«This is obviously the right approach – rabbinical councils throughout America need to mandate the use of prenuptial agreements by all their members and not tolerate deviation on this matter. Marriages without such agreements produce cases of agunahs – no different from children without vaccinations contracting polio – and it is to credit of the IRF that they are the first rabbinic organization to mandate the right solution to the problem.»
Three Cheers For IRF's Mandating Prenuptial Agreements | JewishPress
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/three-cheers-for-irfs-mandating-prenuptial-agreements/2012/05/23/0/?print
Shalom and Regards,
RRW
7 comments:
Some thoughts:
1) This is a great issue for Modern Orthodoxy to rally around. The Chareidim keep thumping MO's with their "chumros, chumros, chumros!" Well now MO can rally around this: if you're not using this pre-nup you're not being frum enough!
2) It's great that there's protection for potential agunot. Anything in the agreement to prevent aguns?
Now I understand the reason for YU including this page in this year's Shavuos-to-Go. After all, the prenup in question was written by one of their rashei yeshiva (RMWillig) 18 years ago. I was wondering why suddenly now it's an issue that needs to be slid in to a basically off-topic mailing.
For that matter, I think the entire Center for the Jewish Future is YU's attempt to make its form of Mod-O more relevant for the kind of congregation that might otherwise find an Open O rabbi more appealing.
Micha:
I find your statement regarding CJF to be most interesting. It would be interesting to hear how you delineate the attempted similarities and the differences. The result would also be that there is obviously a belief within CJF that the differences are actually more minor in the minds of those interested in Open O -- a belief with which I would not think that those who founded Open O would agree.
If you have elaborated more on this, I would be most interested in knowing where.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
I didn't mean that CJF was ideologically different than the rest of YU. Rather, just as Open O and YCT are attempting to reach the congregation where O affiliation doesn't mean 12 years of yeshiva plus flipping out in Israel, or even an attempt for full observance, so too YU is trying through CJF to provide programs for that population. To be less ivory tower in either the yeshiva or the university sense.
In many ways, though, you are saying alot. In a certain way, what you are saying is that the issue is more one of form not substance. CJF is, to build upon your words, it would seem is challenging Open O by matching it in form -- maybe even correctly doing so -- while not moving away from true Mod O substance. To attempt such a challenge, one has to believe that the attraction of Open O is this form, not the substance of its message. Or that this is the only legitimate area of challenge.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
I will give a mashal, even though this mashal is flawed in that even with this disclaimer, I'm sure at least one 3rd party reader is going to leave with a misimpression of my opinion of Open O.
According to my grandmother a"h (who was there, literally), when they started the Young Israel movement, the idea was to provide "Jewish Center" like presentation to Orthodox Judaism. They hoped this would stem some of the tide to C by giving them the social and cultural trappings that apparently the zeitgeist made desirable. And so, they built the large edifice (eventually) with similar choices of song.... but with a mechitzah and everything else they believed was essential to being O. ("They believed" because avoiding mixed dancing was apparently not on the list of things the early YI felt was essential.)
Perhaps I'm agreeing with your last sentence.
There is an identified population who YU's musmachim weren't reaching as well anymore. YCT decided to aim for them. YU decided to provide programming to eliminate this limitation. Is that identifying "the only legitimate area of challenge"? I'm not even sure Open O explicitly crossed their minds when aiming to address this population, that I would use the word "challenge".
Now that it's a few years later, though, I do think the YU crowd couldn't allow YCT to take a position on the prenup -- a YU RY' invention that explicitly invokes the RCA beis din -- without affirming this ideal as well.
Just as the OU responded to the internet Aseifa by giving a platform to two pyschologists to discuss mitigating the problems brought home with the internet. If the chareidi world will identify an issue, the MO viewer can't be left with the impression that their own kind didn't already discuss it.
And the fact that one has proclamations from gedolei Torah, some of whom never used the internet, while the other has advice from experts in the field, makes all the difference between the movements.
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