The OC Web :: Article :: Model Synagogue Resolution

Model Synagogue Resolution

Posted on 5:44PM October 07, 2004 | Email This

WHEREAS the Congregation has taken note of the efforts to work within the parameters of halakhah, Jewish law, to prevent the exploitation of the provisions concerning Jewish divorce by unscrupulous spouses and to prevent circumstances of agunah status within the Jewish community, and

WHEREAS the Rabbi as religious authority of the Congregation has explained the use of communal resources in bringing community and moral pressure on those determined in accordance with Jewish law to constitute recalcitrant spouses, and the use of a communally sanctioned pre-nuptial agreement to bring such moral pressure on potential recalcitrant spouses, and

WHEREAS specific actions by the Congregation may help to encourage the use of the appropriate pre-nuptial agreement and other means, IT IS

RESOLVED THAT it is the sense of the community and the determination of the Congregation that marriages and weddings celebrated in the synagogue sanctuary over which our rabbi officiates shall be [encouraged][required] to include in the preparation for such ceremony the use and signature of an appropriate pre-nuptial agreement, substantially of the kind promulgated by the Rabbinical Council of America or such suitable modification as the rabbi of the Congregation may approve, and further

RESOLVED THAT the Congregation supports the determination by the rabbi of the Congregation to bring to the attention of the Congregation at the suitable public occasion the identity and circumstances of any person who is a member of the Congregation determined to satisfaction of the rabbi by an appropriate rabbinic beth din tribunal.