Q&A: Excommunication and Rabbeinu Tam’s Sanctions in Our Time
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Excommunication and Rabbeinu Tam’s Sanctions in Our Time
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Sometimes it is publicized that a certain religious court has imposed excommunication or Rabbeinu Tam’s sanctions on a husband who refuses to give a divorce bill. In our time, does a religious court have the authority to do such a thing? If so, which religious court has that kind of authority? And who can lift the excommunication?
With blessings,
Answer
See Yoreh De’ah, section 334. In subsection 12 it states that any person may impose excommunication (for justified reasons), and certainly a religious court may do so as well, even nowadays. See there that a religious court (apparently not only the one that imposed the excommunication) can lift it or ease it.