Kosher by Association: Intro and Part 1 (Prenups...again)

Intro

The gemara in Sanhedrin (91a) tells us an ancient fable.

Antoninus told Rebi (Rabi Yehuda HaNasi) that on the day of judgment, both the body and the soul will be able to exonerate themselves. The body will blame the soul and claim it is the soul’s doing, for “from the day it left me, I have been lying motionless in the grave like a rock”. The soul will blame the body and claim it is the body’s doing for “ever since the day we parted I have been floating around aimlessly like a bird”.

Rebi responded with the following fable:

A king had a luscious orchard and needed reliable guards. He stationed a blind man and a cripple to guard the orchard. The cripple would tell the blind man how beautiful are the fruits of the orchard but he is paralyzed and can’t get to them. The blind man said, “I could get to them if I could see them but I can’t see”. The cripple suggested, “If you let me ride on your shoulders, we can reach them together. Let’s do it.” And they did.

When the king noticed that his orchard was pillaged, he accused the guards. Each guard was able to present a defense. “I can’t even see them”, said the blind man. “There is no way I can access them”, said the cripple. But the king caught on to their scheme and understood what they did. So, what did he do? He mounted the cripple on top of the blind man and judged them as one.

Rebi concluded: This is what HKBH will do on the day of judgement. He will throw the soul back into the body and judge them as one.

What we learn here is literally one of the oldest “tricks” in the book. Two parties team up to do some mischief and when the mischief is found out, each one claims the other guy did it and he has nothing to do with it. In fact, he is not even capable of it.

There is more than one way to pull off this trick. One way is the case of Rebi’s fable. The two culprits spent all their time in public as two distinct entities. They only teamed up to do monkey business when nobody was looking. The minute they were done, they went back to being two separate disabled people. Their purposes were served by the illusion of being two separate restricted entities.

The other variation is the exact opposite. It’s a case where the two parties want to appear in public as if they are one entity. The illusion that they are one entity is what serves their purposes at the outset. It is only after the monkey business is discovered that they try to split to two different directions to stay out of trouble. (This is actually closer to Antoninus’s case.)

We all know the term “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. It’s just that sometimes the sheep’s clothes is not just a wool jacket, but an actual live sheep. It’s the sweet old lady or cute little kid in the graft scheme that distracts the jeweler while the sneaky accomplice steals the goods. The “sheep” makes the “wolf” look respectable, but really both of them are wolves.

Part 1 – Prenups (again)

In my past discussions about the BDA prenups and stretching endorsements, I wrote about this trick. I called it “Kosher by association.” I was specifically alluding to one of the three reasons that Rabbi Rosencrantz used to explain why he rescinded his support of the eiruv in “Hammerstone Hills”. It was the one about his concern that the community will combine other eiruvim with the one that he endorses and surreptitiously apply his endorsement to those other eiruvim.

Kosher by association.

A second complaint was that the eiruv committee gave him their assurance that they will monitor the use of the eiruv to make sure it is not abused. This “policing” was not being carried out.

Hence, in my post, I voiced the same complaint against the BDA regarding the conduct of the RCA. The RCA issued a number of resolutions where they specifically mention the BDA prenup. The most recent of which (2016) calls for their rabbis to require (“utilize”) a prenuptial agreement at any wedding where they officiate. This compromises the Halachic integrity of the prenup. In my last post, I was able to confirm that HRHG Asher Zelig Weiss’s partial endorsement of the BDA prenup does not apply to the RCA resolution.

My criticism was initially based on the assumption that, for all intents and purposes, BDA and RCA are one and the same. As I wrote, they are both under the REITS umbrella and the RCA is actually the founding parent of the BDA.  

Yet, one of my anonymous correspondents tried to wiggle out of it using the Antoninus approach. He maintained that, technically, BDA and RCA have gone their separate ways, so the BDA is not responsible for the delinquent behavior of the RCA. He seems to be saying exactly what I felt: one is blind and the other is crippled (I won’t say which is which). Nobody is guilty!

Of course, I wasn’t having any of it. I wrote in my post:

Despite this, it is very hard to say that the BDA does not carry responsibility for these two matters. After all, the two organizations are cousins who share the same last name and are both offshoots of RIETS and they are affiliated and I am not the only person who thinks they are one body (by far). (It's an honest mistake.) Moreover, the BDA prenup is referenced by name in both resolutions. So if they (the BDA) are not backing up these two resolutions, they have an obligation to disassociate themselves from them, just like Rabbi Rosencrantz in the Eiruv saga.

In short, in the public eye they are made to look like one organization, but when there is some kind of discrepancy in their policies (if it really is a discrepancy) they can point to a technical reality that they are two different organizations. Nice trick!

Of course, I wrote all of this before, but in the wake of the teshuva that I recently received from HRHG AZ Weiss, Shlita, I feel much more strongly about this. Like the eiruv committee, Rabbi Willig and the BDA clearly have a responsibility to police their prenup and see to it that it is not abused. At the very least, to be mocheh if it is. And certainly, we cannot sanction the BDA to actually promote the RCA 2016 resolution. Especially right next to where they proudly display a link to HRHG Rav Asher Weiss’s letter. I think something like that would be considered unscrupulous.

Kosher by association.

But this is exactly what the BDA is doing!!

There is something that I didn’t really notice when I had the correspondence and when I wrote this last post. But later on, I rechecked the BDA web site and I saw it now.

It seems that sometime over the past few months, the BDA polished up their website that promotes the Prenuptial agreement. It has a new look and layout. User-friendly navigation. And there it is, right there on their page called: Rabbinic Endorsements.

At the top, they proclaim:

The Prenup has been endorsed by a number of leading poskim (Jewish legal authorities). 

And they go on to list the five poskim who approved of the basic Hebrew text that was written up by HRHG Zalman Nechemia Goldberg back in 1992.

I already complained about this in my last post. Even if it can be established beyond doubt that these poskim would certainly endorse the current English version if consulted, my opinion is that it is deceitful to claim that they endorse the current version if they cannot display a document that says so. The differences in the current version may be negligible, but then again, they may not be. But we can let this one slide.

Right afterwards they again proudly proclaim:

Rabbi Asher Weiss
(Rosh Kollel, Machon Minchas Asher L’Torah V’Horaah)
Click here to see Rabbi Asher Weiss’s approbation of The Prenup

They are claiming that HRHG Asher Weiss has endorsed "The Prenup" (note the capitals). The teshuva that is displayed in the link says no such thing. It does mention Rabbi Willig by name and it discusses which positions of Rabbi Willig he supports and which he doesn’t. Clearly, Rav Weiss is supportive of a prenuptial agreement that passes every test of validity both in the Even HaEzer components and the Choshen Mishpat components. Unfortunately, he never claims to have reviewed the BDA prenup and to have determined that it passes every test. His hechsher is only on the ingredients.

What we do know is that Rav Weiss does not endorse the 2016 RCA resolution (or earlier ones) which mandates their member Rabbis to require a prenuptial agreement when officiating at a wedding.

But, two paragraphs later, on the very same page, there it is:

In 2016, the Rabbinical Council of America passed a resolution requiring member rabbis to utilize a prenuptial agreement when officiating at a wedding.
Click here to view the 2016 resolution

As you can see, the page even displays a link to the resolution, although I think this particular link is disabled. (There is another one you can see HERE).

And then they go and repeat it again:

In 1993 and 1998, the Rabbinical Council of America passed resolutions encouraging the use of prenuptial agreements such as The Prenup. In 2006, the Rabbinical Council of America passed a resolution declaring that rabbis should not officiate at a wedding where a proper prenuptial agreement has not been executed.

[Note – They provide links, but all the links are broken.]

So, I ask, how can the BDA place HRHG Asher Weiss’s imprimatur right next to this list of RCA resolutions if Rav Asher Weiss does not endorse them?

עד מתי אתם פוסחים על שתי הסעיפים? אם הרה"ג ר' אשר וייס הוא הפוסק, לכו אחריו. ואם בעלי ה"RCA" הם הפוסקים לכו אחריהם!

Looks like we caught the cripple riding on the blind man’s shoulders right in front of us.

Stay tuned for Part 2…