Q&A: Hidden Will in a Bill of Divorce
Hidden Will in a Bill of Divorce
Question
Hello!
Your view is that there is no justification for coercing a secular person to keep the commandments; there is no such thing as a “hidden will” lurking inside.
And Maimonides’ words on this are well known regarding coercion in the case of a bill of divorce. And in fact the Maharik wrote that there is no reason to coerce an apostate.
However, in Mordechai on tractate Gittin, section 450 (84b), the Rema in the laws of divorce, section 154 paragraph 1, and Hagahot Maimoniyot note 4, wrote that even an apostate is coerced — how does that fit with your approach? After all, in the end the divorce is done not by genuine consent?
I would appreciate it if you could elaborate. Happy holiday!
Answer
I did not say that there is no hidden will. In the last two posts (about weakness of will) I dealt, among other things, with such desires. What I argued is that a person’s unconscious tendencies, which were not built by him, are meaningless. A secular person who does not believe and has no reason to believe — I am not really interested in what is going on deep inside his heart (even if something is going on there). What he wants is what he is conscious of. A person who truly wants to serve God — that is where coercion is relevant. I explained this at length in light of Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey prince. See the second Hasidic intermezzo in my book Man Is Like the Grass. Also see the thread here:
http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=1126082&forum_id=1364
As for an apostate, it depends whether he became an apostate because of his inclination or because he truly does not believe. If he truly does not believe, then clearly there is no point at all in coercing him, and it is ineffective. And even if some halakhic decisor thought otherwise — I do not agree with him, and therefore I see no need to explain his view.
Discussion on Answer
In any case, I would appreciate it if you could explain and give examples for the important principle that Jewish law does not recognize hidden desires (on the face of it, that is the opposite of Religious Zionist thought — and of course there is nothing wrong with that). Happy holiday, and sorry for the bother. The topic is very important and very interesting to me. Thanks again.
As I said, I do not agree with this reasoning, even though you will hear it often from halakhic decisors and Torah scholars in our time. They are referring to some sort of mystical will, and in my view that is meaningless.
I have already written explicitly several times that this runs contrary to the mode of thought of Religious Zionism, which sees the pioneering settlers as fulfilling the commandments of settling and conquering the Land in an unintentional manner.
This seems to me a simple argument, and there is no need for sources. If a hidden will were enough, why would we need to beat him until he says, “I want to”? They should give the divorce in his name, or force him physically to give it even without his saying, “I want to,” since he wants it, and that is that.
It occurred to me that perhaps the Rema, who disagrees with the Maharik (that a divorce does take effect for an apostate), simply did not hold from the outset like Maimonides’ view of the reason for coercion, namely that it is because of will. Perhaps he held that no will is needed at all for a bill of divorce? Or “they hung him until he sold,” and the like? Does that sound plausible to you?
Very implausible. A coerced divorce is invalid because consent is required. Even in the case of “they hung him until he sold,” there is consent.
So then what is the explanation of the Rema, Hagahot Maimoniyot, and the other commentators who wrote that coercion is effective for an apostate??
And just now I saw in Oneg Yom Tov that he wrote that in a matter that is legally obligatory, coercion is not relevant (that is, “it is a commandment to heed the words of the Sages” is not a psychological explanation that the person wants to divorce, but rather a Torah-level law).
Thank you. And in your opinion, did the Rema write this only regarding an apostate because of inclination? It does not seem that way from his words. Do you have any explanation of his view? After all, he, the Mordechai, and Hagahot Maimoniyot are not just negligible later authorities.