Here's the best Washington Post headline of the morning

As long as they don’t do it on the Sabbath. :roll_eyes:

Non-metric ton, obviously.

Yep. On broader terms, there’s the exquisite irony of the so-called bible-thumpers who repeatedly intone “…but our founding fathers…!” in defense of their precepts and expectations for the rest of society. I think a good number of our founding fathers would have laughed in their faces.

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Or maybe He is the ultimate trolley?

Ten zappers zapping?

It’s also part of the plot of A Serious Man, before which I didn’t know what a get was (nor an agunah).

The willingness to employ coercive violence isn’t much of a surprise; what I do find genuinely curious is that it would be the preferred method when (in theory) the actual consent of the husband is required.

If coercion invalidates the resulting document; why do things the hard, messy, illegal, way when a simple forgery would be no more theologically illegitimate and serve the purpose just as well?

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The ontological argument; as formulated by Anselm of 4chan.

Amen (so to spreak). I have a friend who, although he and his ex are not particularly observant Jews, is now considering getting a get 8 years after the civil divorce because his prospective new wife would prefer it. It’s a mess, especially since the ex-wife is all “I guess this means you really don’t want me” and the ceremony will involve his showing what he considers disrespectful behaviour to someone who, whatever her issues, he feels doesn’t deserve it.

He calls the system “barbaric and sexist” and loathes the opportunistic fundie rabbis who profit from it. As this story shows, the barbarism can infect everyone, including the victimised women who are desperate enough to hire thugs to fight their sexist husbands’ taking advantage of patriarchal privilege.

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WTF, they still do that?

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Apparently so. They never got it when they did the real divorce, the new prospective wife would prefer it, and the rabbi is glad to take approx. $900 to wave his magic wand after my friend reluctantly makes his somewhat damaged* ex-wife feel bad about herself and re-inforces the patriarchy.

I’m hoping the new woman will see reason and dispense with the superstitious nonsense. She’s not particularly devout herself.

[*fundamentally unhappy person who recently had some unexpected losses to her own family]

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If having a get issued makes you feel unwanted in ways that a divorce in the eyes of the state and 8 years of separation doesn’t; I’d be inclined to suspect that you are perhaps more deeply affected by religion than “not particularly observant” might suggest.

Especially since there isn’t the Catholic style requirement to come up with reasons why the marriage was actually never legitimate if you want to score an annulment; which does require spinning some unflattering tales about your spouse and any children in a lot of cases.

It’s not really the religion in her case, it’s just that she’s broken. She’s an unhappy person and a cold fish who probably shouldn’t have gotten married at all. No real friends to speak of, either. When they got the civil divorce she was content to live as a spinster with her mother and grandmother and her children as company. In the last couple of years the grandmother and the mother died suddenly, and the oldest of the two kids is headed off to college with the younger not far behind. So suddenly she’s realising that she’ll have very little companionship of any sort going forward.

And then this get business comes up and, without religious devotion being involved, it occasions that odd statement from her. If it hadn’t been that it would have been something else.

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