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 CHAPTER
FIVE:Those Who don’t Fit the Model: Family Situations and Status
in Judaism and the Jewish World
5D. Getting a Get – A Precise Procedure
What actually happens in a get procedure?
Essentially, the get is a stark and spare procedure, a complete contrast
from the ceremonial embroidery of the wedding ceremony.
There is no liturgy, no blessings or prayers.
The proceedings are legal and precise.
The procedure itself, it should be added, only happens after the Rabbis
have made great attempts to encourage the couple to reconcile. In the
spirit of reluctance that we will recall from Malachi, the Rabbis will
do almost anything in their power to bring about what is called shalom
bayit ( –
literally the peace of the household, i.e. reconciliation).
If this has failed and the parties are resolved on a divorce, the procedure
itself is fairly quick.
In the simplest version of the proceeding, the parties appear before
a qualified and learned Rabbi (theoretically, it does not have to be within
the framework of a rabbinic court, but a recognised court would subsequently
be considered important in establishing whether the get was duly issued
and therefore valid), a scribe and two witnesses.
- The husband instruicts the scribe to write the bill of divorce on
his behalf and the scribe does so, using a quill pen.
- When the document, a precise twelve line formula is given, the husband
declares that he gives it of his own free will and the wife declares
that she is receiving it in a similar fashion.
- The two witnesses now sign the document.
- Again, the parties affirm that they are giving and receiving the
document freely.
- The husband now takes the document and drops it into his wife’s
cupped hands reciting the formula:
“This is your get and you are divorced from me and permitted
to marry any other man."
- The wife then puts the document under her arm and moves a few steps
away indicating the finality of the deed; following this she returns
and gives it to the Rabbi who makes a tear in the document before keeping
it for the official Jewish court archive.
- Finally, the woman is given a document to authenticate her status
as a divorcee.
The proceeding can also be carried out through agents for either or
both sides, in which case it becomes a little more complicated.
As previously mentioned, this bare outline is only the essence of
a complex procedure that must be carried out with great precision.
The great sixteenth century law code, the Shulchan Aruch, still
regarded as authoritative in Halachic questions today, specifies the exact
procedure in some hundred separate clauses.
The entire procedure broadcasts clarity, precision, a lean and spare
quality - and, perhaps, most of all, determination and finality: from
this point there is no going back:
- As expected, there are witnesses required by law in order to validate
the document, but also representing the public, the community.
- The tear in the document is there for authentication, but perhaps,
as a parallel to the tearing of the clothing after death, in recognition
that a new and regrettable reality is now to be accepted.
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