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It was a bit shocking to see a story in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Prominent Jews join boycott threat, citing Rabbi Shlomo Riskin as a prominent Rabbi and moral authority more than 5 months since his contempt of the order of the Beth Din of America.
OK, so maybe it has only been public for only 3 weeks with the article in The Forward, Secular Court is being Called on To Enforce a Beth Din Ruling, that Rabbi Riskin has flouted the judgment of the beth din and refused to comply with its award in a case brought before it last summer.
Not only has he refused to pay, but now he is acting like a recalcitrant husband making demands for his compliance with the ruling. Just like the recalcitrant husband who demands $40,000 or more for providing his wife with a get, Riskin’s latest is to say that as soon as he is offered a payment plan, he will make a first payment on the judgment.
To put that in perspective, Ohr Torah Stone raises $6.5 million per year, according to its latest 990 filed with the IRS. That means they raise, on average, more than $500,000 per month. In addition, more than half of his board of directors could easily write personal checks for the full amount of the $300k award. Furthermore, the original award came as a payment plan. The judgment of Septemebr 17, 2007 called for one third to be paid in November 2007, one-third in January, and the final payment in June. Now it is June, and Rabbi Riskin is demanding a payment plan!
All I can figure out is that Rabbi Riskin is trying to provide an example for the those husbands who don’t want to provide their wives with a get and who want to use their superior economic power to extract concessions. It is clear that the husbands of agunot everywhere owe him a great deal of gratitude for setting such an example. If a prominent Rabbi, who runs a beth din himself, can get away with not following the judgment of a beth din, then how much easier it should be for an unknown husband to do the same, or to extract financial concessions before he does so.
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