(JNi.media) Natali Lesterger (48) earlier this week posted a moving facebook message, which she began urgently enough:
“I’ll start from the end: My name is Natalie — and I need your help minutes before I go to jail!
“Listen up: an arrest warrant was issued against me by the Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem, and I may be arrested anywhere, anytime.”
Natalie then relates how she grew up in a religious Zionist environment, got married, had three children, and, twenty years ago, had a painful divorce.
After that traumatic procedure, she wrote, “when I left the rabbinical court a divorced woman, I swore by everything that’s precious to me that I would never set foot in the rabbinate in any way whatsoever. Never. And if the day would come that I would wish to marry again, I will do it without the rabbinic establishment.”
Long story short, 12 years ago Natalie met her second love, “M,” with his four children, and they agreed that, should the time come for a divorce, they would do it through the Masorti movement, which is the Conservative movement in Israel.
After more than a decade, Natalie continued, “I found myself in the process of separation again.” And, as if to make matters worse, she discovered that “M” had filed for divorce in the rabbinical court in Jerusalem — contrary to their pre-marital agreement. And even though the Ministry of the Interior honored her report and changed her status in the population registry “divorced,” the Rabbinical Court still had the power to force her to receive a halachic get (divorce).
“And if disagree?” Natalie wrote, “I should expect severe penalties and sanctions, and even jail!”
Indeed, the rabbinical judges did not wait around, and immediately issued an order prohibiting her exit from the country, “and now I received Subpoenaed / Arrest Warrant, to be executed any place and any time to make sure that I appear in court.”
Natalie’s problem stems from the fact that Jewish divorces in Israel are the purview of the Rabbinate.
And so, because the Jewish State follows the Torah law through the Chief Rabbinate, the Rabbinate indeed has the power to force every Jewish person separating from their spouse to undergo a halachic divorce.
The Rabbinical Court’s aggressive response (see enclosed arrest warrant) is surpassing, considering the fact that they had a perfect out in this case:
Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote several responsa about the Halachic status of Reform wedding ceremonies. In addition to the lack of valid witnesses in such weddings, Rav Moshe argues that Reform marriages are invalid because “they do not perform an act of Kidushin (sanctifying). Rather he merely responds ‘yes’ to the Rabbi’s question, ‘Do you wish to take this woman as your wife?’ … These are not words of Kidushin [such as the required phrase, ‘Behold you are betrothed to me with this ring’]; rather, these words express consent to joining in marriage. [The man and woman] subsequently exchange rings as an expression of their marriage, which they believe to have been contracted already by answering ‘yes.’”
“In the above responsum, Rav Moshe suggests that double ring ceremonies raise concern about how the couple understands the wedding procedures. ‘Even though he gives her a ring,’ he writes, ‘she also gives him a ring, which demonstrates that his giving her a ring was merely a present in honor of their marriage, and there is no act of Kidushin.’” (Thanks to Rabbi Chaim Jachter, Bergen County Torah Academy).
In other words, the court could have just said there was no valid marriage here, and that would have been it. Instead, they sought to impose their authority over every Jewish marriage being conducted in Israel.