תשובות בעת מלחמה (אנגלית), גירושיןCollected Responsa in Wartime, Divorce
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1Question:
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2A woman was divorced in the civil courts about a year ago. She has recently obtained a "get". She wants to remarry, and the soldier she is to marry is about to go overseas. However, the prescribed three month interval between the Jewish divorce and intended re-marriage has not yet elapsed. Should we under war-time conditions waive this required period of waiting?
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3Answer:
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4The purpose of the law requiring the three months interval between a divorce and marriage to another man is to establish the paternity of a child so that there should be no doubt whether a child born seven months after a second marriage is a seven month child of the second husband or a nine month child by the first husband. (See the discussion b. Yevomoth 42a.) If we consider merely the question of fulfilling the purpose of law, then we could decide that inasmuch as she has been civilly divorced and therefore separated from her first husband for a period of much longer than three months, the purpose of the law is fulfilled. If we so decide we would be taking the same stand as Rabbi Judah in the Tosefta Yevamoth VI, 6 where the discussion concerns a woman who was driven out of husband's home and had gone home to her father's house, etc. Rabbi Judah decides that she may be married at once to another man i.e., if she has been separated from her husband for a period longer than three months, she may be married at once after her divorce. Somewhat the same reasoning is back of the decision by Joseph Karo in the Shulchan Aruch Even Ha-ezer 13, I, when he decides that the three months must be counted from the day that the divorce is written even though the woman may not get the divorce for a considerable time afterwards, and the reason he gives for this decision is that they had not lived together after the divorce was written.
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5However, although in the case referred to our Committee the woman has been separated from her husband for a period longer than three months and has thus fulfilled the basic purpose of the law of waiting, she may not be remarried until three months have passed since the get, for the law is not according to Rabbi Judah who would permit her immediate marriage, but according to Rabbi Meir who forbids it. (See the Tosefta passage just quoted and b. Yevamoth 42b.) See also Be'er Hagolah to Shulchan Aruch Even Haezer 13,I.) In order to prevent carelessness with regard to the law in the case of a woman the paternity of whose child might be open to doubt if she married before the three month period, the rabbis have made a gezerah forbidding the second marriage before the three month interval, even for such women who would not have been physically intimate with their husbands during the period involved.
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6In guiding our chaplains with regard to such marriages, we should follow the same principle which we have followed in a number of analogous decisions in the past, and ask the chaplain to consider the family background of the parties involved. If, for example, they are from a family belonging to a Reform synagogue which accepts the validity of civil divorce, they may be married. If they belong to a family of stricter observance which does not accept the validity of civil divorce, then the rabbinical law of divorce must be followed, including the requirement of a three month period of waiting for all women, no matter what their individual circumstances may be.
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7In the specific case brought before the Committee, the fact that the woman received a "get" after having had a civil divorce is indication enough that either she or her former husband or the man that she is about to marry is Orthodox and, therefore, she should not be married until the full three month period has elapsed.