Obfuscating a Get

The daastorah blog has a teshuva up from Ovadia Yosef on the subject of forcing a get when the woman is not interested in the marriage. Ovadia Yosef leans towards forcing divorce, and he provides plenty of suggestions why, but he fails to actually explain his position. His teshuva is more of an obfuscation than an analysis of the halacha.

The first thing that stands out in his teshuva is the wealth of sources he brings, This is meant to impress, and no doubt most people reading it see this as the strongest part of the teshuva. It is the weakest. The volume of sources he brings - with minimal or no analysis - merely serve as a diversion. There is no way to argue with someone who throws out so much material. Even if you refute one proof, there is a whole lot more, and by the time you move on to the next one, the arguments against the first are forgotten. There is no solid construction here, just too many sources to argue with.

One problem with the multitude of sources is that there is no reason to assume consistency between them. Do they all make the same arguments, in which case he is simply presenting overwhelming evidence for his position? No, they all say something else. He is not showing a preponderance of evidence, but multiple arguments which may each be relevant or not.

Likewise, he does not analyze each opinion and ask how it relates to the case at hand. Every teshuva is given for a specific case, with many factors contributing to the conclusion. A teshuva cannot be freely quoted without reference to the full argument, but that is what he does here. From a rhetorical position this shifts the burden of proof from himself to his reader. He does not prove his position here since there is too much which he does not address, by simply quoting conclusions without any discussion of the context and relevance. So now the burden is on anyone who wants to argue with him to study each source and refute them all. But in halachic discourse, as in any intellectual discipline, the burden of proof is on the one making the argument. He must present an argument which is convincing by itself. Here we have an argument which is ultimately an appeal to his own authority, with the burden shifted away from him. He is saying "trust me, all the sources I gave actually do support my conclusion, even though I have not actually shown you how." This is obfuscation, not proof.

The teshuva starts out by giving two strong reasons to force a get - one that the couple is teimani, who always pasken like the Rambam, so we may force a get simply for maus alai, and two, that since the wome was forced into the marriage, we can force a get even not according to the Rambam. I am unfamiliar with the discussion on the second point, so for now I will take it as an accepted fact. The first point is also good. Had he stopped here, I would not have seen any reason to comment on the teshuva, but what comes after is undoes the strength of the opening arguments. The obvious question is, what took them years to force a get? If a get may be forced, it can be done immediately. It seems that the beis din did not really believe that they could force a get, but after years of this dragging on, they decided to look for a solution. That would mean this whole argument was attempting to defend a pre-determined conclusion.

A second problem is that he then wants to rely on the opinion that a get which was incorrectly forced is kosher bidieved. I do not have his referenced teshuva available, so I do not know the sources for this, but the Rambam is very clear that free will is midioraissa, and a forced get only works because deep down he wants to do whats right - so if the get was incorrectly forced, it is very hard to see how the Rambam can possibly be one of those who say it is only possul midirabanan. But these are teimanim, and everything must be done like the Rambam. If he wants to use the Rambam to force the get, then rely on sofek dirabbanan for incorrectly forcing the get. This is a contradictory argument.

His initial discussion of the primary question of forcing a get on maus alai does not quote his sources. He basically writes that the opinion of the Rambam was widely accepted both before an after his time, even though later it was widely rejected. He does not give a source for this, and the poskim who reject the Rambam - which is almost all major poskim of the late rishonim - definitely do not seem to think this was widely accepted before their time. See for example the Magid Mishna on the Rambam, Ishus 14:8 who says the psak of the Rambam is not accepted. So Ovadia Yosef wants to roll back a few hundred years of not going like the Rambam, by simply claiming that before that it was accepted. As a secondary point, he does not bother to address what other changes may have been involved which would affect this psak, for example, the relevance of losing a kesuba when saying maus alai, which today is not a serious issue. So what we have is an accepted psak not like the Rambam, including the Bet Yosef, and Ovadia Yosef saying we should go with the Rambam anyway because way back they used to do that.

After suggesting the proper psak should be like the Rambam even though it is not accepted, he quotes a number of teshuvos without telling us what they said. Look it up yourself. He tells us that based on those teshuvos it is proper to rely on the Rambam when we can combine other considerations, specifically if there is a sfek sfeka. Since he does not actually discuss what these teshuvos wrote, there is no way to know how he reached his conclusion. As I wrote above, he is shifting the burden of proof to the reader.

Another problematic argument in teshuva, which I will not properly address, is the following: "since today we are not talking about beating him with sticks, but only putting him in jail, and today's jails are nothing like what they had in the olden days, it is considered a sfek sfeka dirabanan". While he initally argued that we may force the get, now he wants to argue the get will be kosher even if the halacha does not allow us to force it. Here his main arguemnt is that the sort of force he is using is not real force. But he gives no reason to support this. Zero. It is simply an assertion, no sources, no backup. And quite baseless from a logical standpoint. Jail is meant to compell him to give a get, and it works. How can that possibly not be called forcing him to give it?

These are my basic thoughts on the raw halachic arguments he presents. There is a lot more to point out about his practical arguments, but not for this post.

Seeing the Light

While writing my previous post about religion and the red pill, I asked myself what term we have in Judaism which is parallel to the red pill. Maybe along the lines of "seeing the light". In Judaism though there does not seem to be any similar concept.

Yes, we do have people who get carried away in their mystical experience. People who discover Judaism and tell are their friends they saw the light. People who change their understanding of Judaism and talk of discovering the truth. But I am not looking for individuals describing their spiritual experience - that is the same everywhere. I am looking for a religious term, found in the classic works, which talks of this as a positive experience or as a goal to be reached. I am sure such passages exist, but there are no popular terms or common themes like this.

This observation is likely related to the strict legality of Judaism. When someone discovers the truth of Judaism they do not enter an ecstatic state of connection with God. There is too much they have to get busy doing. The practical demands of the religion counteract the force of spiritual discovery.

The same mechanism seems to be at work when someone reaches a deeper understanding of Judaism. Judaism is composed of practical instructions. The revelation of the true idea behind one of the instructions will immediately be connected to the performance of that instruction. The practical focus which is automatically connected to any insight moderates the spiritual excitement which would otherwise accompany religious discovery.

Judaism is a framework for life. It is not a otherworldly dedication which supplants our focus on the immediate world. Discovering Judaism or reaching a new understanding of Judaism should not lead to a feeling of seeing the light,but a feeling of renewed dedication to refining our everyday life. 

There is somewhat of a paradox here.  Discovering some fundamental truth will often lead people to experience a spiritual exhilaration. The found a red pill, but took a blue pill. The full realism of Judaism, on the other hand, diffuses the intense feeling of recognizing deeper truths. Its orientation towards teaching fundamental concepts prevents people from having an spiritual experience of having discovered the truth.

This paradox is not so surprising. People always prefer the liberation of beautiful ideas rather than the guidance of truthful concepts. When we learn a new truth we are more likely to turn it into a blue-pill high than a red-pill lesson. The practical aspect of Judaism mitigates this response and directs us towards the practical application of our intellectual knowledge and away from the spiritual escapism.

Religion and the Red Pill

Taking the ‘Red Pill’  is a metaphor for accepting that your ideas about the world do not conform to reality, and learning new ways to understand the world. After you ‘take the red pill’  you begin to to relearn what reality is, and to recognize the falsity of your previous beliefs.


No one takes the red pill out of curiosity. We will all stay with whatever beliefs we have as long as they can serve us in navigating the world,. We must have a crises with reality which forces us to question our fundamental beliefs before we can change them. The crises gives us the possibility to look for a better understanding of the world, but leaves us the possibility of remaining committed to our previous ideas, however poorly they are serving us.


The blue pill - remaining blissfully ignorant of the true reality - is always an option. We have a fascinating capacity to  maintain our ideas in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. We are invested in our ideas,  and everything we have done based on them. We do not give them up easily, and many people will only strengthen their commitment to their accepted ideas as reality tries to pry their minds open.


Whenever someone accepts a new outlook on life, they will talk of having discovered the truth, or of having taken the red pill. When someone discovers religion, they have taken the red pill. When someone abandons religion, they have taken the red pill. So which is reality, and which is illusion? Or is it all illusion?


Most people who have discovered the truth have simply discovered a new lie. The only ‘truth ‘ it has is that it rejects their previous lie. They have swapped a blue pill for a blue pill, and they believe they have taken the red pill.


The proper test for the red pill - for discovering a fundamental truth, and not merely

a new lie - is to hold up your new idea to reality, not to your old ideas. The truth is not the rejection of your previous failed belief, but a description of reality. When you hold up your new idea to the aspect of reality it is meant to describe, does it correspond to it, or are you accepting the idea based on the emotional appeal it holds for you?


There is a second way to know if you got a red pill or a blue one. The red one is bitter. You will not enjoy taking it, but you will accept it anyway because it reflects the reality you have to deal with. The blue pill is sweet, Feel-good ideas are appealing, but their appeal is not in their ability to describe the real world.


Religion ans secularism both have aspects of recognizing the fundamental order of the world, and aspects which cover it up. There is a religious red pill, and a religious blue pill. There is a secular blue pill, and a secular red pill.


Most people use religion as a convenient model to replace the real world, and not as a guide for understanding life. For most people religion is the ultimate blue pill. This view of religion has strong personal appeal, but little value.


Religion is the ultimate red pill. Religion provides a metaphysical framework for understanding the world, which with a proper understanding teaches us how to understand the world as we deal with it. When we see religion as a practical guide to life it loses the strong emotional appeal of the spiritual, but it becomes an indispensable framework for appreciating how we live.