Regarding the victims of Rabbi Sheinberg and psychological rape

Of course, the article makes no distinction between the question of whether the women who committed adultery were forbidden from their husbands (and then their future children are bastards) and the question of whether there is a concern that their already existing children were created by the Sheinberg marriage and not by the father and are therefore bastards. These are two completely different questions, of course. But perhaps the original article makes the distinction, and here it is just a journalistic article. Beyond that, it is clear that psychological evads are not worth much in this context. To the same extent, one could say that a woman who fell desperately in love with a foreign man is raped. Yazra Al-Basha. Psychological rape is a difficult problem to define (a bit like rape in the opinions of the Radbaz), and professional evads cannot determine what the threshold of rape is (this is a question not for professionals but for people of halakhic law), but it seems to me that this is not an unfounded claim on its face (similar to a baby who was taken by mistake or raped). Although one must judge here according to the Maharik about a woman who committed adultery thinking that there was no prohibition in the matter (in our case: this was done for the purpose of Kabbalistic healing and higher corrections), and his opinion that she is forbidden to her husband (and only by a factual error is she not forbidden to her husband). But there is a place to separate this case from the one being judged according to the Maharik, because here there was no intention of adultery at all. Finally, maybe I didn’t understand the point of your words. I usually see doubts here, but why do you think this is really absurd? —————————————————————————————— Asks: Thanks for the response. What bothers me most (of course, you have to look at things from the inside) is the assumption that a person is considered a fool (or loses the choice) in such circumstances. As you mentioned, the apparent implication is that anyone who has fallen desperately in love with their neighbor is a rapist (and apparently vice versa) – where do you stop? If Godwin will forgive us, there is no doubt that the SS men admired Hitler in an incomprehensible way. Does that mean they are rapists or considered fools and exempt from responsibility? This story came up in the trial of Goel Ratzon, who wanted to accuse him of “enslaveing” the women in his sect, even though they were there of their own free will and were interviewed a thousand times by newspapers and said that they were doing well. In that case, the court did not accept the claim and sent Ratzon to prison for other reasons, but it turns out that the disturbing idea continues to float in the air. In the case of the aforementioned women, this may be a reason to be silent, but there is zero distance between that and someone coming tomorrow and telling me what to do and forcing me to do it because I am essentially under the mental control of Netanyahu or the local rabbi. —————————————————————————————— Rabbi: 1. Indeed, in all these cases the problem of psychological rape arises. But the fact that the line is blurred and difficult to diagnose does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. The question is when the person loses control and acts not as a result of his own choice but as a result of reactions forced upon him. I think we will agree that such situations exist, although they are indeed difficult to diagnose. 2. I assume that the question is quantitative (to what extent the person lost control between 0 and 1), because I don’t think that in most situations there is a complete loss of control, so there is no decision here that is left to professionals. At most, they can say how much control a person has in a given situation (and I highly doubt their ability to do that), but now the court has to come and decide whether such a level of lack of control is considered rape or not. Rabbi Dychovsky is the court here and this was his assessment. It may be debatable, but in principle, this is his role and authority. I don’t think it is anything blatantly unreasonable. —————————————————————————————— Pine: Continuing with what is being discussed here, do you think the court’s decision in the case of Daniel Ambash is justified (mental imprisonment)? —————————————————————————————— Rabbi: I don’t know the case and certainly not its details. —————————————————————————————— Pine: In general, do you think state laws that prohibit things like mental captivity are justified? Or is it because mental captivity is difficult to discern, that it is better to give a presumption of innocence? —————————————————————————————— Rabbi: See my last answer here .

Regarding the question: “Following what was said in this article about law and halacha, do you think state laws that prohibit bigamy/polygamy or incest are justified laws?”

There I answered:
In my opinion, in general, no. There is no place for a law that encroaches on the individual and forces adults not to do what they freely want to do if they are not harmful to others.
It is true that situations in which the legislator assesses that it is not free will should be discussed. There are discussions about this on the subject of prostitution (of adults) which is supposedly done voluntarily by those who engage in it and those who need it, but some claim that it is not free will. I highly doubt this (even at the conceptual level of defining free will in this context.
But I don’t know enough about the issue to take a position.