Thinking Through Gittin and Agunot in the Public Eye

Over the last few days, the story of one couple's divorce has been reverberating on the frum internet. The husband had refused to give the wife a get, apparently because he hoped to leverage the get to gain a concession on custody issues. He also seems to have demanded a massive amount of money in exchange for the get. The wife's perspective was portrayed in a New York Post article, which led to the current outcry. People on my Facebook feed and in the blogs and comments to them that I read almost universally excoriated the husband's failure to give his wife a get. One particular comment was my favorite, and if you're wondering whether it was your comment that gave me such enjoyment, you're likely in luck because it was the comment that everyone made.

Belief, Ideology, and Practice of Frum Judaism

The Orthoprax Bible

I have been engaging frum ideology for a long time, struggling, then agonizing, then adapting and developing a belief system that works for me.  I started this blog in hopes of reaching people who are a few steps behind me (I am older than I care to admit) in squaring personal ideology with frum ideology and in hopes of starting a conversation that re-conceives the way that we have grown accustomed to think about frumkeit.  More than the simple discussions though, about the age of the universe, the societal demands of frumkeit, the wisdom and earnestness of the rabbinate, it has become clear to me that we think wrongly about what Judaism is on a systemic level, and that in so thinking we have evolved into a religion that is increasingly untenable for a growing proportion of its adherents. 

The Arguments and Beliefs

The first thing that you have to realize if you are frum and have trouble believing frum ideology is that you are not crazy.  You have probably asked a lot of questions and had a lot of conversations that ended with the other person looking more satisfied than you felt, or with the other person saying that just because you have questions doesn't mean that there is no answer.  You may have come to assume that everyone can't be wrong and that you're just missing something that everyone else gets.  Worse, you may think that your failure to understand what everyone else does is your fault.  It's not.