Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Many years ago, I remember the time when I was sixteen years old and I asked the obvious question on a Mishnaic passage to my Talmud teacher: “What if the husband refuses to grant his wife a divorce?” He answered, “In New York, whenever the husband refused to give his wife a religious divorce, a number of men in the community would take him to the cemetery and start digging a grave for him. They would then issue the following ultimatum: ‘The Mishnah says that a woman can become free either through a get, or through the death of her husband.’[1] One way or the other, your wife will be free. Now, how do you wish to free her? You decide.”

There can be little doubt this solution probably worked quite well in the medieval period, but what about now?

Actually, just a few days ago something like the above scenario occurred in the timeless world of Trenton, New Jersey. A Lakewood rabbinic scholar named David Wax, along with his wife, decided to take the halacha into their own hands—quite literally-and they physically threatened to bury an Israeli Orthodox man alive if he refused to grant his wife a get.

According to Reuters News, “Wax and at least two unidentified men administered a beating, showed him a body bag and promised to bury him alive in the Pocono Mountains if he did not agree to the divorce, the complaint alleges. Wax also allegedly forced the man to call his father in Israel, who recorded the call, authorities said.”

Rabbi Wax and his wife may have to spend the rest of their lives in jail for kidnapping. This is serious business.

After reading the article, I remarked to a friend, “Well, I have heard about a shotgun wedding before, but who ever heard of a shotgun divorce?” Perhaps the Chinese are right: we are “living in interesting times.”

Very interesting indeed, but for a rabbi, David Wax acted like a fool. For one thing, there is an important rule that Rabbi Wax completely discounted—with, what I might add, “grave” consequences! The 4th century sage Samuel said, “The law of the State is law.”[2] Secondly, the Bible forbids kidnapping human beings as well as buying or selling stolen or kidnapped persons (cf. Exod. 21:16; Deut. 24:7). Rabbi Wax should have realized the seriousness of these biblical proscriptions.

Vigilantism is forbidden by law; no man may take the law into his or her own hands; there must be due-process. No rabbinical authority has the right to assert that he is above the law when it comes to matters of physical retaliation.

Rabbi Wax of all people, should have known better especially since he wrote a learned exposition on the 613 Mitzvot.

While a part of me feels no pity for the Israeli sleazebag for getting the scare of his life, the real problem that nobody wants to address is the fact that most of the cases involving the laws of “chained wife” ought to be sent to the Halachic phantom zone where other obsolete laws belong, e.g., the law of executing one’s child for insulting a parent (Exod.21:15, 17); or, when it came to executing a rebellious adolescent (Deut. 21:1-21).

Historically, the halacha has always allowed for annulment in cases where men abused the Halachic system in order to torture an unhappy spouse. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Haredi Judaism’s greatest hero and champion, always found a halachic way to dissolve marriages of this type. Where there is a halachic will, there is always a halachic way of solving a problem of this magnitude.

If I were Rabbi Wax’s attorney, I would make this case vividly clear. The real solution is simple and the troglodyte “Gedolim” of our time, simply lack the vision and ethics to do something realistic and practical about it.

One of the great Orthodox scholars of our time, Rabbi Emmanuel Rackman , the former dean of Bar Ilan University wasn’t afraid to retroactively negate the marriage. It is a pity the rest of the Halachic world lacks the moral resolve and courage to do the right thing and free those pathetic women who often remain “chained” for life.