Unusual Act of Freedom During Festival of Freedom

During the intermediary days of Pesach, the Festival of Freedom, OTS’s Yad La’isha: The Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center helped an aguna of 11 years to finally secure a get and win her freedom.

A few months ago, a woman approached Yad La’isha explaining that her husband, who had vanished years ago, had just called their children from an Israeli phone number. Yad La’isha’s private investigator tracked down the man’s location, following which Yad La’isha opened a formal request through the Israeli Rabbinical Courts to prevent him from escaping the country, as he had done on previous ocassions.

Upon realizing that he was being tracked, the husband went underground again. But then, a true miracle happened over Pesach. On his way to Hebron to visit and pray at Ma’arat Hamachpela, he was stopped by police for a routine security check. When the identity card check showed there was a warrant for his arrest for not giving his wife a get, he was immediately apprehended, and after just 24 hours of incarceration, he agreed to release her from the marriage.

Our Yad La’isha legal advocate, Dina Raitchik, immediately cancelled her planned chol hamoed day trip with her children and grandchildren in order to work with the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court to convene the dayanim and have the get written immediately.

It must be noted that this is a very unusual move, as courts, government offices and many Israeli businesses are typically closed for the holiday. It showed true mesirat nefesh on the part of our legal advocate, as well as the Rabbinical Court judges.

“How appropriate that our client was able to gain her freedom, after an 11 year struggle, during Pesach, when we celebrate our journey from slavery to liberation,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, President and Rosh HaYeshiva of Ohr Torah Stone.”We will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of the hundreds of other women just like her, for whom Pesach and every day of the year carries the taste of slavery’s bitter herbs, until they too can truly be the masters of their own destiny.”