5 - Agunot

Summary

An agunah is a married woman whose husband has disappeared. According to Jewish law, such a woman may not remarry until her husband is found and gives her a writ of divorce, or until testimony is received of his death. The phenomenon of agunot is an ancient one and has many causes; however, during the period of the Diaspora it was increasingly prevalent, becoming an integral part of the reality of Jewish life. Many factors contributed to this development: the systematic assaults against Jews in recent centuries; the wanderings of Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora, exacerbated by anti-Jewish persecutions and wars; the fact that Jewish blood was free for the taking, so that any Jew who travelled was at constant risk of attack; the occupation of many Jews in peddling and in trade, which forced them, notwithstanding this ever-present danger, regularly to set out on long journeys. All this led to an increase in the number of agunot and provided fertile ground for the growth of a ramified halakhic literature on the subject, as well as a storytelling genre that reflected the situation in its own way.

In every generation agunot appealed to the leading halakhic authorities in their attempt—at times in desperation—to be released from this state of bondage. It was therefore only natural that upon the rise of hasidism many women, from both hasidic and non-hasidic families, would turn to the tsadikim for aid. The belief in the ability of the tsadik to see afar and to know concealed things gave the agunah hope that he could help her to find her lost husband, and either bring him home or obtain the necessary writ of divorce from him. In the hasidic stories on this subject the leading roles are played by the wife, the tsadik, and the husband, with secondary parts occasionally given to additional figures such as a relative, or friends of the husband. Most of the stories begin with a description of the situation and the sorry state of the agunah, and end with the resolution of the situation by the tsadik. His counsel encourages the wife and helps to locate the husband; in most instances his blessing is effective in bringing the husband home, or in obtaining a writ of divorce from him. Thus a majority of these stories do, indeed, have a ‘happy ending’.