RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPRITUAL RENEWAL:TRACTATE KETUBOTH

 

 

 

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:TRACTATE KETUBOTH:NO ALLIYAH AS GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE

 

Shalom:

 

With weddings starting up again after the 3 weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, when we do not have weddings in remembrance of the fall of Jerusalem and the two Temples, a bit of interesting information from Tractate Ketoboth and Jerusalem and the land of Israel may be in order.

 

The very last mishnah in Talmud Bavli Tractate Ketuboth ends on a symbolic note about the marriage between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.

The Oral Law says that a husband and father can force everyone in his household to go up to the land of Israel but no one can be forced to leave Israel. Everyone in a household can be compelled to go up to Jerusalem but no  one may be compelled to leave it.  This applies to both men and  women.  (Talmud Bavli Tractate  Ketuboth 110b)  A man can divorce his wife without paying her the divorce settlement as outlined in her katubah if she refused to move to Israel with him. A woman can divorce her husband and receive her ketubah's divorce settlement if her husband wishes to leave Israel and she wishes to stay in Israel.

 

There is no doubt that the rabbis of the Talmud were 'ahead of their time' concerning women's rights. The fact that women were no longer considered property of their fathers or husbands, and protected by the ketubah, and even, once 13, could reject a father's choice of a husband, is amazing considering, when and where, Talmud Bavli was composed.

 

 I don't think that the Talmud fostering alliyah to Israel. I believe that the Talmud many times metaphorically uses Jerusalem, as a spiritual destination, and not an actual one. I reach this conclusion because on many occasions, the Rabbis do not speak kindly of what was occurring in Jerusalem, especially in the second Temple, nor among its people and leaders. The 4 books of Maccabees were left out of the canon when this was decided in Yavneh due to the corrupt leadership of the Hasmoneans, and the rabbis ascribe the Temples fall to senseless hatred among Jews living in Jerusalem, fighting over party invitations. Adding to my conclusion, is that the exilarchy, had their academies established in Babylon-Persia, and were not running to Jerusalem when Ezra reestablished the 2nd Temple, nor in the 1000 years following when the Talmud was finally written, with few exceptions.

 

This is no different than we in Galut say 'next year in Jerusalem' at our seders or on Yom Kippur, or praying for the 3rd Temple to be established when we pray the berchot ma mazon, and yet would shudder the thought of animal or grain sacrifices, with priestly intercessors, taking the place of tephila and lihitpalel, as a service of the heart, and still find ourselves year after year, not in Jerusalem at our seders, but still saying the words again and again.

 

Hence, I think what the Rabbis are truly saying, is that no spouse should keep another from a spiritual quest to be closer to God, and that divorce, which the Talmud doesn't take lightly, may be needed if one is being kept from God by a spouse. Even more so, a woman has just as much right to seek spirituality, as her husband.

 

Divorce is the USA is so common place, that one doesn't need grounds. Frankly, it would be refreshing to hear someone say, they left their spouse because he or she was keeping them from a spiritual path. Usually, the refrain is one left their spouse, because one was keeping them from following a non -spiritual path.

 

 

Shalom,

Rabbi Arthur Segal

Hilton Head Island, SC

Bluffton, SC

JEWISH RENEWAL:

JEWISH SPRITUAL RENEWAL

 

 

 

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