Rabbinic Authority Vol. 5 - The Vision and the Reality, Beit Din Decisions

In this fifth volume of his groundbreaking series on rabbinic authority, Rabbi Warburg discusses the case of the modern-day agunah, a wife who is unable to obtain a divorce due to her husband's recalcitrance. For the first time in English, this monograph discusses utilizing the technique of the double halakhic doubt (sefek sefeika de'dina) as a vehicle to void a marriage, in order to address the plight of the agunah. This volume is devoted primarily to demonstrate how a beit din or rabbinical authority(ies) can take care of this complicated issue, especially for those decisors who reject the various other options to void a marriage. ''For a number of decades, I have been involved on an ad hoc basis as a dayan, including serving on judicial panels for the Beth Din of America. In this capacity, I have often crossed paths with Rabbi Warburg and served together with him on the same judicial panel. In each panel we served on together, Rabbi Warburg's outstanding Torah scholarship was always in evidence, scholarship motivated by a perfectionist's drive to achieve new vistas in advancing the 'double dimension' of truth that stands as the ideal for the halakhic-judicial process.'' --From the foreword of Rabbi Dr. Aaron Levine, zt''l About the Author Since 1999, Rabbi A. Yehuda Warburg has served as a dayan on various battei din panels in the Hassidic, Modern Orthodox, Sephardic, and Yeshiva communities in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. He is a former research fellow at the Institute of Jewish Law at Boston University School of Law. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Tradition and served on the editorial board of Th­e Jewish Law Annual. For over two decades, Rabbi Warburg delivered classes in Hoshen Mishpat (business law) and Even ha-Ezer (family law) to rabbinical students at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Yeshiva University. Rabbi Warburg received his rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and earned his doctorate of jurisprudence at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law. The author resides in Teaneck, New Jersey.