Important historic letter from the Rabbinical Association in Poland to the Rabbinical Association of the United States and Canada. This letter halted a severe breach in the purity of marriage. Among the signatories are the chairman, the gaon Rabbi Menachem Mendel Alter of Pavnitz, son of the Sefat Emet, and Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Konnol. Warsaw, 1936.
At the beginning of the 1930s, several Orthodox rabbis in America raised a revolutionary idea, that at first appeared to be a classic Jewish-Halachic ‘ingenious solution’ that could have prevented many problems of illegitimacy. The idea was staggering in its simplicity: Each person, when he marries, should deposit a get with the beit din, and if there are halachic problems after the wedding regarding delivering the get (if the husband does not want to give the get as halachah requires, etc.) the get could retroactively be effective from the time it was deposited and the woman would be permitted to remarry. This ‘ingenious solution’ was innovated mainly for those distant from religion, for whom there was a concern that without this regulation, the women would simply remarry without a get at all. But following instances of recalcitrant men sometimes also among the chareidim, the rabbis considered applying this ‘ingenious solution’ to the entire Jewish population in order to prevent the issue of recalcitrance. This was apparently an excellent regulation with no disadvantages, only many advantages. Just to be safe, the rabbinic leaders of America turned to the Torah giants of Poland, which was, at the time, the Torah center of the world, in order to hear their opinion – da’at Torah on this ‘ingenious solution.’
In their answer in the letter before us, the geonim of Poland, led by the chairman of the Rabbinical Association in Poland, the gaon Rabbi Menachem Mendel Alter of Pavnitz, do not withhold their sharp tongues, and write with uncommon harshness against the idea. From their vehement expressions, it is clear that the geonim of Poland are attempting to uproot this phenomenon and obliterate it from the world. With their crystal eyes, they foresaw that what could be viewed today as a harmless rectification would over the years come to corrupt and destroy the sanctity of the Jewish family and turn the most sanctified concept of marriage among the Jewish people into something of a ‘heter mechirah’ that can be circumvented. There are harsh expressions in this important and lengthy letter before us in which the rabbinic leaders call the rabbis who thought up the idea people who “breach and ruin the foundations of Judaism, ” “sinners who cause others to sin in their regulation-corruption, ” and they state: “Separate yourself from this evil group.” The geonim of Poland did not let up until they cursed said rabbis: May they be finished off!” When the American rabbinic leaders saw the vehement opposition of the geonim of the generation, they immediately joined them (as a continuation from the letter before us, another approximately thousand rabbis signed on the proclamation of protest) and the breach was mended. The geonim of Poland who signed on the letter before us were killed in the Holocaust just a few years later, but their net was cast thousands of miles from their places of residence and with their letter before us, they blocked one of the most extreme breaches that threatened the sanctity of the Jewish people.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Alter [1878-1942] was the younger son of the Sefat Emet and brother of the Imrei Emet of Gur. He was one of the leaders of Polish Jewry between the wars and one of its most prominent activists. He served as chairman of the Rabbinical Association of Poland and as a member of Agudat Yisrael’s Council of Torah Sages. He is considered one of the founders of the Chareidi press in Poland. During the Holocaust, he was one of the leaders of the Chareidi community in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was killed along with his family in the Treblinka extermination camp.
[1] leaf paper, 21×28 cm. Official Rabbinical Association of Poland stationery, signed by the geonim of Poland.
Fine condition. Minimal aging stains and fold marks.
