Thread by @Trek_Rav

Last week it was reported that Chief Rabbi Lau tried to deny burial rights to the mother of a notorious get-refuser.

Reaction was predictably mixed and emotional. In this mini-twitter-shiur I'm going to go into the halacha behind this decision.
1/14

jpost.com/Israel-News/Ch…

To start, I'll summarize all sources in English here, but if you want to read them for yourself, I've put them all in a source sheet on Sefaria:
sefaria.org/sheets/187518

2/14

The Gemarah gives courts the ability to hand out penalties beyond the ones specified in the Torah. They can even override a mitzvah if it is deemed necessary to safeguard the Torah. To use an analogy, Rambam compares this to a surgeon cutting off a limb to save the body. 3/14

The Geonim are the ones who largely set out the framework for what penalties to employ. Tzemach Gaon is the first to mention not burying family members of a person who has been found in violation of a court decree. He doesn't make the explicit connection to a get-refuser. 4/14

Other penalties include not counting a person in a minyan, pulling their children from school, banning their spouse from synagogue, declaring their wine and bread to be like the wine and bread of non-Jews, not circumcising sons, and not socializing with him. 5/14

These penalties are supported by a number of other rishonim including the Rif, Nemukei Yosef, Rashba, Rb. Yerusham, Rivash, Binyamin Ze'ev, and the Beit Yosef. (Again, no mention of a get-refuser yet). 6/14

In parallel to the above, Rabeinu Tam (1100-1171) gave potential penalties for a get-refuser. He did not mention refusing burial, but he did mention not engaging in commerce, not socializing with him, not eating and drinking with him, and not visiting him should he become ill. 7/

The Rema is the first person to connect these two positions. Writing in the shulchan aruch he quotes the Binyamin Ze'ev and says that a beit din can refuse to bury the relatives of a get refuser, and also includes both sets of penalties from Rabeinu Tam and Tzamach Gaon. 8/14

There are a few other cases similar to ours. The first case was in the Shvut Yaakov (1661-1733). A man was in violation of a beit din's orders, and his son-in-law died. The court was allowed to prevent his daughter's halitza until the man acceded to the court's demands. 9/14

The second case is of an Israeli get-refuser in 1950. While they never got to the point of actually issuing a seruv, then future Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ZTL did suggest the option of refusing to bury members of his family should it get to that point. 10/14

A third case is from Israel in 2017. Israeli Rabbinical courts were trying to convince a man to grant a divorce. They imposed various penalties, including an order not to bury the recalcitrant husband himself if he died. The husband fled the country and sued. 11/14

The Supreme Court upheld the religious court's right to impose all of the penalties except for the burial issue. The court ruled that since a husband's obligation to grant a divorce expired upon his passing, denying him burial was a violation of Israeli law. 12/14

Interestingly enough, the Israeli supreme court's decision does not rule out denying burial to a get-refuser's family, as the logic of no longer needed a divorce doesn't apply. 13/14

Summary: There is long standing backing for the idea of denying burial to the family member of someone in contempt of Beit Din, although the Rema was the first to suggest using it on a get-refuser. Additionally, the Israeli supreme court seems to be okay with the practice. 14/end