Do the ends justify the means? That is the essential question that every child is posed with while reading Robin Hood for the first time. Is it ethically excusable for Robin Hood to steal from the mean, rich royalty and give back to the poor peasants? The story paints a clear picture-everyone is happy; the rich are still rich and the poor are, well, a wee bit less poor. Robin Hood is clearly the hero of the story.

But what happens if the rich don't deserve to stay rich? What if the rich acted so deplorably that they ethically deserved to have their wealth stripped from them? And what if the poor were so unbearably poor that they were willing to go to great lengths to escape from their current state? Does that give the Robin Hood figure the right to go to similar great lengths to help the poor?

This past Thursday two ultra-orthodox rabbis and their accomplices from Monsey, N.Y., Brooklyn, N.Y., Lakewood, N.J. and other tri-state area locations, were arrested for allegedly kidnapping and beating men who were refusing to give their wives a "get," a religious writ of divorce. The women paid the rabbis up to a reported $60,000 for their help. The money was used to hire the appropriate parties who would beat the husbands until they agreed to free the women from the marriages. What caused these marriages to deteriorate to the point where women were willing to spend such vast amounts of money just for a chance to leave them has yet to be determined-although we can speculate.

According to Orthodox religious law, a woman is not considered divorced-and therefore cannot remarry-unless officially given a "get" from her former husband. For that reason, it has become a common practice of Orthodox rabbis to refuse to officiate a wedding without a prenuptial agreement legally mandating that a husband must issue a "get" if his wife asks for one. In fact, the Rabbinical Council of America, the premier organization of Orthodox rabbis in the United States, has posted on their website a generic version of a prenuptial agreement accepted by both the RCA and U.S. code that legally mandates the husband to grant a divorce if it is requested by the wife.

The men acted execrably by not granting the divorces, regardless of what occurred during the marriage. To deny your wife an opportunity to leave a marriage is unethical, no question about it. But, does the husbands' unacceptable behavior justify assaulting them? Are these rabbis standing on strong ethical footing to order hits on these men? Are the Robin-Hood-rabbis allowed to harm these men to benefit the women in need?

Legally, the answer is a resounding no. After a month-long investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the rabbis were arrested for the hiring of hitmen and by extension, the beating of the husbands, and are pending trial. The law is clear, and it is expected that the rabbis will be convicted for their undisputed crimes.

In recent history, the issue of women being trapped in marriages at the discretion of their often-abusive husbands has become prevalent within the Orthodox-Jewish community. Furthermore, the natural instinct to go to the authorities proves to be futile. The authorities can separate the wife from the husband, but they cannot force the husband to hand over a religious document. There are many situations that have since been publicized where the authorities have tried, and were subsequently unsuccessful, in forcing a husband to offer the "get."

This trend highlights the tension that often occurs within religious communities in this country. Jewish law obligates its followers to live within the boundaries of the land they live in-"Dina d'malchutah Dina" in the language of the tractate, Aramaic. Yet, Jewish law and secular law can conflict. By secular standards, these women could have obtained help from the authorities in their quest to leave their husbands. However, Jewish law would then prohibit them, under those circumstances, to remarry within the faith. This tension creates a burden on those practicing women: legally free themselves from marriage and be unable to remarry and re-enter the community, or continue to live within the community in a crumbling, and potentially damaging, relationship.

The Supreme Court of the United States has released many First Amendment decisions and dissents trying to rectify the issue of religion conflicting with federal law. The basic predicament that SCOTUS has attempted to avoid is any person feeling like an outsider because of their belief system. And yet, when these women were so trapped within their marriages that they were willing to pay exorbitant fees to escape, all they could feel was seclusion. They needed Robin Hood to help them escape, for both their community and the federal law had failed them.

Ideally, no Jewish marriages occur without a prenuptial agreement to avoid the ineffectiveness of the authorities-but these cases were not ideal. I applaud the rabbis for accepting their arrests without much conflict; federal law is clear-they deserve to be arrested. But do they deserve punishment for their actions? Of that, I'm not so sure.
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