What and Who exactly is a Mesader Gittin?

The Rabbinical Assembly decided two years ago to start a course for Rabbis who wished to learn everything needed to be able to become a Mesader Gittin — a Rabbi who is an expert in matters of Jewish Divorce, which in our case involves the actual writing of The Get itself.

For the past two years, I studied together with about 18 of my colleagues. The course was so difficult and complicated that only seven of the original 18 have completed the final exam.

This past June, I became a certified Mesader Gittin! This has been one of my greatest personal accomplishments because it requires very unique skills. Each Get is prepared and written by hand with a Kulmus (Quill). The names of the parties named in the Get have to be perfectly written in accordance to our tradition or the Get can be invalid.

Since something very small but inaccurate in the writing can cause the whole Get to be invalid, one has to be very precise and accurate.

Many people have asked me why did I chose to learn this! After all, Weddings, B’nei Mitzvah, Baby naming — that is what Rabbis always want to do. Why burden myself by dealing with something that can be not only sad but extremely complicated?

It is a long story but I will share it briefly with you. Many years ago, in what now seems an eternity ago, I was a Rabbi in Mexico City. A young woman came to see me. She was desperate because she had been trying to receive a Get from her husband who refused to have the Get written for her. She had talked to many different Rabbis, most of them Orthodox and none could help her. Her ex-husband demanded a large amount of money for her to ‘be freed from him.’

When she came to talk to me, I was profoundly saddened by her story but besides the story, I was saddened by not being able to help her! I called Rabbi Gershon Schwartz z’l, who had taught a session on divorce to my class when I was in Rabbinical School and had talked to us about ‘Hafkaat Kidushin’ which is a procedure through which a marriage can be annulled under Jewish Law.

Hafkaat Kidushin is not practiced by The Orthodox by enlarge although they do have a couple of Mesadrei Gittin that with the involvement of a Bet Din issue Hafkaat Kidushin. Hafkaat Kidushin, which is a perfectly valid instance under Jewish Law, as explained to us in The Talmud is the ability of ‘The Rabbis’ to uproot a marriage that they had previously authorized.

I was able to help this young woman get her life back together! Throughout the whole process, I read many of the letters of extortion and abuse her husband wrote and it became apparent to me that as a Rabbi, I could not be indifferent to something like this. Rabbi Schwartz’ involvement inspired me tremendously and ever since then, I became interested in being able to learn how to be a Mesader Gittin myself.

In the conservative movement, we use Hafkaat Kidushin to ‘help free’ women whose husbands have abused them either physically or mentally or both! We used Hafkaat Kidushin when husbands extort their wives and demand money in exchange for a Get.

In all of these instances we follow a very detailed and exhaustive process of documentation, and it is The Joint Bet Din who decides if the case will be approved for Hafkaat Kidushin or not.

By the way, most of the Gittin that we write as Mesadrei Gittin are resolved in very conventional ways. We never use Hafkaat Kidushin as a first resource.

The basic act involving the writing of a Get is the giving of this bill of separation, by the husband to the wife on the basis of mutual consent. Although the original biblical laws allowed the husband to divorce his wife at will, an enactment of Rabbenu Gershom (11th century) which was accepted by all the communities of Europe prohibits the husband from divorcing his wife against her will.

An entire tractate of the Talmud (Gittin) is devoted to the validity of the document and how it may be written and delivered.

The word get does not actually appear in scripture at all but is a Talmudic name. Interestingly enough, the Vilna Gaon notes that the letters gimel and tet do not appear next to each other throughout scripture, either within a word or even the first and last letters of adjacent words — they are always separated.

This alludes to the separation between husband and wife and hence the title get is very appropriate. Tosafot to Gittin 2a explain that the numerical value (gematria) of the word is 3+9=12 and that is why a get is written on 12 lines.

For many, the Halacha of Gittin is very difficult to understand because it is perceived as profoundly sad. For others, a Get represents new life, hope and renewal. I hope and pray that you never require my services as a Mesader Gittin. However, Gittin are but two sides of the very same coin of life.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Torah, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.