Conservatives Establish Marriage Counseling Under Rabbinical Court

A new cooperative understanding between rabbinical scholars and practicing psychiatrists has led to the establishment of a marriage counseling service under the auspices of the Beth Din–the rabbinical court–of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and the Rabbinical Assembly of America. This was announced jointly today by Dr. Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of the Seminary for training Conservative rabbis, Dr. Isaac Klein, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, and Dr. Mortimer Ostow, psychiatrist who heads the Department of Pastoral Psychiatry at the Seminary here.

“The new marriage counseling service,” according to Dr. Finkelstein, “will use the combined skills of the rabbinic scholar and the psychiatrist to resolve marital conflicts This service, under the auspices of Beth Din, will protect the divine element which exists in every true marriage and through the cooperation of skilled psychiatrists will enable the parties to the marriage to find fulfillment within the contract they have entered into before God and man.”

Speaking of the psychiatric aspect of the new service, Dr. Ostow said, “the conscientious psychiatrist who is often called upon to mediate in marital problems will welcome the opportunity to restrict his work to clinical study leaving the ethical issues to the clergy. This will enable the clergyman to confine his efforts to fields in which he is competent, relying on his medical colleague to clarify clinical issues and motivational dynamics.”

In outlining the development of the new project, Dr. Finkelstein praised the efforts of Rabbi Klein, a member of the Beth Din since its inception in obtaining acceptance of the new Ketubah–the traditional Jewish marriage agreement–adopted in 1954. This change in the religious marriage agreement requires both bride and groom to acknowledge the authority of the Beth Din or its representatives to counsel them in the light of Jewish tradition. Dr. Finkelstein characterized it as the first step in making possible the new marriage counseling service.

Dr. Finkelstein reported that when experimentation started with the new Ketubah, there was a backlog of 22 purportedly insoluble cases of marital conflict in which a civil divorce had already been granted but in which it was apparently impossible to obtain a Get, or Jewish Divorce. He added that at present there are no such cases remaining before the Beth Din. The counseling service, which is being launched immediately at the Seminary, is to be regarded as a pilot project, Dr. Finkelstein said.