Following is an English teshuvah by Rabbi David Aryeh Morgenstern. Nothing interesting about that, except that he was a primary student of the first-row “Great” Rabbi Elyashiv zatzal. And he claims to record and follow his teacher’s ruling and even M.O.
And no one is protesting. So, this isn’t one person, but an entire generation’s Jewish legal system described here.
Question:
A son found that his father was having an affair with a married woman. On his father’s phone he found correspondence between them about meeting up, and explicit images that they had sent each other. He is devastated and doesn’t know what to do. Three questions have come up. (1) Should he confront his father, and how should he do it regarding the mitzva of Kibud Av? (2) Should he tell his mother, which would likely lead her to demand a divorce? (3) Should he tell this woman’s husband, which would likely lead to him divorcing her (and they have 5 children)?
Before continuing, it’s important to note, that it seems there are details missing (the rest of the answers by Rabbi Morgenstern here are shockingly missing any proofs and explanation, making it much harder for the questioners to obey). Perhaps this was edited selectively by the site’s editors for various reasons.
And it’s a transcript — it looks like it was originally written in English (on the other hand, maybe that’s why we even have what we have since it isn’t in writing…).
Answer:
It’s complicated. Mitzad echad, it’s only one witness, so he doesn’t have any neemanus al pi din. And he also doesn’t know for sure how far it went. But what we’d like to do is to cause it to stop before anybody gets in trouble. Because we’d like to preserve both marriages.
To call the son an “Eid Echad”, in spite of the option of looking further at the incriminating evidence (איכא לברורי), and leave it at that?!
Now, if we know for sure she had relations, then we have a different problem, because the woman is forbidden to her husband. We had a few cases like this with Rav Eliyashiv, one married woman who worked as a cashier in a store was taken by one of the Arab workers into his van, so the first time, let’s say, it was onus, but the second time it happened, it’s harder to say it was onus. So at the time, Rav Eliyashiv said that the husband has no problem because he is an onus, he doesn’t know. But she is transgressing an issur de’oraysah each time she is with her husband (echad lebal, echad laboel). The mishna in the end of Nedarim says, if she tells her husband “I am tameh to you”, the sugyah is mashma that if he doesn’t believe her, the rabanan were mafkiyah the kedushin from them limafreiyah (which means they were never married, and so she isn’t assur to him). Or, if he’s a Kohen, in which case it doesn’t help to get rid of the kiddushin because it was a be’ilas issur, for example with a goy, then there’s a different heter (I didn’t understand the jargon of this heter). So once she says she did something and he doesn’t believe her, that sets into motion this heter of chazal of mafkiin kedushin. But that only helps if she tells the story, but if she doesn’t tell her husband, we’re stuck. She is being over an issur de’oraysah each time.
And the heter of techilaso be’onus vesofo beratzon doesn’t apply in a case where she went, for example, to the forest with him. If a woman starts up with a guy or is ready to accompany him, you can’t call that onus anymore (even if he ends up going farther than she had wanted).
Word on the street has it that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was even more lenient, telling married, adulterous women (or women married to a kohen who had relations with a Goy before marriage, and were not asked before getting married) to keep their mouth closed, and not even speak to the husband about this. And not to escape, either.
But with all these cases, we’d like to prevent it from getting to a stage when it’s going be too late. Now the truth of the matter is, for us – Am Yisrael – in general, it is better if these women stay married and someone watches them, and it’s better that the husbands should stay married that somebody should temper him. Because if they get divorced, the woman is going to become mufkeres (having relations without going to the mikva, etc), and the husband will locate other women. And there are children involved as well, etc. So we’d like to try to avoid everything landsliding out of control. So what we’d like to try to do, is to try to send her a message that we know, and that she has to stop, but without letting her know how we know, in order that you can follow what’s happening. But without destroying the marriages.
But the marriages are already destroyed! And how does he know the husband isn’t already locating other women? And how does he know what will happen if the woman gets divorced?!
B.M. 75b:
תניא ר”ש אומר מלוי רבית יותר ממה שמרויחים מפסידים ולא עוד אלא שמשימים משה רבינו חכם ותורתו אמת ואומרין אילו היה יודע משה רבינו שיהיה ריוח בדבר לא היה כותבו
Sure, preserving the family and community is important (in spite of the actions of those same Gedolim in wrecking families and communities — not their own — during the Gush Katif expulsion). But isn’t the Torah (and “למען ישמעו ויראו”) even more important?! And isn’t this exactly the way to perpetuate the problem?
Now, regarding the son confronting his father and the issue of Kibud Av, on the one hand, perhaps if the father is an addict and he found out that help was available, he might take the help. But the son would need to find a nussach that is not pogeah in his Kavod, and also that won’t send him underground, because then we won’t be able to know if we need to keep vigilant. Perhaps the son could come home and tell his father than he heard a terrible story, someone in the community who is well known, with children and a good marriage, was caught having an affair. And somebody knows about this guy who tries to help people who are in trouble, his name is Yaakov, they don’t know his last name, but he helps a lot of people, he has a website www.guardyoureyes.com and they say there’s hope for these people, because sometimes these things are like an addiction… And then he could ask his father, “What do you think should happen in such a case?” In other words, letting him know that it’s happening to people, and it’s terrible what’s going on, but there’s help available. And what does he think someone should do in a case when something like this happens? Should they tell his wife, or try to get him to go for help? What’s the right approach? He can say to his father, “I’m all broken up by what I heard, some people are upset, they went right away to his wife, it’s a whole parsha. What would you say should be done in such a case?”
The father might get the hint that his son never spoke to him about these things before, that maybe he overheard something. But the son should play innocent. But maybe if the father hears this “story” it will shake him up a little bit.
So, “maybe” it will “shake him up a little bit“.
Wow…
Nothing else? No cutting off noses, per the Rosh?! I guess the Medina is all-powerful, so the rabbinic establishment always lets things slide and “hopes” they stop, and “hopes” adulterers don’t go [even more] “underground”. (Not to mention, no one higher up ever teaches about the Tikunim which actually help with the Yetzer Hara.)
What gives poskim the idea the Torah is theirs to “make Cheshbonos”?!
See the rest of the tragedy of our non-shepherding-rabbis here… (At least R’ M. is stringent on active Kibbud Av for a Rasha!)
See a similarly shocking story here…
(And there are easy parallels with the rabbinic approach toward child abuse.)