Jerusalem – A secular man separated from his Orthodox wife is not required to maintain a religious lifestyle while the couple’s children are at his home, the Haifa Family Court ruled on Monday. In her ruling, Judge Esperanza Alon threw out a clause of the couple’s custody agreement that required the father not to drive his children on Saturday, one of the days they stay with him.
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Alon ruled that this clause infringed on the father’s right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
The mother, who is a physician, lives in Jerusalem with the couple’s two children, while the father, also a physician, lives in the north.
“Married couples sometimes conduct lifestyles that differ from one another, and the children absorb both worlds. It is the right of each of the parents to freedom of religion or from religion, and the right of each of them to equality,” Alon said.
Rishka
This is a case where the gedolim should be involved and should make every effort to protect the children . So much more important to focus on issues like this then how a little girl in bet shemesh dresses.
The Gedolim are involved. If they are and their followers behaved with decency this man would not feel a need to drive on Shabbos.
A judge, a shoitah.
Why should a non-religious court have authority over children being raised in a religious environment? The judge is biased against religion and the case should be retried by someone who is not biased against religion. The mother didn’t say that the father shouldn’t drive on Shabbos but that the children shouldn’t be driven on Shabbos- it’s not the father’s “rights” that are being violated, it’s the children’s. If the physician had a patient and the patient’s relative refused to give medicine, wouldn’t the physician want the patient to be given his medicine? The mother wants the children to grow up with a healthy neshama.
Surprise, surprise, divorced people squabble over their kids. I never heard of such a thing before. {sarcasm}
Nonsense! What about the kids’ right to an upbringing w/o contradiction.
As upsetting as this story may be, it is really none of our business. There is no indication of child abuse, malnourishment, or any other actionable cause which should precipitate the involvement of the civil authorities or rabbinic bodies. In retrospect, perhaps the parents should never have gotten married, but anyone can be a Monday morning quarterback. I’m sure that no sane VIN blogger is suggesting that the children should be kidnapped from the father in order to “save neshomos.”
This most unpleasant circumstance ignores the fact for the children who gaurd the Shabbos to drive in a car is a “die and not do” and the traumatic result irreparable (and the father certainly aware of the fact). Anybody who represents that point of view will achieve the goal and the newspapers don’t need to become involved. This high pressure approach to Judaism making degeratory remarks in loud tones with the intention of causing tension can no longer be condoned. As such, I offer my appeal to the father to not violate the holy aspects of the education his children receive from their educators, have the fights with thteir mother in the private counsel of those whom can instruct them to allow the children to grow with parental love filling them for the long haul through adulthood. The mother might offer an extended vacation time for dad to be with child and show her appreciation of the fact the father has a human relationship that is part of the nature of existence having nothing to do with ideas that circulate in the minds of men and women. Parents must allow the children to love both father and mother as an implicit of their emotional balance, balance of all the beings in a world
It is a bit liked any mixed marriage
Not sure all details here but I have a friend chasidish who married a guy and had kids. He totally fried out and left her. She wants the kids to have a normal relationship with their father but he is not respectful of their observance. She is in a terrible situation. In her case they married and agreed to lead a frum life. He has changed his mind but should respect the kids upbringing
Wait, but… correct me if I’m wrong: Aren’t the kid’s neshamos still pure at this stage? Does how their father live HAVE to stain *their* neshamos too? It didn’t w\Abraham’s & his father was an idol maker!
No disrespect: I understand the importance in the religious community w\respect to not driving on Shabbos. That’s not my point.
My question centers on some of the responses I’m seeing here, that allude that somehow the children’s neshamos will be affected by their father’s sins & mistakes & please forgive me for saying, but I didn’t think it worked that way in spirituality!
I thought at a young age like this, whatever their parents *raise* (or rather, force) them to do… is purely out of their hands, totally irrespective to their own personal relationship w\G-d & not something the child has to be held accountable for!
ie: I love my mother dearly & I believe she did the best she KNEW to do for me, by raising me a Christian as a child. Now it was wrong, but also no different than Moses being raised Egyptian by his folks, or Rabbi Akiva spending the 1st 40yrs of his life living as a goy. And did they not still BOTH turn out to be great Prophets?
Give the kids a chance! đ
what if the father took her to court and said she is not allowed to have shabbos with his kids- should the court protect her?
A healthy mind is just as important as a healthy body!! These kids are going to grow up as a pair of mixed up kids!! Confused might be a good word for it!! They will not know which world to live in.
It’s hard for us to accept that other Yidden don’t feel as we do about Hashem’s Torah. Nevetheless, other Yidden see things differently, and they are as passionate about their beliefs as we are. We have no right to tell either parent what to believe or what to teach their children.
it really hurts that in Eretz Yisrael a judge can rule against Shabbos. There are no words