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Halakhic responsa on the validity of a controversial engagement and subsequent divorce by R. Joseph Zevi b. Abraham Halevi (1874–1960), rabbi and halakhic authority. R. Halevi dated the work with a talmudic quote ordering "those with insufficient knowledge of marriage and divorce law to abstain from dealing with subject." R. Halevi was born in Slobodka and studied in its famous yeshiva. In 1891 he settled in Erez Israel, where in 1897 he was appointed dayyan and assistant to his father-in-law, R. Naphtali Herz ha-Levi, the first Ashkenazi rabbi of Jaffa. In 1902 on the death of his father-in-law, he served for a time as rabbi of Jaffa, but when R. A. I. Kook was appointed rabbi of Jaffa, R. Halevi was appointed head of the first permanent bet din established there. During R. Kook's absence from Erez Israel in World War I he took over his functions as rabbi of the Ashkenazi community and together with R. Ben Zion Ouziel represented the Jewish community of Jaffa-Tel Aviv before the Turkish government. Following the expulsion of Jews from Jaffa-Tel Aviv by the Turks, R. Halevi went to Petah Tikvah and to Rishon le-Zion, returning to Jaffa after the entry of the British into Erez Israel. He continued to fill the office of av bet din also during the rabbinates of Aaronson (1923–1935), Amiel (1936–1945), and Unterman (from 1947).
R. Halevi was a prolific author. Most of the 17 books he wrote deal with the halakhot and precepts applying to the land of Israel, maintaining that with the beginning of the "in-gathering of the exiles" attention should again be paid to these laws. The following are some of his works: Hora'at Sha'ah (1909), an exposition of the principles permitting the working of the land in the Sabbatical year by selling it to a gentile; Hashkafah li-Verakhah (1930), on the laws of the separation of the tithes; Aser Te'asser (1935), on terumot and ma'aserot ("tithes"); Neta ha-Arez (1939), Zera ha-Arez (1941), Kerem ha-Arez (1943), Lehem ha-Arez (1950); Hovat Giddulei ha-Arez (1953), dealing with the laws of orlah, kilayim (mixed species) of seeds and trees, kilayim of the vineyard, the law of hallah and the laws of leket, shikhhah, and pe'ah; Amirah Ne'imah (1948; second series 1955 in two parts), halakhic expositions and novellae; Va-Tomer Ziyyon, 2 pts. (1950–58), homilies on the Pentateuch; Torat ha-Korbanot (1959), an exposition of 288 halakhot in Maimonides' laws of the sacrifices. Most of his works follow a standard pattern. The basis is the text from Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, to which he adds the decisions of rishonim and the decisions based upon new developments. Although there is an element of casuistry in his works, in the main he aims at giving the practical halakhah.
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