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- Wedding and Sheva Berachot
Answer: It is best, if feasible, to ask the beit din in charge of authorizing your marriage how they want it handled. However, we can understand why the parties involved apparently want to avoid that headache, and we will inform you of the halachic issues on your preferred plan. Your description hints that you did not use the IsraeliRabbanut, as the ketuba copy they provide is a special form which is different from a regular ketuba, including that it says it is a copy, which has advantages.
The ketuba must be a valid financial document. If the first ketubawas invalid (not every mistake invalidates), it was necessary to write a new one as soon as possible, although it could be done after going into the yichud room (see Living the Halachic Process, vol. III, H-2). The copy of the ketuba is a contemporary idea and not a halachic obligation. It primarily serves to keep information on the wedding and ketuba in the State of Israel apparatus, which can prove valuable in several ways. There is a machloket among poskim whether a woman who lost herketuba can secure payment based on this copy (see our Ask the Rabbi column, Balak 5774). This in turns impacts on the question of whether a couple can continue living together in the fullest sense when the couple’s ketuba is lost or disqualified and the Rabbanut has a valid copy, prior to arranging a replacement ketuba (see ibid.).
Can one predate a standard ketuba so that it can serve as a duplicate for the ketuba? One of the things that disqualify a document is if it is predated (Shvi’it 10:5). This is because of the laws of liens, which enable extracting payment from one who bought real estate from one who owed money. One could misuse a predated document to seize property from someone who bought land before the obligation found in the document, in which case the lien did not take effect on it. Therefore, a predated ketuba is invalid. If we accept the view that the copy cannot be used for payment but just provides information, then it might not be viewed as a financial document that must not be predated.
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However, if the witnesses did not carry out their job validly, they can sign a new valid document (ibid. 4) with the date when the document was to have been properly signed. The Shulchan Aruch (CM 39:3) discusses the case of one who becomes obligated to his friend with a kinyan (as a chatan does) in front of witnesses. He says that the witnesses can write the subsequent document with the date of thekinyan even if they delayed doing so for a long time. In our case, while the witnesses signed a new valid ketuba, they did not finish their job with that since their kinyan on the terms of the ketuba was designed to result in a ketuba copy as well. Therefore, they can finish their job by writing the copy with the date of the time of the kinyan/wedding. Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg shlita agreed with this analysis and recommended that you explicitly ask the witnesses to sign the copy, which you can easily do.
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
