a memorial volume in which the “treasures of the ancients” are Rabbi Charlap, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, and Rabbi Kook—alongside his claim that this same camp speaks in the name of tradition while creating new traditions. He says the result is living inside a historical dream instead of looking soberly at the reality of a state that has existed for decades and at the way religious life is actually managed.
Topic examples: conversion, Ethiopian Jewry, and “Zionist” questions
The speaker rejects the claim that issues like conversion necessarily fall along a Zionist/non-Zionist axis, and says that he himself is “completely Zionist” yet opposes the commonly accepted approach to conversion today and sees it as contradicting the whole idea of conversion. He distinguishes between opposing retroactive annulment of conversions and the position that “it’s not right to convert this way in the first place,” and presents Rabbi Sherman as an example of someone who strongly opposed annulling conversions but also criticized state conversion. He argues that turning conversion into a camp-identity issue silences internal criticism, and explains that past precedents of conversion for marriage were based on a social assumption that the convert would enter a life of commandment-observance, whereas today it is clear in most cases that this will not happen, so “acceptance of the commandments” becomes empty of content.
Criticism of the Rabbinate as a monopoly and a proposal for a regulatory model
The speaker states that he is on the more liberal side, and therefore in his view the Rabbinate is “a very, very problematic institution,” riddled with failures, and so difficult to repair that the conclusion is that it should have been “shut down yesterday,” because it harms more than it helps. He proposes a model of regulation like a banking supervisor, one that would check reliability and transparency in marriage and kashrut services without imposing one mandatory halakhic worldview on the public. He explains that in the area of kashrut the Rabbinate is not really a regulator but an actual provider of kashrut, and in such a situation conflicts of interest and power struggles arise. He illustrates this through Rabbi Elyashiv, his opposition to the sale permit, and Rabbi Efrati’s commercial interest as someone who stood at the head of the struggle against the sale permit. He argues that in matters of personal status as well, the Rabbinate acts as a player that blocks solutions like conditional marriage, and in this way “creates the problem and prevents the solution.”
Bypassing the Rabbinate and the chaos that results: Cyprus, non-registration, common-law spouses, and bigamy
The speaker argues that the attempt to enforce a marriage monopoly does not work, and the public “votes with its feet” through Cyprus marriages and registration by force of High Court rulings, and also through the growing phenomenon of religious couples who marry in private ceremonies and do not register. He warns of “legal chaos” and “halakhic chaos,” including questions of inheritance, lineage, and mamzerut, and advances a claim of “bigamy under the protection of the law” through parallel recognition of one woman as a legal wife and another as a common-law spouse. He insists that the one creating the disorder is the Rabbinate, not those who bypass it, and explains that the solution is openness and transparency, in which each person—or each person’s rabbi—will examine who conducted a marriage and who handled a divorce, instead of maintaining the facade of “order” that in practice creates multiple separate “peoples.”
Conditional marriage: fundamentals, the French controversy, and the distinction between validity and policy
The speaker says that conditional marriage is a clear Talmudic concept, and explains the structure of the condition as a halakhic transaction in which non-fulfillment of the condition retroactively cancels the marriage. He describes the historical background in France after the French Revolution, when divorce became legitimate and there was an attempt to regulate it through civil institutions, and later a halakhic solution was proposed: marriage on condition, whose termination would be activated according to a court decision. He presents two centers of opposition: policy concerns about cheapening the institution of marriage, and the rule that “there is no condition in marriage,” based on the presumption that “a person does not render his intercourse promiscuous.” He argues, though, that if the wording is explicit and the social reality has changed, the condition can be seen as serious. He emphasizes a layered distinction: the validity of the marriage itself is not in doubt; the validity of the condition depends on wording; there is no essential prohibition on making such a condition; and the main controversy is one of policy, dependent on time and place. In our generation, he says, the problem of women chained to dead marriages and public reluctance make it necessary to rethink the matter.
The personal case: a private marriage with a condition, registration, and the “two years in prison” law
The speaker describes a couple who came to him because they refused to marry through the Rabbinate, and asked for a marriage ceremony with a condition and a prenuptial agreement, which Rabbi Perlman of Alon Shevut drafted. He married them even though he is not authorized by the Rabbinate, and made a condition according to which, in a case of aginut, after a period in which the husband is no longer living with the wife and an authorized rabbinical court determines that a divorce writ is needed, the court would be able to determine that the conditions for terminating the marriage had been met. He told the couple that in practice “no rabbinical court will recognize this,” but at most the condition would be voided and the marriage would remain valid without the condition. He stresses that he required the couple to register as married in order to prevent chaos, and interprets the amendment to the marriage ordinance to mean that the criminal offense is conducting marriage without registration. Therefore, anyone married lawfully must register, and the Rabbinate is obligated to register them. In his view, the law is “a shot in the foot” that effectively turns the Rabbinate into a regulator.
The rabbinical court’s refusal to register and claims of “doubtful marriage”
The speaker describes how the Rabbinate refused to register the couple and sent them to a rabbinical court, and the court, in a panel headed by Rabbi Lavi, refused to register them and wrote that the marriage was “in doubt.” He argues that the motive was to evade the clause requiring registration of valid marriage, and so they tried to undermine its validity. He criticizes arguments that “you cannot effect marriage on condition,” and says that if so, then “the condition is void but the act stands,” so in any case the marriage should be registered as unconditional. He says that the claim of mistaken marriage because the parties expected a condition is simply wrong in light of the Talmudic rules regarding a condition not carried out in proper legal form. He also mentions a claim about “an ancient Jerusalem ban” against separating betrothal and marriage, and responds that the responsa cited themselves describe a custom of separating them going back to Shimon the Righteous, and that here it was only a separation of hours within one continuous event. He also argues that a rabbinical court has no authority to confiscate the money, and therefore no authority to annul the marriage.
A power struggle, a demand for a commitment, and a comparison to a kohen and a divorcee
The speaker argues that the proceeding is being conducted as an institutional struggle by rabbinical judges who are part of the Rabbinate system, and he points out that the couple was offered registration if the rabbi would commit “not to do this again,” which in his eyes reveals that this is about deterrence and preserving power, not about validity. He says that in reality there are hundreds of private officiants, including some who are openly defiant, while he, by contrast, was actually trying to bring a couple to register. Therefore, the system’s action against him is absurd. He compares this to a High Court precedent that required registration of a kohen and a divorcee who married validly despite a prohibition, and argues that all the more so here there should be registration, because there is no prohibition in the condition itself and the marriage is valid; the Rabbinate simply “doesn’t allow it,” as in other cases that end up being bypassed.
The expected appeal, a High Court petition, and preserving the status quo
The speaker estimates that an appeal will be filed to the Great Rabbinical Court and be rejected, and afterward a petition to the High Court of Justice, which will probably also be rejected because the High Court does not like intervening in halakhic discretion. He says the challenge will be to convince them that the arguments are not really halakhic but “nonsense.” He adds that even if the High Court were to compel registration, “the next day the law would be changed,” so in practice “nothing would change.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I was asked to speak a bit about private marriage ceremonies, and it’s even connected to some extent to the next part I want to get into. Basically, up to now we’ve been talking about Torah study—its meaning, how one studies, the different modes of learning, the purpose of learning, the relationship between learning and halakhic ruling. What I wanted to continue with was mainly three things. One is halakhic ruling—meaning, how do you actually rule in Jewish law. Up to now we talked about how and what we learn. So: halakhic ruling, which of course connects to another issue, namely tradition—what was intended from Sinai, what was later innovated, what is the status of what was innovated, how involved we are allowed to be in that, autonomy versus tradition. And another thing I wanted to talk about, which is more current, is the status of Torah scholars, their exemption from various things. In Jewish law there is exemption from taxes, and now people are talking about exemption from military service, Maimonides’ “tribe of Levi” at the end of the laws of the Sabbatical year and Jubilee, and Maimonides’ prohibition against making a living from Torah study. These are things that are somewhat at the margins of the topic. Those were the three things I wanted to discuss, but since I was asked to talk about this issue of private marriage ceremonies, then I…
[Speaker B] Something was just published in the press now that I was…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] involved in—private marriage ceremonies, not through the Rabbinate. And the question is, I heard you made some kind of agreement there.
[Speaker B] There was.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There was also a condition, but that’s another whole story.
[Speaker B] I heard that on Thursday somebody wanted to do it conditionally and Rabbi Stav didn’t agree, and Rabbi Sperber Weiseman didn’t agree, nobody agreed. Right, clearly, and then it came out of this as though the Tzohar rabbis didn’t agree…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] under any circumstances, and people talked about it a lot. Fine, so maybe that can be some kind of opening to the question of halakhic ruling and autonomy in halakhic ruling, but first of all I want to deal with this, and if there’s time—since this is the last lecture before Passover—I’ll touch on some point connected to Passover, the festival of freedom or something like that. And after Passover we’ll begin the topics I just mentioned. All right, so I’ll start with this issue of private marriage ceremonies. As is known, even before the establishment of the State, Rabbi Kook initiated the creation of the Chief Rabbinate. And the Chief Rabbinate is some kind of institution whose founders had—one might say, to some extent—messianic aspirations. Meaning, the feeling was that this would be the supreme Torah institution, some kind of Sanhedrin for our time, more for some and less for others. But in practice—well, what came out in practice today I won’t even talk about—but structurally this institution is not that. It’s not that because it is not the supreme institution. A Sanhedrin is the supreme institution, the highest judicial and legislative body. In Jewish law there isn’t really a separation of powers between a legislative institution and a judicial institution, and here it’s not like that. In the end, the Chief Rabbinate is a governmental institution. It’s a governmental institution whose authority comes from the legislature. First of all, that’s just a fact; it’s not something under dispute. So by virtue of being that, it no longer really competes for that slot of a Sanhedrin; it doesn’t function in that way. It basically determines procedures to a certain extent within a framework allocated to it by the legislature, and it gets its authority from the legislature’s words. Now, in the course of this transition from dreams to reality, some of the dreams remained intact and people didn’t notice that the reality around them had changed a bit. Meaning, sometimes the Rabbinate behaves as though it were a Sanhedrin, even though it isn’t. Sometimes people relate to it as though it were some supreme rabbinic institution, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry when you hear that. You look at the figures who are there—some more, some less—not one of them belongs remotely to the league being talked about, and they themselves know it, just as the whole public knows it. Now, there’s no principled problem with that, because really it was only supposed to be a regulator. It was supposed to be an institution appointed by the state to manage some area of personal status, maybe kashrut—there too it has some kind of authority—and that’s fine. I don’t know what, the successor of Moses in this generation? No. It’s the chief official appointed by the state who is supposed to manage matters, and that’s fine. Meaning, if that’s the law, then someone has to run things. He also doesn’t have to be the greatest rabbi—absolutely doesn’t have to be—and he hasn’t been for a long time. But of course he needs to understand that he isn’t that, and that doesn’t always happen.
[Speaker C] There are people who make sure he won’t be that either. What? Yes, there’s always someone making sure of that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In full cooperation from every branch of the system.
[Speaker C] The sexual value of Rabbi Metzger.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, all right, and all the cooperation of all…
[Speaker C] parts of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the system—there is cooperation in keeping it that way. And on the other hand, the discourse keeps going on as though we were still living in the world of dreams. Meaning, the Chief Rabbinate, and elections to the Chief Rabbinate, and who will lead us, yes? And who… Really—who asks the Chief Rabbinate any halakhic question? It’s just such bizarre discourse. Nobody. From no sector of the public. Not Haredim, not Religious Zionists—nobody. It’s simply not that institution.
[Speaker B] It’s a jobs institution. What? It’s a patronage institution.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine. So that’s part of the issue, but I’m not even talking yet about the corruption and the stink and the patronage and the nepotism. Right, so I’m saying: I’m not talking about that. I’m now talking about the built-in problems that come from the very definition of this institution. Meaning, it has structural problems. Now, I’ll add one more comment, and this is almost entirely on the border of politics, but we’re talking about current affairs. You’re grown people, you obviously form your own positions, I’m not… you’re not young students, so I’m not afraid to get into politics.
[Speaker B] As long as nobody records you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They can record too, that’s perfectly fine. They record and they write, everything is already out there.
[Speaker D] Everything is already out there. Young is relative. Yes, we’re not young. Right, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s like a Jew—you know, some people say a Jew is whoever feels himself to be a Jew, there are definitions like that. So young is also whoever feels himself young. All right. There’s some benefit to postmodern thinking. In any case, I want to add one more comment that seems to me very important, even though it’s purely political, because people don’t notice. There’s a very fundamental bias around this institution that stems from the tension I described earlier. For example, in the last elections Rabbi Stav was mentioned, right? In the last elections to the Chief Rabbinate. So the picture was presented as though basically there was some kind of war here: Zionist rabbis versus Haredi rabbis, and we lost. Meaning, the Zionist rabbis weren’t elected, the Haredim prevailed because the different Religious Zionist factions couldn’t reach agreement. That is an absurd description of reality; it simply points to complete misunderstanding. In the accepted definitions of what is Zionist and what is not Zionist, I don’t think David Lau is non-Zionist. I don’t know him personally, but as far as I know he says Hallel on Independence Day. Didn’t he hope for a state? He wants the state to succeed.
[Speaker D] What’s the difference? Does he watch television programs in the Haredi world? What difference does it make?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It makes no difference at all. I’ll explain in a moment—it’s not important at all. In terms of the parameters of Zionism or non-Zionism, I don’t see any significant difference. I don’t know what he thinks internally, but all in all I see no issue. And it also has no bearing whatsoever on what he actually does as Chief Rabbi. Therefore the question of who says Hallel on Independence Day, and how enthusiastic he is when he says that Hallel, and whether he also says “for a complete redemption”—I don’t remember how that blessing goes there on Independence Day—that’s really a joke. I mean, what difference does it make? The really important fault line is the fault line between, let’s say, the more conservative and the less conservative, the liberals, the open-minded—call it whatever you want. And that does not overlap with the line of Religious Zionism versus Haredism. There are Haredi rabbis who are definitely open; you can see fairly far-reaching and quite bold rulings by Haredi rabbis. And you can see rabbis with knitted kippot who have a very conservative worldview. So the question of what will happen in the Chief Rabbinate has nothing to do with Zionism. The state was established—maybe people didn’t notice. Before that, maybe we debated whether to establish a state or not establish a state. We’re already past that. The state exists. Now the question is simply how we manage religious life—or the patch of religious life that the legislature gave the Rabbinate to manage. Here it is not a question of Zionism at all. What does the way you deal with a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce writ have to do with Zionism? Or any other matter of personal status, conversion, anything—what does it have to do with Zionism? It’s a question of conservatism versus lack of conservatism, and these are two outlooks. Again, without expressing a position at the moment, I’m saying: these are the two outlooks around which the debate ought to be waged.
[Speaker D] We continue out of assumptions—correct or incorrect, up-to-date or outdated—that there is a wishful hope among the Zionist public, right? That there should be a Rabbinate, that there should be a Chief Rabbinate functioning in the best possible way, and that from its own perspective people would want to heed it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but what does that have to do with what I said?
[Speaker D] Because it’s a current, and it’s a matter of what actually happens in practice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But what does it have to do with Zionism? What does it have to do with Zionism?
[Speaker D] Because it’s about a public mood. What, the mood of what? On what issue? I can argue with it, I can disagree with it, I do argue with it—it’s wishful thinking, but…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that this wishful thinking is detached from reality. That’s what I’m arguing with. What you ignored—that’s what I’m dealing with.
[Speaker D] But it’s also detached from reality to say there is no such principled wishful thinking.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say there’s no such wishful thinking. I’m saying that this wishful thinking needs to be corrected, because it’s stuck a hundred years in the past. Today we divide our votes among parties according to the axis of who is Zionist and who isn’t. Why is that interesting? What difference does it make whether a person is Zionist or not Zionist? The question is how he wants to run religion and state here, and that’s not the same question. Within the party once called the Jewish Home—well, not really the Jewish Home, really Tkuma mainly, though there are also such elements in the Jewish Home—there are people who completely belong to the Haredi spectrum. Truly—I’m not speaking in terms of insults, I’m speaking in terms of definitions. In their whole halakhic and Torah worldview, they are completely Haredi. They just wear a knitted kippah and say Hallel on Independence Day. But aside from that, on the place of women they tell you the same thing their Haredi friends tell you. Again, everyone should form his own worldview. I have my worldview; I’m sure each of you also has one. But one should be aware of this: the fault line does not run between those who wear knitted kippot and those who wear black kippot. The fault line runs through the question: what is your halakhic-Torah outlook? It has nothing to do with the state at all. What does it have to do with it? There are people with black kippot whom I know, rabbis with black kippot, who are very open. People who really understand the spirit of the times and can respond to it in what I think is the right way. But again, everyone according to his worldview. And there are people with knitted kippot who are, I don’t know, in the tenth century—stuck in the tenth century.
[Speaker F] That’s not how what you’re saying is perceived. You’re giving examples—there are these and these with black kippot. There are many like that. There are many; it doesn’t matter whether many or few. How is it perceived in the public eye? Why should I care how it’s perceived? Then the public is living in the clouds.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the public needs to come—this is exactly what I’m talking about. So now I’m trying to explain to the public what’s going on.
[Speaker F] A Zionist means one thing, two, three, four. But no—that’s a mistake.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what I’m saying—that there is a mistake here. People think that if someone wears a knitted kippah, that means he’s liberal. No. If someone wears a knitted kippah, that means he says Hallel on Independence Day.
[Speaker F] Most people with knitted kippot are more liberal than most of those with black kippot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true, not true—you’re mistaken, you’re mistaken. And by the way, among those with knitted kippot who actually get elected to office, it’s usually the more conservative wing. On the other hand, among those with black kippot you can choose—because they’re all black kippot, so now you can discover the more open ones.
[Speaker B] The Haredim want to portray the knitted-kippah people as sloppy, lax—I didn’t say sloppy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I think there is a mistake in perception here.
[Speaker D] But the distinction is not only in halakhic implications. I think that at least for part of Religious Zionism there is a tendency to see the state itself, the meaning of the state, as having some redemptive significance, some religious significance,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] whereas…
[Speaker D] while it seems to me that the Haredi public basically doesn’t. It says no, the state is just a tool for all of us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. I didn’t say there’s no difference between Haredim and Religious Zionists—there is a difference. But it has nothing to do with the functioning of the Chief Rabbinate. What does it have to do with the functioning of the Chief Rabbinate? The greatest Haredi rabbis participated in all the Independence Day ceremonies, Memorial Day, and all those things. So what difference does it make? For heaven’s sake, is that the issue? Is that what we’re talking about? Why is that interesting? What matters is what they do. They have a mandate.
[Speaker D] The practice is perhaps really less important than the outlook, but that disconnect is what I’m talking about.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What outlook? You’ve got two grade-four bureaucrats sitting there, called the Chief Rabbis. No, really—that’s the fact, nobody disputes that fact. You can like it or dislike it—that’s the fact. They get instructions, each from somewhere else, it doesn’t matter, but they are bureaucrats who get instructions. Now they sit there and I want them, in my eyes, to represent Moses? We’re not there. If there were someone here who was a supreme spiritual leader and he were elected, then I understand that the public wants someone who also says Hallel enthusiastically on Independence Day because that speaks more to me. We’re not there. We’re choosing people to run the religious-rabbinic system, and we need to be clear-eyed. One of the things that characterizes religious thinking in general—both Haredi and Religious Zionist—is that we examine things through slogans, through what they represent. We don’t look at what they really do. And what they really do often has little to do with the slogans, although people think it does. The slogans may be “faithful to the tradition of our fathers.” You know, in Brisk—that’s the place where they talk the most about tradition. I once spoke about this point, tradition, our rabbis, forbidden to deviate from the tradition—that’s the least traditional and most innovative place there is. People never learned or thought the way they do in Brisk, in the Lithuanian yeshiva world after Brisk. It’s completely innovative. And there they constantly talk about the tradition of our rabbis, forbidden to turn right or left. Anyone who moves a little to the right or left is immediately criticized. It’s absurd. Now, I told this story—once when I spoke about it, there was some memorial book for Rabbi Ra’anan, who was murdered in Hebron, I think, and a memorial volume was published there, and as is usual in memorial books, there was a section of essays called writings of our rabbis, treasures of the ancients. Usually there’s such a section in memorial books. Now you look—who are the treasures of the ancients? Rabbi Charlap, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, and Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook. Okay? Those are the treasures of the ancients. And the people belonging to that camp also constantly go on about tradition. You can constantly see criticism of the Gush people or others that they have no tradition, they’re not following the path of our rabbis. Then you look and you see: these are the very people who innovated things out of whole cloth. Again, I have nothing against innovation, of course. But they innovated things from scratch, invented a new tradition, and they are the greatest champions of tradition. What does that mean? It means that we cling to slogans. We’re detached from what’s really happening. We speak about the state as though it were some dream not yet fulfilled. We’ve already been in this state for sixty years, seventy years. There is a state! Let’s see what’s happening here, not what we would have wanted to happen, not the utopia we paint in our heads. Yes.
[Speaker E] I want to ask about three issues of the Rabbinate and religion-and-state that in some way do lie on the line of Zionist versus non-Zionist. Okay? From easiest to hardest. One is Ethiopian Jewry, the second is conversion, and the third is territories for peace. In all three, the Rabbinate or rabbis had to address them, and maybe that does fall along the line of Zionist and non-Zionist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the first, partially; on the other two, I completely disagree that it has to do with Zionism. I, for example, think that I’m completely Zionist, and I oppose the accepted approach to conversion today. I think it’s wrong to convert people this way and it’s forbidden to do it. I’m not saying it’s invalid after the fact—we’ll also talk about that sometime. But on this issue I’m really on the Haredi side. Now that’s one of these cases of clinging to slogans. There are many Religious Zionist rabbis who think this too. Once it became an issue of whether you’re Zionist or non-Zionist, immediately opinions split into two parties. At some stage I took a bit of an informal survey, I asked people, because I felt—what’s going on here? I don’t agree with it either. Just like Rabbi Sherman there in the rabbinate’s court didn’t agree. I don’t think one should annul the conversion—that’s what bothers me, what he did was outrageous. But I do think it’s not right to convert this way. It’s not right, it contradicts the whole idea of conversion. Fine, he thinks differently, everyone thinks differently, I respect people who think differently, but that’s what I think. So why don’t I find Religious Zionist rabbis also saying this? Saying, listen, it’s forbidden to harm Rabbi Druckman’s honor, you can’t do this in the rabbinical courts, they converted them, you can’t annul it—all of that I agree with—but not to convert this way in the first place. Why? Because it became an issue of Zionist versus non-Zionist. And once it becomes an issue of Zionist versus non-Zionist, then you’re not allowed to speak, because then you’re a traitor, a traitor. But it’s not divided that way. The question of whether you see conversion as some kind of arm for solving the state’s social problems—that does not stem from a Zionist worldview. I don’t think so. I have a Zionist worldview, and I do not think conversion should…
[Speaker E] be used for that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that on this issue of lineage books—or…
[Speaker E] or that you…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] most Religious Zionist rabbis I know oppose the conversion system just like Rabbi Sherman. They oppose the state conversion system just like Rabbi Sherman. They don’t say Rabbi Druckman is wicked, right? They don’t say the conversions should be disqualified because these rabbinical courts are evil and unfit to judge. Fine—that’s a different matter.
[Speaker E] They oppose it from the right, you mean? What? They oppose it from the right, you mean. From right and left, you mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no.
[Speaker E] From the right, from the right. No—from the left? No, from the right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Also regarding Ethiopian Jewry—Rabbi Ovadia, I don’t know, define him as Zionist or non-Zionist, that’s a somewhat complicated question. Rabbi Ovadia was on the side of…
[Speaker E] I’m only saying it’s a halakhic issue, yes, but…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying the connection is very tenuous. I can show you people on both sides who think in both directions. So it’s not… In our day-to-day life… beyond these large questions, in our day-to-day life…
[Speaker E] Zionism itself—you can see that there are things that change…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, but I’m asking what it does in practice. Meaning, what does it mean practically if you are Zionist? Nothing. In elections—I wrote about this once in Makor Rishon, an article where I said, following the feelings of missed opportunity and failure that Rabbi Stav wasn’t elected in the last elections, people thought: we, Religious Zionism, were the majority, and because we were split, we weren’t elected. Wrong, my friends. That was a negligible minority that wasn’t elected because it was a minority. It was the minority of the liberals, not the majority of the Zionists. Those are two different things. The main gatherings against Rabbi Stav were gatherings of Zionist rabbis, not Haredi rabbis.
[Speaker E] Like now there’s a protest outside his house.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Stav’s? Yes. About what?
[Speaker E] About returning to kashrut, to an alternative kashrut system.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, the fault line—or the line around which the discussion is being conducted—is simply the wrong line. We’re stuck a hundred years in the past. The question is what the Chief Rabbinate will actually do today in practice in the areas it deals with—not what path it charts for us. It doesn’t chart a path for anybody. The question is what it will do in practice. That is connected to whether you are open or closed, whether you are conservative or more liberal. And again, it doesn’t matter what your worldview is; if someone is conservative, fine, let him vote for the conservatives. But one needs to know between what and what the choice lies. And people are still stuck in this thing of yes-Zionist or no-Zionist because they remain with that same dream that we will establish here a Sanhedrin that will lead the state spiritually. We’re still speaking about the dream instead of speaking about the practice.
[Speaker G] If I may ask—not about the Chief Rabbinate but about rabbinical judges—I’m worried that the Haredi candidates are generally much more conservative than the candidates of the Jewish Home.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I haven’t done a survey and I don’t know enough personally, but in my impression I don’t agree at all. Look at Rabbi Lavi, who was in the High Court yesterday. I’m somewhat involved, because he’s the head of the rabbinical court in the court that heard our case, though not in this particular matter, so I hope I’m keeping a balanced view. Rabbi Lavi issued that ruling of constructive divorce, and yesterday he was in the High Court.
[Speaker B] Of the Maoz group?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. No—the opposite, of those who wanted to cancel it. Now Rabbi Lavi today, according to people I spoke with who really know the rulings well—I don’t personally track everything going on there—he is the greatest of the conservatives. The greatest of the conservatives. His rulings are terrifyingly conservative, really. But he got this image of some sort of reformer because he ruled there in favor of the constructive divorce, and people didn’t like it—and to some extent justifiably; I think it really is a very problematic ruling. But fine, that’s his opinion, he’s allowed. Yet he acquired some reputation as some revolutionary reformist, and all the women’s organizations are fighting to get him into the supreme rabbinical court, and of course he doesn’t get in because he’s this revolutionary reformist—and they ended up losing the greatest conservative. The man is the greatest of the conservatives. He had one ruling in which he sat—Yehuda here sat with him on the panel, he sat with him on the panel. And Rabbi Lavi is Religious Zionist and has a super-conservative outlook. I see that too in the proceedings in our case, which I’ll get to in a moment. I really think this perspective is mistaken; that’s not the point. And again, I’m saying, this doesn’t disqualify him. It’s allowed to be conservative. That’s legitimate. There are worldviews, and one has to discuss who should be appointed and who should not, and fight over that if one believes this or believes that—not over the question of Zionism. That’s the point. All right, that’s the background. Now I want to get a bit more into the matter itself. So, as a result of all this—now that I’ve laid out the two sides—I’ll say that I’m on the more liberal side, and therefore I think the Rabbinate is a very, very problematic institution. Its conduct is very, very… not only for you—even conservatives can agree with this—very problematic, riddled with many failures. I very much doubt whether it can even be repaired. In my opinion there is no choice but to break the tools, and simply shut it down—yesterday. It should be shut down. It only harms; it helps nothing.
[Speaker H] Privatize it? Make it like a second High Court, so it won’t be a political body?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll tell you what I think. In other words, what’s happening here is basically like what Milton Friedman once said: what saves the State of Israel is two thousand years of exile. Meaning, the government in the State of Israel does everything it can to destroy the economy — this was back in the centralized period, even before Bibi — the government does everything it can to destroy the economy, and what saves us is that over two thousand years of exile we got used to always bypassing government oversight, and that’s what saves the economy. Now it’s the same thing with what’s happening here around the Rabbinate. What’s happening around the Rabbinate is that we’re trying to have some centralized body that will run things here — who gets married, how they get married, and who doesn’t get married. What happens? Fifty percent don’t get married. Of those who do get married, they do it through Cyprus, and the High Court requires the marriages to be registered, including a kohen and a divorcée, including everything. Today there’s a new trend in recent years: couples — mainly religious couples, by the way — couples, mainly religious ones, get married not through the Rabbinate, with private kiddushin, and they don’t register. In other words, today in the State of Israel there are — I don’t know how many, because this is a phenomenon you can’t track, everyone does it on their own — but surely hundreds of couples, if not more than that, and that’s just in recent years, meaning it’s growing and increasing, of couples who get married and are not registered as married. Do you understand what a mess this is? It’s a legal mess, a halakhic / of Jewish law mess, mamzerut, I don’t know who inherits and who doesn’t inherit, fights will start. As a result of the fact that the Rabbinate makes divorce difficult, what has been created? I have a lawyer friend who lectures about this under every leafy tree. What’s been created as a result? Bigamy under the protection of the law. Today the State of Israel has legal bigamy. The state encourages bigamy. Why? Because a person is married to one woman and lives with another woman; the other woman is his common-law partner, the woman married to him is his legal wife, both are recognized as his partners, and that’s bigamy. On the legal level, in every respect, that’s bigamy. One of those fighting against bigamy was an Arab member of Knesset whom they accused of living with several women, of being a bigamist. He said: what do you want from me? You, you recognize bigamy in law. What do you want from me? So with me too, one is a common-law partner and one is my wife. That’s what he said. He was right. Now what is this? Where does it come from? It comes from the attempt to prevent bigamy. That’s Milton Friedman. Meaning, you try — there’s no definition
[Speaker D] in the law that says one is my wife and one is his common-law partner?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe there is, I don’t know. Meaning, it could be that there is. It’s a halakhic / of Jewish law problem, but they say it in court, they don’t say it in… Obviously it’s a halakhic / of Jewish law problem. There are plenty of halakhic / of Jewish law problems here. The question is who inherits, the question is who is whose brother. You stop being able to keep track. If one woman doesn’t know about the other woman, their two children could end up marrying too, for all I know. There are terrible messes here. Now where does this mess come from? This mess comes from the fact that we’re trying to solve the mess. From the fact that we set up an institution to run everything, so there will be registration. So they try this solution or that solution, and it doesn’t help — the public votes with its feet. Now when people say that whoever bypasses the Rabbinate is violating order in the area of personal status, that’s again a disconnect from reality. The one creating the disorder is the Rabbinate. I’ll get to my own case and then I’ll demonstrate this to you very clearly. Fine, so as a result of all this, my conclusion — I’ve already written this several times and said it even more times — is that this institution should be shut down, and the sooner the better, and this is a religious interest of the highest order.
[Speaker B] Why shouldn’t it be like that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What should be? What could there be instead? And I think there also should be — as a person committed to Jewish law, I would be very happy if there were — a regulatory body. Just as there is a supervisor over the banks, a supervisor over insurance, there should be a supervisor over marriage, a supervisor over kashrut. In the area of kashrut, the Rabbinate is not a regulator. In kashrut, the Rabbinate is the kashrut organization responsible for actually granting kashrut, not for regulating private organizations that provide kashrut. As is well known, yes, Rabbi Elyashiv strongly opposed the sale permit and all kinds of things like that. His chief assistant was Rabbi Efrati. A Yavne graduate, by the way, apropos Haredim and Zionists. Rabbi Sherman is also a Yavne graduate. Gomberg, yes. And his assistant, Rabbi Efrati, owned a company that imported fruits and vegetables during the Sabbatical year from Arabs, from abroad, I don’t know from where. A first-rate interested party. And now he stood at the head of the fight against the sale permit. Do you understand? It’s simply ridiculous. So if the Rabbinate is supposed to decide what there will be, then it’s not a regulator. What it should do is say: there is an organization that provides fruits and vegetables not under the sale permit, so write that it’s not under the sale permit, and I’ll check that this is really true. I want to see that the customer gets what he was promised. Okay? There’s an organization that does use the sale permit? No problem. The Rabbinate doesn’t need to decide whether there will be a sale permit or not. What does that have to do with it? Each consumer will decide what he wants to eat, and each supplier will provide what he promises to provide. And the regulator will determine whether the supplier is providing correctly.
[Speaker I] And what about in the area of marriage?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, that’s kashrut. The same thing in the area of marriage. In the area of marriage there are different approaches. There are those who don’t want conditional marriage, kiddushin on condition, and there are those who do want kiddushin on condition. No problem. So the Rabbinate decides there is no kiddushin on condition, and on the other hand of course it chains women and doesn’t let them live. Meaning, it creates the problem and blocks the solution with both hands. Now why does this stem from? What does it stem from? It stems from the fact that the Rabbinate is not a regulator. The Rabbinate is a player on the field. Meaning, if it were a regulator and let people marry freely, it would lose its power. This is a battle over its power, it has nothing to do with anything else, just like in kashrut. So what happens in such a situation is that you have a monopoly, not a regulator. It’s a monopoly over marriage: it has to be done only one way, no matter what the public wants; the question is what the lawmaker wants. Now even if we really love the idea of coercion — I don’t love it personally either — but even if we really do love it, it simply doesn’t work. So it’s a shame — you have to live in reality. It doesn’t work. It creates lots of distortions; people bypass it, as I described earlier. It doesn’t work. So what can be done? We can do what we did over thousands of years of exile: we managed without a Chief Rabbinate and we can keep managing without a Chief Rabbinate. What we actually need to do is have a regulator that ensures that whoever says, I conduct marriages this way, really does conduct them that way. And whoever does it differently, make sure he really does it differently, that he’s not selling me a bill of goods. How I get married I will decide; the Rabbinate will not decide how I get married.
[Speaker H] And then when I look for a wife for my son, you’ll check which religious court, right, which religious court married her mother.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. Come on now. What do you do today? What do you do today?
[Speaker H] Today there are three factions, not eighty factions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are no factions. There are fifty percent who don’t get married at all. Among that fifty percent… Not true — among the fifty percent who do get married, some of them aren’t registered; you don’t even know they got married. You can’t even look up which religious court they did it in, because it isn’t written anywhere. You don’t know they’re married. And this is a phenomenon that’s expanding now. I’m now… it scares me. Okay, fine.
[Speaker I] So that doesn’t scare me. What scares me is a woman who was divorced improperly by a
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] religious court that I don’t know… But do you understand that this too will come? Do you understand that this too will come? It’s only a matter of time — this too will come. If they keep insisting, only we do divorces, the way they do today, this too will come. What’s the alternative? The alternative is to open this whole thing up. And if people get stuck on the slogans, “We want there to be order here,” then there will be the least order possible. But there will be order. So I’m saying regulatory order, not monopolistic order. Those are two different things.
[Speaker I] Order will exist if it isn’t monopolistic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want to marry a woman
[Speaker I] Now, I’ll open the
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] books, I’ll open the books and I’ll see whether she got married and how she got divorced, and then I’ll decide what my attitude is toward those marriages and divorces, and that’s how I’ll make the decision. That’s all.
[Speaker I] Ordinary people will decide like that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. If not, they’ll ask their rabbi and he’ll check. What difference does it make? Just like you do in every area of Jewish law. Today you can’t even do that. That’s exactly it—people keep repeating these slogans: “Wait, what are we going to do, there’ll be two nations here.” There aren’t two nations here today? There are fifteen nations. So what do you mean, there’ll be two nations? Where do you live? You’re creating those two nations. I’m saying that if there weren’t this monopoly, then many more people would get married according to the law of Moses and Israel. Like there is abroad, like there is in many other places. Of course there are also many who won’t, fine, that’s reality, you won’t be able to change that. You try… As for divorce, I said about divorce too that what I said is correct. Look at who divorced them and decide whether you rely on that or not. That’s all. I don’t have a better solution. It’s not ideal in my view… we live… I don’t have a better solution than that. And today’s solution is only worse. Private divorces are on the way, I promise you. Maybe they’re already being done and you don’t know, after all things are done and you don’t know, you can’t know. In the Haredi sector there are religious courts that arrange divorces. Yes, so the rabbinate gives them de facto approval; now they’re already starting a bit more to make it de jure and not only de facto. Haredim were always given approval, that’s obvious, it’s not… In any case, this point—that we keep thinking the rabbinate will put things in order—is like that socialist belief that the government will put things in order. Meaning, it will run everything and everything will be fine. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because in a free society, in a democratic society, people have all kinds of worldviews. Most of them don’t accept this whole system of assumptions, and I don’t like it either, just as I assume many here don’t like it either—but that’s reality. Even if I don’t like it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t reality. And when we don’t understand that this is reality, even bigger troubles happen. I think that if you open everything up and make it transparent, that makes more sense. Everyone will decide what their attitude is toward each thing, but it will be open, it will be transparent. In my opinion, many more people will get married according to the law of Moses and Israel if it’s like that. They’ll really get married according to the law of Moses and Israel. Why? Because people generally do want to do that. Today, religious people who get married according to the law of Moses and Israel aren’t willing to do it through the rabbinate. That couple who came to me came and said, “Not through the rabbinate—we’re not getting married through the rabbinate.” The question was whether I’d be willing to marry them. That’s all. People don’t want it. Why? He doesn’t want this institution, this ugly, leprous institution. He doesn’t like it. What? He doesn’t want this institution; he wants to dismantle it politically. Not because he’ll have a personal problem—though that’s also true—but he also has personal problems, because they wouldn’t marry them with a condition. They wanted a condition, and then get-refusal and agunah situations and things like that can be created. Anyway, now I’m getting to this case. If today there were a halakhic state with a Sanhedrin and so on, there would be the same problem. I’m not sure, because the question is who the public is, not what the state is. If the public were the same public, it would be the same problem, and I believe I would suggest the same thing. But if the public were different, if everyone accepted halakhic authority, then fine, that’s something else. I have no problem with everyone conducting themselves according to Jewish law; I would be very happy if that happened. The only question is what do you do when it doesn’t happen. Do you try to force people by power, or do you say: fine, this is reality, I’ll try to do the best I can within this reality. But in the Second Temple period most people weren’t… I’m not sure; that’s a matter of definitions. You know, even fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, non-religious people also never imagined not getting married through the rabbinate. All the stories, all the stories of Arthur Koestler, if you know “Thieves in the Night,” in his book “Thieves in the Night” he tells there how. He was on duty at the time, or maybe it was another woman too, I don’t know. But on the one hand it shows what this coercion is worth—that rabbis always marry people—and on the other hand it shows that nobody got married without a rabbi. Even the people who made fun of the whole thing didn’t get married without a rabbi. It’s not… Therefore, by the way, regarding conversion—we spoke earlier about conversion. People again make the same mistake. The people who say, after all, marriage-motivated conversions were always accepted. There are many precedents here throughout… marriage-motivated conversions, ideally it’s not proper to accept them, someone who comes to convert in order to get married. But they bring me… I once wrote that in my view it’s a scandal; in my view that conversion isn’t valid at all, a marriage-motivated conversion today. So they said to me: what do you mean? After all, they bring lots of precedents, responsa and medieval authorities and so on, that marriage-motivated conversions, true, it’s forbidden, but after the fact they’re accepted. And this is again simply ignoring reality. What used to be? In the past, if a person wanted to marry a Jewish woman, okay? He understood that he needed to convert. He also understood that after he converted he would live like a Jew, because that’s what it means to be a Jew. So true, he isn’t doing it because he loves the Holy One, blessed be He; he’s doing it because he loves his wife or his future wife. Okay, so therefore he converts, and the assumption is that he will probably observe commandments in one way or another. Again, I don’t know what he’ll do privately inside his home, but broadly speaking he’ll observe commandments because he’s part of the group. So the fact that his motivation wasn’t some lofty motivation—fine. I assume each of us too doesn’t always perform commandments only because he so deeply loves the Holy One, blessed be He. You do it because you belong to the Jewish people, and you know that belonging to the Jewish people means observing commandments. So therefore marriage-motivated conversions, at least after the fact—even if one doesn’t like them ideally—at least after the fact they’re valid. Because in the end he understands that he is taking on the yoke of commandments, no matter why. Okay, but today, someone who undergoes a marriage-motivated conversion—obviously he won’t observe commandments afterwards. After all, three-quarters of the Jewish people don’t observe commandments; Jews by birth don’t observe commandments. Therefore you don’t have that assumption that even if you converted for the sake of marriage, you’ll observe commandments. So what connection is there between those precedents and what you’re doing now? Who says that was the assumption behind those precedents? What? I’m saying it was. Okay, yes, acceptance of commandments is part of conversion. What do you mean? Otherwise what? That’s the law from the Talmudic text. No, no, that’s the law from the Talmudic text. What do you mean—there’s no acceptance of commandments in a case like this, when you know he won’t observe commandments; then it’s not acceptance of commandments. What, he just has to mouth the words and say “I accept commandments”? You know he won’t observe them. So when he said it then, I knew he would observe them. I don’t care that it wasn’t out of love, but he would observe them. Fine, so he’s Jewish. No, fine, obviously this distinction is too black-and-white. But generally I’m saying it functions more like a monopoly than like a regulator, and I simply think it needs to be more of a regulator. And once it becomes a regulator, then you also don’t need all these wars over who will be chief rabbi and who won’t be chief rabbi. As far as I’m concerned there could be a clerk there. The clerk would appoint rabbis who understand the matter, and they would check whether what a person promises is what he actually does. He doesn’t need to decide what should be done, and who is right, and what one should do, and what one must not do. Let it be like abroad. Yes, in England, a restaurant under the Manchester religious court and the London religious court. There’s life there; there’ll be life here too. Yes, exactly, right. According to that, the difference between us and America is not because there is a Chief Rabbinate here, but because there aren’t enough non-Jews here—that’s the whole difference. That’s why there is much more assimilation there than here; that’s the only reason. It’s not because of the Chief Rabbinate—on the contrary, it’s despite the Chief Rabbinate. And if we accept the conversions then there’ll be enough non-Jews. If we accept the conversions there’ll be enough non-Jews because they’re still non-Jews. According to what you’re proposing, then civil marriage too as one of the options? For a kohen and a divorcée and so on? Certainly. A person who decides—either way he’s already living with the partner he wants. If you don’t marry him, he’ll live with her without it, and their children will be their children, and they’ll be recognized by the state as a married couple because they’re common-law spouses, that’s obvious. It won’t help at all. How much can you force norms on the whole public that it doesn’t believe in? It’s simply impossible. I’m in favor of observing Jewish law, but I’m not willing to look at reality as though it isn’t what it is just because I really want it. There’s a difference between what is desirable and what exists—what can I do? As long as we don’t acknowledge that, we’re living in a bubble. Why is there halakhic opposition to a conditional get? What? Or wait, now I’m getting closer to the point, I see that I’m already… The point of conditional kiddushin—it’s not a conditional get, it’s conditional kiddushin. First of all, the proposal’s purpose—first of all, conditional kiddushin appears in the Talmud. So obviously you can do conditional kiddushin. Meaning: “I betroth you on condition that such-and-such be the case,” or “provided that such-and-such be the case.” That if the man becomes a vegetable—wait, now you’re going further. First of all, there is kiddushin with a condition. Kiddushin with a condition means: “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that my father agrees,” “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you bring me two hundred zuz.” “Behold, on condition”—if you bring it to me, you are betrothed; if you don’t bring it, you are not betrothed. It’s a condition like any transaction. And is the duration of the condition or of fulfilling the condition a short period? No, no, it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be. In principle, with divorce by the way there is a rule that it not be an eternal condition, but it could also be a condition for fifty years. Only an eternal one is forbidden because then it’s not severance—but never mind, that’s in divorce. Now let’s talk about conditional kiddushin. So with conditional kiddushin, according to Talmudic law it’s obvious—nobody in the Talmud even chirps against the very basis that kiddushin can be conditional. Obviously you can do it. Rather, what happened? At some stage a proposal arose because of the asymmetry between men and women in kiddushin, and then the man can hold the woman hostage when a dispute arises and he isn’t willing to release her, and she can’t marry another man. He can live with another woman without any significant prohibition, at least. So a proposal arose; mainly it reached its peak in France at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth. Actually it was even earlier, following the Revolution—it started with the French Revolution. Because in France the non-Jewish society underwent a change. It was very—and still is very—Catholic, and until the French Revolution there was no divorce, and divorce was simply a total nonstarter. Meaning, beyond their religious prohibition, it was a socially unacceptable norm. So Jews also didn’t divorce, because that was the norm in the society they lived in. After the French Revolution, divorce began to gain legitimacy, and the Jews also decided it was fine to divorce. Now not only did they decide it was fine to divorce, but since the French decided that the ones responsible for divorce would no longer be the priests but the court or the municipality—I don’t know exactly how their system worked—but the secular authorities. There was no separation of religion and state in France; it still remained a religious state, but in their governmental system there was a separation between religion and state. And the Jews also decided this was good for them. And then what happened was that there were rabbis there—Orthodox rabbis, by the way—who decided that divorces would be done in court and the court would divorce by force of the law of the kingdom, with all kinds of arguments like that, which is simply unbelievable. And it caused an enormous uproar. In Eastern Europe pamphlets and letters were published, and all the leading sages of the generation, and it reached all the way to Rabbi Chaim Ozer—that is, until the middle of the twentieth century. Meaning, it was a process that lasted about a hundred years in one form or another. At some stage the French rabbis understood that this was utter nonsense, and then they proposed another solution: to do conditional kiddushin where the condition says that if the court decides that this couple should divorce, then the kiddushin is annulled. And then that’s retroactive? Retroactive. A condition is always retroactive. For example, could there be a condition granting the religious court authority to divorce in place of the husband? That he appoint them as his agents. That’s not a condition. So he appointed them as agents; that’s not a condition. A condition always suspends the act, and once you suspend the act, then if the condition was not fulfilled there was no kiddushin, so it’s always retroactive. What about the children? What? What about the children? If it’s retroactive? Well, what’s the problem? Children of a couple that isn’t married have no problem at all; they are not mamzerim. So therefore they decided on a condition, and this condition basically came to validate the court’s action—but this time in a halakhic way, because a condition can be made on whatever you want. Like you said, “provided that father agrees”; you say “provided that the judge agrees,” and that’s halakhically fine. Then a controversy arose on two planes. On one plane: is it proper to do this? Not a question of forbidden and permitted, or whether it has legal force or not, but rather you are basically making a mockery of the whole matter of kiddushin and marriage; you are turning it into something much more dynamic, not conducted according to Torah—that’s one question, a question of halakhic policy. The second question is a rule that appears in the Talmud, which says there is no condition in marriage. “There is no condition in marriage” means that if someone betrothed conditionally—the marriage itself cannot really be conditional at all, because marriage isn’t anything with real halakhic significance; kiddushin is the main thing. So you can make the kiddushin conditional. But once you reach the marriage stage, the Talmud’s claim is that the condition falls away. Why? Because think about it—after the marriage, they are already having marital relations, so if after two months suddenly the condition isn’t fulfilled and the kiddushin is annulled, it turns out that all the marital relations over those two months were promiscuous intercourse. Now a person does not want his intercourse to be promiscuous intercourse, and therefore the Sages’ assessment was that even though he made a condition in the kiddushin, once they get to marriage it is cancelled. Meaning, there will no longer be a condition—so obviously he doesn’t intend for the condition to continue after the marriage. That’s an inferred intention. But you understand that even if that is true, obviously if the person does want the condition and doesn’t care that this would render his intercourse promiscuous intercourse, then the condition is valid if he writes explicitly. And the condition is also after the marriage. Exactly. And if there is no presumption that he really didn’t fully intend it—meaning, he says it, but really he didn’t fully intend it… But that matters… But it matters a lot. Go and see—ask people today; obviously they mean it too. No matter what the Talmud says—even if the Talmud said that—obviously we’re talking here about an assessment of reality, not a legal rule. An assessment of reality: the Talmud thinks the person doesn’t really mean it. Okay, but if a religious court today thinks the person does mean it seriously, like with asmakhta—even nowadays he doesn’t think it will ever happen. But I’m saying, if so, then every condition is like that: the person doesn’t think something will happen, so abolish the whole idea of conditions entirely. Why did King David arrange a get, deposit a get, and not do conditional kiddushin? I didn’t understand. In King David’s house, when they went out to war, they say there were full gets, so they used a get. Why didn’t they do conditional kiddushin? Why didn’t they enact then that there be conditional kiddushin? Because why should everyone do it? He did it only for soldiers. And all Jews are soldiers? Today all Jews are soldiers. There was a certain army; whoever goes out to the army should deposit a get. But with kiddushin, everyone gets married; not only soldiers get married. Wait, there could be many explanations. Because then too, what would someone who was already married do? It was already too late; he was already married. Yes, נכון. No, he could enact that from now on they should do conditional kiddushin. Fine, but they’d use a get, but from now… Fine, you can explain a lot of things. In principle, one way or another, it’s clear there is no fundamental problem with such a condition. The whole question is whether the person means it seriously. In France were there known communities in history that did this? What? I didn’t understand. Conditional kiddushin outside France—were there communities? If there were, very few. I didn’t do research on that. Right, very few. Now, as a result of that, very strong opposition to conditional kiddushin arose, because the argument with the French rabbis continued: this basically cheapens the institution of kiddushin; the woman can simply fail to fulfill the condition and then she isn’t a married woman at all, finished—and the whole bond between husband and wife is undermined. Okay, that was their argument. But notice that the debate is conducted on the question of—well, there are actually three levels: whether it is proper or improper to do it, that’s one question—what the institution of marriage looks like when everything is conditional. Second question: whether there is any prohibition in doing it—not policy, but an actual prohibition. Third question: whether the condition is valid, right? There could also be a fourth question: whether kiddushin done in this way is valid—maybe kiddushin done in this way is not valid. Four questions. Now, you have to understand well when reading the sources: on the fourth level, nobody says the kiddushin is invalid, because obviously one cannot say such a thing; the kiddushin is certainly valid in such a case. On the third level—that the condition is invalid—that depends on the wording, but if you formulate the condition properly then the condition is fine. Second level: there is no prohibition at all in doing this. Maybe it’s improper, but there is no prohibition at all. The debate is only on the first level: whether this is the right policy, whether it is proper or improper to do it. That’s the background. Now in our generation, in recent generations, this came up again. It came up again because women feel imprisoned, meaning the husband is holding them hostage. How do you construct the condition? Wait, one second. And so they want to use this mechanism of a condition—or some people proposed using this mechanism of a condition—to free them. Now you have to understand that today is a different era than Europe in the nineteenth or even twentieth century. Today there are quite a lot of people who because of this don’t get married at all, because of this asymmetry and what they see as discrimination and all these things, and today the public is a different public. So if we’re talking about policy considerations, policy depends on era, place, and time. Now I’m not saying this must be the right policy, but I am saying that it needs to be reconsidered, even at the policy level—not to mention that in the next three levels there is no problem at all. Okay, and this couple came to me and wanted not to marry through the rabbinate. They didn’t want to. They don’t like the rabbinate. Now there are many like that, as I said earlier. He’s a friend of my son. In my life I have performed a wedding once, only for this couple; I don’t deal with this. And he’s a friend of my son, and what trouble you caused me with this? No, that I did it—after I did it… Wait, wait. Yes, I’m not certified by the rabbinate and I married them. They asked to marry with a condition and with a prenuptial agreement and also a condition in one formulation or another. I told them: look, the prenuptial agreement was actually done by Rabbi Perlman from Alon Shvut, not by me; it has nothing to do with me. He too got some flak from this establishment, even though he is a rabbi authorized by the rabbinate. And the argument was: if you aren’t creating regulation—even though you want regulation—then create regulation. Say what yes and what no, which agreement is acceptable to you and which isn’t, propose a wording for a condition or say there is no condition—they didn’t say that either. They say nothing, they just reject it. In any case, that’s one thing. Second thing: with me, on the day—because this has to be done on the day of the kiddushin—they signed the condition. Okay? What was the condition? I told them: the condition is that if an agunah issue arises, then the kiddushin is annulled. And if for eighteen months he doesn’t live with her, if he doesn’t want to give the get and an authorized religious court determines that he must give the get—so it’s always by decision of a religious court, the condition. It doesn’t just expire on its own, but a religious court can decide that the conditions have been fulfilled such that the kiddushin is annulled. Okay? That was the wording of the condition. I told them: look, I haven’t gone deeply into the issue of the condition; I don’t even have a clear opinion whether it is proper or improper to do this. I tend to think yes, but it’s not a simple question; it needs to be reconsidered. The character of kiddushin and other things like that. In any case they want it. You want it? No problem. I’m just telling you: we’ll sign a condition, but it will have no significance because no religious court will recognize it; they simply don’t accept this thing. But it doesn’t matter, because even if the condition is invalid, then the condition is invalid and the act remains valid. Meaning, your kiddushin is kiddushin, and at most it will be kiddushin without the condition. That’s all. So we signed the condition, performed the kiddushin; we did the kiddushin in Kibbutz Ein Tzurim in the afternoon and the marriage ceremony in Jerusalem in the evening. They wanted the bride’s grandfather at the kibbutz—the bride’s grandfather—to perform the kiddushin. Anyway. But I told them one more thing. I said: look, there’s this trend of people getting married privately; they don’t want the rabbinate, and from my point of view that’s excellent. But then they don’t register afterward, and in my opinion that is definitely not excellent, and you absolutely must register. If you are a married couple—where should you register? At the rabbinate, at the Interior Ministry, it doesn’t matter—register as a married couple. People need to know that you are a couple, both halakhically and legally. There is no legal system in the world prepared to accept that there is a married couple not registered anywhere. Either he’s registered with a judge or with the municipality or I don’t know where—it doesn’t matter; here it’s with the rabbinate. But you have to be registered. You can’t do such a thing. Tomorrow morning he’ll marry another woman—whose children are whose? Who inherits him? Who is married to whom? She’ll marry someone else—it can also happen, after all there’s no control; they aren’t registered. You can’t do such a thing; you have to register. I told them more than that: there’s the amendment to the Marriage Ordinance that was passed in the previous Knesset term. The way it was reported in the press—and to this day everyone knows it this way—is that someone who performs private kiddushin is liable to up to two years in prison; it’s a criminal offense. This was legislated in the previous term, to the delight of the rabbinate and the Haredim and everyone and the Jewish Home party—speaking of Zionism versus non-Zionism. And by force of the Chief Rabbinate regulation from 5710. Fine—regulations are not a law. So this law, when I looked into it—I’m not a lawyer of course, but I looked at the law—that’s not what it says there. What it says is that if you marry according to law and do not ensure registration, then the rabbi and the couple are liable to up to two years in prison; it’s a criminal offense. I told them: fine, if that’s so, I asked various lawyers what they thought because I’m not a lawyer; they told me I was right. And then in the end what I told them was: look, go register at the rabbinate and tell them: friends, we married according to law. Here are the witnesses, this is the ketubah, this is the rabbi—I wrote them an affidavit—everything was according to the law of Moses and Israel. Now you are obligated to register them, because whoever married according to law must be registered, and whoever does not register them is committing a criminal offense. Okay? So now the rabbinate is obligated to register them. In effect, this law is a self-inflicted shot in the foot by the rabbinate. They thought this would create a monopoly for themselves; with this they destroyed their monopoly. Because now, in effect, anyone who married according to law must be registered—they turned themselves into a regulator. Exactly, they turned themselves into a regulator. They have to register—they don’t merely get to register them, they have to register them! No, that’s not the same thing. Wait, wait, wait. I’m saying, I’m saying, if they married here, there’s no divorce—no, that’s another episode, another episode; if they come for divorce, the High Court—I’ll get to that, that’s another episode. I’m already nearing the end; I just want to complete the picture. Look, it’s like a tax clerk refusing to accept my tax payment and then suing me for not paying tax. The state says one must pay tax, so anyone responsible for this has to do what the law says. True, you can’t put them in prison for two years because the law didn’t say that one who fails to register—only one who… fine, so they won’t get two years in prison, but they do have to register. The law says that someone married according to law must be registered. I’ll say more than that: public policy also says this, because if someone is married, then of course he needs to be registered. That’s true—that’s why the law exists. That’s exactly why the law exists. So in effect, what I told them was: go register. Fine, they went to register after the wedding. Of course they didn’t agree; they sent them away. That was obvious, because the rabbinate doesn’t really care—it cares about its power, not anything else. So they sent them to a religious court so that the religious court would decide. And that’s actually fine, by the way, because really the clerk is not a rabbinic authority; he can’t know whether the kiddushin was according to law or not. He sent them to a rabbinic authority. They went to a religious court, and in that court—yes, the court was Rabbi Lavi, three judges—they refused to register them. A ruling came out some time ago: they refuse to register them. In that ruling a few things are written. Beyond the question of public policy and so on and policy considerations, it also says that the kiddushin is doubtful—doubtful kiddushin, meaning it is not even certain that it is valid at all. Now why do they want that to be the situation? Because if it is valid, then section 7 says that valid kiddushin must be registered, so they have to show that the kiddushin is not valid. Except that of course the arguments don’t hold water. The arguments they wrote for why the kiddushin is invalid are, for example: the kiddushin is conditional; there’s no such thing, you can’t do kiddushin on condition. Why can’t you do kiddushin on condition? I don’t know why. You can’t do kiddushin on condition. So I said, fine, if you can’t do kiddushin on condition, then the condition is invalid and the act remains valid—so what’s the problem? Now they are betrothed without the condition, so what is your claim? Register them as betrothed without the condition; after all, condition invalid, act valid. So they write there in the ruling: no, but they—when they entered into kiddushin, they thought the kiddushin was being done on condition, but the truth is there is no condition because the condition is invalid, so it’s a mistaken transaction, mistaken kiddushin. So I said to them: that is an error against an explicit Mishnah. Why? Because if so, then in all conditions—yes, and suppose the positive was stated without the negative, or the condition came before the act, or the act before the condition—what is the law in the Talmud? The condition is invalid and the act remains valid. Right? One who makes a stipulation against what is written in the Torah. Now what happens there? There too, after all, the couple said, “I thought I was doing the transaction conditionally,” but the condition isn’t valid because the halakhic requirements weren’t met. So then the act should have to be nullified. That’s simply an error against an explicit Mishnah. Third argument: they brought some responsum Pri Ha’aretz, which Rabbi Ovadia cites, and it says that there was an old Jerusalem ban on anyone who separates marriage from kiddushin—yes, sorry, separates marriage from kiddushin, meaning there is a split, that they are not done together. And we did the kiddushin in the afternoon and the marriage in the evening. And Pri Ha’aretz brings this, and Admat Kodesh—these are two responsa that write there that in such a case too the kiddushin is invalid, when someone does this. I said to them: fine, look, first of all—and some of this I said in the religious court, the rest I wrote; I didn’t say it to them because we didn’t meet again after they issued the ruling—there is also a ban against entering Heikhal Shlomo, an old Jerusalem ban. The Chief Rabbinate sits in Heikhal Shlomo. Okay? There is an old ban. There is also the practical ban. Do you know the practical ban? When Pines—Yechiel Michel Pines—arrived in Jerusalem, there was a ban there on anyone who sends his son or daughter to school. It was forbidden to open schools in Jerusalem. That too is an old ban. I said: besides, the question is since when do you have the power to annul kiddushin? Are you in charge of the money here? Meaning, are you, say, the Bank of Israel? Because in order to be able to annul kiddushin you need to expropriate my money. A religious court has no authority to expropriate money from a citizen. A rabbinical court certainly not; even a civil court doesn’t, maybe the government in certain cases. So you don’t have the authority to do that even if it were true. Fourth: in the responsa themselves—Pri Ha’aretz and Admat Kodesh—which they themselves cited, it says: in our place the custom is not to separate the kiddushin from the marriage, and therefore anyone who wants to do so goes to Shimon HaTzaddik, performs the kiddushin there, and returns to Jerusalem to do the marriage. Shimon HaTzaddik is a Jerusalem neighborhood; it’s not far, right? And we went to Ein Tzurim to do the kiddushin. So what’s the problem? So even according to your own responsa—which are absurd in any case—even according to your own responsa there is nothing. So what’s the problem? Besides, this separation was only a matter of hours. What is this? They were occupied with the same matter. And if I do the kiddushin and marriage in the same hall but wait an hour, then the kiddushin is also invalid? How much time counts as separation? After all, we did a ceremony in the afternoon, were occupied with the same matter, drove to Jerusalem, and did the marriage. So what? What separation? These are simply arguments… Why am I saying this? One needs to discuss these arguments on their merits; I’m just showing you… I wrote there that what is happening here is basically that Reuven sues Shimon in court and then sits down to be the judge. He’s the judge. Because what happens is—the religious court is the rabbinate’s court. Now they are operating there as defense attorneys and not as judges—or really as prosecutors. They are representing the rabbinate. Now I have no complaint about that, because fine, it’s the authorized court, what can you do? Who is going to judge it? The rabbinate’s religious court. I accept that; what can I do? It’s absurd, but I accept it. But when I see that the reasons are written at this level, that means there is indeed a problem here. Meaning, if you preserved your integrity and remained a judge, adjudicating the matters on their merits—fine, even though there is some vested interest here. Okay, there’s no choice. But when the arguments are written like a prosecutor’s arguments and not a judge’s, then what? What kind of thing is that? Now this whole business is ultimately just a power struggle, because everything starts with policy considerations. Afterwards they told me—they told the couple—“Is the rabbi willing to commit that he won’t do this again? Then we’ll be willing to register you.” That’s what they said. That is, by the way, the regulation of the director-general of the Chief Rabbinate, Yaakobi. Yes. “Is the rabbi willing to commit that he won’t do this again? Then we’ll register you.” I asked them: tell me, where did all the bans and annulments go? How are you willing to register them? So if I won’t do it again, then suddenly the kiddushin is valid? You forgot? So you understand the level of absurdity. What’s happening here is simply an attempt to preserve power, nothing besides that. There is no real concern here for what happens, because as far as what actually happens is concerned—and I told them that too at the end, I wrote it, I didn’t say it—after all, hundreds, if not more, of people get married privately and do not register. What did we do? What I tried to do was to take these people who would be marrying privately and not registering, and make sure they go register as the law says and as common sense says. So why are you complaining about me? And what about all those who marry people privately, and it appears on television with their names? Anyone can find them; it’s not hard. I was interviewed together with two such rabbis in a Channel 2 report, on the Channel 2 news. Identified by name, they say it openly. There are people—Tomer Persico, who is not a rabbi, yes? Those who know him; he has an interesting blog—he marries couples under a canopy and table, and he calls the police every time. He calls the police every time and says, “Friends, I’m about to perform a wedding, come arrest me.” Fine, the names are known. So who do they come after? The one person who not only did it, but actually prevented precisely that—who took them to register. Which is exactly what should be done, since the couples are married. You have hundreds of unregistered couples. So I tell them: go register. You should examine it—you are the rabbinate, that’s perfectly fine. Check that the kiddushin was according to law. Don’t register them if it wasn’t according to law. But if it was according to law, then you need to register them, no? What else is there to do? The situation is so absurd, and in the end comes this argument about a kohen and a divorcée. The High Court ruled that a kohen and a divorcée who were married according to law privately—because the rabbinate won’t marry them, and you know that for a kohen and a divorcée it’s a prohibition—since kiddushin takes effect in cases involving prohibitions. It’s not like forbidden sexual unions. So the High Court ruled that the kohen and divorcée must be registered. Fine. It compels the rabbinate, the Interior Ministry—I don’t know exactly how this works procedurally—but they are registered as a married couple in every respect. Married halakhically too, because that’s true; they really are halakhically married. Why? After all, the rabbinate doesn’t approve it; it’s private kiddushin. Because they have no way to marry through the rabbinate. Because a kohen and a divorcée—the rabbinate—it’s once again part of this circumvention: they try to impose, and then the system finds ways around it. So if that’s the case, then I wrote there: so what’s the problem? This couple wants to marry conditionally. The rabbinate won’t allow it, right? It’s like a kohen and a divorcée. Meaning: the rabbinate won’t allow it, and they married privately with a condition. So now you have to register them exactly like a kohen and a divorcée. They are married according to law; the rabbinate doesn’t allow them to marry, so now they have to be registered—even before the amendment to the law. Not only because of the amendment saying that anyone who married according to law must be registered, but also according to the precedent that even before this amendment, as with a kohen and a divorcée. After all, according to their conscience they want to marry with a condition. The rabbinate doesn’t allow it, even though the kiddushin is certainly valid. Nobody disputes that the kiddushin is valid, just as with a kohen and a divorcée. More than that—it’s not even like a kohen and a divorcée, because here there is no prohibition. Nobody says there is a prohibition. What prohibition is there on stipulating a condition? The Talmud is full of conditions upon conditions; there is no prohibition in this at all. Rather, maybe a policy argument, that it’s not proper. Fine, that can be debated. But there is no prohibition here, so it is much better than a kohen and a divorcée. So if a kohen and a divorcée must be registered as a married couple, then this certainly must be registered as a married couple. Bottom line—I need to finish—bottom line, I assume they are now filing an appeal to the rabbinate’s supreme religious court, which of course will be rejected. Then they’ll go to the High Court, and in my opinion there is a reasonable chance it will be rejected there too, because the High Court doesn’t like intervening in “halakhic discretion,” in quotation marks. I’ll have to convince them that this wasn’t halakhic discretion; it was nonsense. But for that you have to get into it—meaning, to show them that it doesn’t hold water, that no actual opinion was expressed. If there’s a dispute, then fine: the rabbinate rules like this opinion and not like that opinion. It’s the authorized body; it can rule. You can’t just invent things. Meaning, you can’t write false reasons as a legal ruling. And now you’re relying on the fact that the High Court won’t intervene because these are “halakhic reasons”—you are the authorized body, the civil court can’t intervene. If there’s a religious judge there, maybe there’s a better chance, because he knows how to read it—Mintz or someone like that, someone competent in these matters—then he can read it and understand that it’s nonsense. What? Solberg, I don’t know. I simply don’t know Solberg. So I’m saying it could be, and even if the High Court does intervene and forces them to register them, the law will be changed the next day. So it’s fine, don’t worry—nothing will really change. Sabbath peace.