An astounding letter I acquired this week describes a clash of epic proportions between two noted rabbis, from different backgrounds, cultures and halachic opinions that converged by chance on the same issue. Within the letter, Rabbi Chaim Oizer Grodzinsky asks: Is Rabbi Ovadya Hedaya a Kabbalist or insane? The background is the (in)famous discussion regarding the possibility of a prenup agreement made that was solve the agunah crisis once and for all. Rabbinic Responsa are replete with questions regarding Agunot and numerous attempts have been made to find a solution to the problem. World War One exasperated the problem, with countless women losing their husbands in the war, oftentimes with no halachicly valid confirmation of the husband’s passing. The mass immigration of Eastern European Jews to America brought along its share of Agunot as well, with men who preceded their families to the new world occasionally disappearing into the Goldene Medina leaving agunot behind in Europe.
In 1912, a rabbi in Algiers, R. Ben-Zion Alkalai, suggested that a husband appoint in advance a rabbinical court as agents to perform a get on his behalf if the need arises. Two decades later, R. Louis Epstein, an Orthodox trained Rabbi in a Conservative American synagogue proposed to take this idea a step further, having the groom appoint his bride as an agent to write her own get. In the event of his leaving her without a get for a set amount of time, she can then follow up as his agent and arrange for a get for herself. Halachicly, this solution caused a different set of issues, and within the Orthodox Ashkenazi community, the response was forceful and final, Halachic Jewry cannot accept such a solution. The Agudas Harabanim of America converged and dealt with this subject at length publishing a volume titled Ledor Acharon, with endless rabbanim signing on to the ban on this specific prenup agreement.
This Letter was written by Rabbi Chaim Oizer Grodzinsky, dated 1938, a few months before his passing. Addressed to the Agudas Harabbanim of America and Canada, the second paragraph reads:
“I received a letter from the Rav and Gaon Dr Herzog, may he be blessed, from Eretz Hakodesh, regarding the advanced copy of Shu”t Yaskil Avdi, of Rabbi Ovadya Hedaya s”t (sepharadi tahor) from Yeshivat Porat Yosef in Jerusalem. He concludes halachicly to agree to Rav Alkalai’s proposal in his kuntres Takanat Agunot, that before the kiddushin, a groom can appoint 4 people, sofer, and witnesses along with a messenger to send the get, to perform a get for his wife once they have divorced civilly. He will only betroth her on the condition that he signs this agreement and one condition that he will never retract this agreement.
Per Rabbi Dr Herzog shlit”a, the above-mentioned rabbi (Hedaya) is a god-fearing man and a Kabbalist and if so, this is a terrible matter. I am unsure if he is a Kabbalist or an insane man, it would be a good idea to send him a copy of the publication published in America on this matter. I am writing to him today as well and will send him the pamphlet titled En Tenai Benisuin, but this pamphlet only discusses the issue of performing a marriage with a stipulation and not in regards to the appointing a messenger for a get, as was the intention of the rabbis in America who are leaning towards Reform Judaism. Therefore, please send him the publication and request from him to omit this portion of his book so as not to give hand to the sinners, who will rely on this Kabbalist”
Indeed, when Yaskil Avdi was published the following year, in 1939, he revised his position, stating that Rabbi Herzog informed him of the publication on this matter published by Agudas Harabanim and what he wrote is not for practical use.
Rabbi Hedaya was born in 1889 in Aleppo, Ottoman Syria, to Rabbi Shalom Hedaya and Sarah nee Labaton. On both sides he was a descendant of well-known rabbinical families. His great-grandfather, Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Labaton, was the rabbi of the city. In 1945, he succeeded his father as head of the Yeshivat haMekubalim (Kabbalists Yeshiva) at Bet El Synagogue, the center of kabbalistic study in Jerusalem. His main essay is a responsa called “Ishkil Abdi” which includes eight volumes, seven were printed during his lifetime and the eighth on the tenth anniversary of his death.
He won the Rabbi Kook Prize in Original Rabbinical Literature – for the fifth part of the Yeshkil Abdi Responsa in 1959, and the Israel Prize for Torah Literature (1958), as well as the award “Ish Yerushalayim” in 1967.
