Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-athena.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!godot!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!mit-athena!martillo
From: martillo@mit-athena.UUCP (Joaquim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Halachic not Humanistic Judism
Message-ID: <130@mit-athena.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-Mar-85 20:39:33 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-athe.130
Posted: Sat Mar 23 20:39:33 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 02:11:51 EST
References: <248@npois.UUCP>, <421@wxlvax.UUCP>
Organization: MIT Project Athena
Lines: 29

>		       I remember one case of a woman who found out two months
>prior to her wedding that her father did not have a Get (Jewish divorce) from
>his first marriage.  In that case, things came out ok, the wedding was
>postponed (some excuse was found), the couple spent over six months digging
>up information, and finally found a respected Rabbi who would poskin (many
>Rabbis or Beit Dins avoid this area).  This event turned daughter against
>father.  The father, who had to relive a painfull divorce almost had a 
>breakdown.  I attended the wedding.  The woman's family was absent; much
>of the joy was lost.  But, the father did it his way years earlier.  Was it
>worth it?

I rather like a good story but the tikun of  Rab  Gershom  has  expired.
Even  when  the  tikun  had not expired, there were Ashkenazi Rabbis who
accepted it who held it only applied in Germany,  parts  of  France  and
parts  of  Eastern  Europe.  There have always been Ashkenazi rabbis who
have held that this  particular  tikun  is  an  erroneus  immitation  of
non-Jewish  practice.   Sefardim  and Oriental Jews have always rejected
this tikun and have always been willing to marry Ashkenazim to a  second
wife  or  to marry a Sefardi, who has an Ashkenaziah as first wife, to a
second wife.

There was even a decent-sized business, my uncle  Mahmud  tells  me,  in
marrying  Ashkenazim  to  second  wives  in  Tarabolus in Libya -- we as
Fezzanim did not take part.

In any case, no Rabbi who accepted Gershom's rather silly tikun -- which
to  tell  the  truth  I believe is a myth -- would consider mamzerim the
children by a second wife of a man who never gave his first wife a  get.