Private marriage
This page will contain a collection of materials regarding private marriages:
- The court ruled: You are neither married nor single. (Article in YNET)
- Revolution in marriage: Religious refuse to marry at the rabbinate (News article here)
- Federal Court in the matter of a couple who were married by an uncertified Kiddushin order, accompanied by halakhically problematic agreements
- Reference to the Jerusalem Regional Court Decision on Marriage Registration
- Not married, not single: The Oren couple's trap
- Bypassing the Rabbinate: Rabbis who conduct private weddings (Article on Channel 2)
- On conducting private kiddushin in a more correct way or: How to contribute your modest share to the Chief Rabbinate's Mitut (column 3)
- Recorded lesson on private kiddushin and the Chief Rabbinate
- Cancellation of Kiddushin on the grounds of “Adeta Dehaki” (Book of Dead End – 5774)
- Kiddush ceremonies canceled for Aguna whose husband fled to the US (Article on the Kippa website)
- The Chief Rabbinate – The Dream and Its Break (Makor Rishon – 2013)
- What do rabbis and rabbis in religious Zionism think about civil marriage? (Article on Channel 11)
- What do rabbis and rabbis in religious Zionism think about civil marriage? (Video of Torah and Work Loyalists)
- In Israel, civil marriages already exist under the radar. (Article in YNET)
- The Attorney General's Office: We will not enforce a vague criminal law that the Knesset did not coordinate with us (Article in News1)
- Ruling on the matter of a pedophile witness
- In a rare move: a private court annulled the marriage of a woman who refused a divorce. (Article in YNET)
- Despite the fear of bastards: The cancellation of the private court's Kiddushin is not valid (Article in Srougim)
- Response to the revocation of the validity of the cancellation of the Kiddushin
- Case not closed (Article in Bessheba)
- Knesset Attorney General: The law allows private marriages
- First article in the original about the cancellation of the child marriage of a woman who refused a get.
- Responsorial Psalm on Conditions in Marriage
- Responsa on the Marriage of a Divorcee and a Priest
- Responsa on marriage without a rabbinate
- Response to a prenuptial agreement
- Responsa on the Cancellation of Kiddushin
- Responsa on the expropriation of Kiddushin
Rabbi Michi Shalom,
In the article published yesterday in Vint about the couple you married, you say that you asked them to go after the wedding and register with the rabbinate because a situation in which the marriage is not registered is problematic halachically and legally.
That is, as far as I understand, you agree that there must be an organized body in which all married couples in the Jewish people will be registered. When we are talking about a country with 6 million Jews and not a small community in Poland – it is natural that that registration body would be an institution of the state.
So, the Rabbinate's requirement that marriages in the Jewish community be performed exclusively through it sounds logical, because if everyone gets married privately, it's pretty clear that we'll end up in a situation where a lot of couples won't be registered as married anywhere (you may be careful to require that the person you're marrying register with the Rabbinate after the fact, but others don't). It makes sense that a regulatory body that oversees registration would require that this be done with it from the start and not just after the fact. Why, then, are you complaining about the legal prohibition on conducting halachic weddings privately?
(I am not referring at all to those who are not interested in getting married as a Jew and the state forces them to, but only to those who are interested in an Orthodox wedding).
thanks,
I have now written an answer to the questioner on the site. See there (at the end) the regulation issue:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%90%D7%99-%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9F/
There is an assumption in your words that if I don't do this, the situation will be better. And it isn't. The fact is that today there are quite a few couples who get married and don't register. If so, what creates the problem is precisely the policy of the Rabbinate. I am the one trying to solve it. They are not fighting for the character of the Jewish people but for their monopoly on power.
And by the way, there is no difference between a priest and a divorced woman and our case. Why do you accept the ridiculous situation in which a priest and a divorced woman (who were married Orthodox, since in retrospect this applies) accept the High Court of Justice ordering the Rabbinate to register them even though they were not married in a Rabbinate? Why is a couple who wants a conditional consecration and the Rabbinate does not allow it any different from them? He also cannot marry in a Rabbinate, and therefore by the same logic he must also be registered as a married couple even if he was consecrated privately.
You are talking about the Rabbinate's refusal to register after the fact those who married privately. This refusal may be ridiculous and outrageous, but I asked about your motive for marrying those couples, when it is clear that those who marry couples privately cause couples not to be registered anywhere - something that is also problematic in your opinion.
My motive is to dismantle the monopoly of the Rabbinate, which is the cause of this damage. Beyond that, as I wrote, there are already those who marry privately, but they do not register. Therefore, what I do does not cause anyone to marry privately, but at most causes (or tries to cause) those who marry privately to register.
By the way, I only did this once, so my contribution to the matter was negligible. What I wanted was to try and get them to recognize and register such kiddushin even when they are performed by others. In other words, if this act has any effect, it will only be with regard to the registration and not with regard to the phenomenon of private kiddushin.
I came across an article about a campaign by Torah and Labor loyalists in a similar spirit:
http://www.kipa.co.il/now/77446.html
The matter here is much more general.
If we do not accept the rule of law in matters of marriage and divorce, and this is presented here as people who do not want to bring the establishment into their lives, why not in other things as well.
Those who don't want to enlist, those who don't want to get a driver's license from the state, those who want to perform surgery without being recognized as a medical professional, and so on and so forth.
I can very well agree with the criticism of today's rabbinate. But the direction of breaking the monopoly in this way is nothing more than a call for anarchism. This has far broader implications than marriage and divorce.
Rabbi Yuki Shalom.
First, it is not against the law. The Rabbinate is acting against the law. The law does not prohibit private kiddushin, but on the contrary requires that kiddushin be registered whether they were done privately or not. See column 3: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%AA-%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%98%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A0%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94-%D7%99%D7%95/
Second, in this way you are undermining the possibility of civil disobedience. But in sufficiently serious cases, every citizen has the right (and the duty, in my opinion) to express disobedience against the law and bear the consequences. Such as conscientious objection and the like. The claims that this will lead to anarchy serve to neuter the possibility of doing so, and I see them as a serious danger to democracy. By the way, in all directions (left and right, religious and secular), provided that the damage of the law to my values is significant and substantial, and the damage from my disobedience is not disproportionate. I also wrote briefly about this in column 67:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9C%D7%A7%D7%97%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%90%D7%94-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%96%D7%9D-%D7%96%D7%95%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%95%D7%90/