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Our Past in Present Tense

Is Judaism monogamous?

Dr. Yehuda Shabatay                                                                            .
San Diego Jewish Times, May 19, 2006

One Shabbat morning I was sitting in the synagogue quietly listening to the Torah reading, when all of the sudden I heard the rabbi’s interpretation of a particular story that dealt with bigamy. “That was definitely forbidden by Rabbenu Gershom,” he said. An evil spirit made me raise my hand and comment: “Yes, it is true that the great scholar threatened to excommunicate anyone who took a second wife without the permission of a hundred rabbis. But that edict was issued a thousand years ago for a limited period of time. Let’s face it, Jewish law permits me to marry as many wives as I can support.”

My fellow congregants’ reaction was instant and vociferous, and some were ready to excommunicate me on the spot. After services were over, a gentleman informed me that I was in trouble because he had already spoken with my wife and had told her what I had said. “I am not worried,” I replied, “because she has heard that pearl of wisdom from me several times, and we are still married happily.” Then a lady came to me and wanted to know if she could marry more than one husband. “Sorry, dear lady,” I said, “that’s clearly forbidden by the Talmud. (Kiddushin 7a). If you do that, both men will have to divorce you.” “Well, that’s sexual discrimination,” she complained (and she was right).

As for Rabbenu Gershom (c. 960-1028), who lived in Germany and was known as Me’or Hagolah, or the Luminary of the Diaspora, he was duly concerned with his community’s status in a monogamous, Christian land. Since he could not change the Torahitic law that permitted polygamy, all he could do was threaten anyone with herem (or ban) who did not obtain the permission of a hundred rabbis in three districts before marrying a second wife. The great rabbi knew that at the turn of the first millennium it was virtually impossible to fulfill such a requirement. So, he did not change Jewish law — which was prohibited — but instead only assured that no one would transgress the “law of the land,” i.e., of the Christian country in which he lived.

Interestingly, when the British mandatory authority issued a criminal code for Palestine (in 1936), it followed Rabbenu Gershom’s edict as far as the Jewish population was concerned. The law, which is still valid, forbids a Jew to marry a second wife unless he obtains the permission of the two Chief Rabbis (Ashkenazi and Sephardi) in writing. The British realized that it was just as impossible to get the two Chief Rabbis’ consent as it was to find a hundred rabbis in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

Actually, Rabbenu Gershom’s threat of excommunication was never extended to Sephardi and to Oriental communities, particularly to those in Islamic lands. Since Muslim tradition and law permits polygamy — a maximum of four wives and any number of concubines, Jews who lived in that part of the world, saw nothing wrong in marrying more than one wife. I’ll never forget that on my second day in Israel, in the immigration camp’s office, I met a huge family that was driving the poor secretary out of her wits. “Well, which is your wife?” she begged the man for a straight answer. “This is wife and this is wife,” he replied. “What are the names of your children?” the secretary continued to investigate. “I don’t know,” the man said, “just count them…”

Well, that was certainly a different world from the one I had left behind. But then I wondered: What will happen to the two wives that man brought to Israel from a faraway Muslim land? I found out somewhat later, as I studied law, that he could keep both — or any number of wives, as long as he took care of them. Because, if a marriage was valid according to the Torah, it could not be dissolved without a good reason, specified in a traditional source, and accepted by the rabbinical authorities. And since in the State of Israel all matters related to personal status belong to the jurisdiction of religious courts, not even the Knesset (or Parliament) can interfere.

Finally, let me deal with the issue of herem (ban or excommunication). It is obviously an ancient form of punishment of individuals, or groups of people, who disobey rules, set by the leaders of a community. When Ezra, who returned from Babylonia to Judah in the middle of the fifth century BCE, wanted to gather all his fellow Jews in Jerusalem in order to enforce the laws of the Torah, he issued the following proclamation: “Anyone who does not come… have his property confiscated and himself excluded from the congregation of the returning exiles” (Ezra 10:8). Since then, many forms of deviation or non-conformity have been considered reasons for such exclusion. The leaders of the ultra-Orthodox communities in Jerusalem, for instance, issue numerous proclamations that threaten those who disobey them with herem. To mention just a few prohibitions: possession of profane books, attending theatrical and musical entertainment, or keeping a television set.

Considering all these elements in our laws and traditions, one wonders: What should be our attitude to bigamists today? You may say that we have other, far more pressing problems because who among us would fall in this category? But one can be a bigamist according to Jewish law without even realizing it, when he (or she) did not divorce his (or her) previous wife (or husband) properly, i.e., with the full consent of a rabbinical court. The burden of proof is on the previously married person. He (or she) must prove the legality of the divorce proceedings, and keep the get (divorce document) in his (and, particularly, her) possession all the time. Well, the men may get away with that infringement by ignoring Rabbenu Gershom’s herem, but the women who disobey such laws could be in trouble…

Dr. Yehuda Shabatay received rabbinical training in Budapest, a master of jurisprudence degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his doctorate in Hebrew literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. He was engaged in Jewish educational administration over most of his career and now teaches Jewish studies and history at Palomar College and San Diego State University.