Making Sense of Talmudic Divorce

Aug. 16 2023

On Monday, those who adhere to the regimen known as daf yomi—whereby a single folio page of the Talmud is studied each day—completed the tractate of Gittin, or “bills of divorce.” In Jewish law, the issuance of such a writ, or get, is a complex procedure, and Gittin is the basic source for most halakhic jurisprudence concerning legal documents. Dovid Bashevkin explores the tractate’s ethical meaning:

Tractate Gittin is written backward. [It] begins with a discussion about sending a get overseas. Not a word about more basic questions: how do you write a get? What is a get? It is only on the final page of the tractate that we find the beginning: under what grounds divorce is permissible. And for those who have ever been through a divorce of any kind, maybe the structure of this tractate provides a poetic lesson of sorts.

The entire opening of the tractate describes a couple who live apart, requiring the husband to send the divorce document overseas. It’s a strange situation to begin the discussion of divorce. . . . This question occupies the first six pages of the tractate. Why spend so much time on such a remote scenario?

Rabbi Yehuda Brandes offers a moving theory that highlights the difficulty of achieving closure. “All of these issues,” he explains, “are a cover for something much deeper—the emotional difficulty of truly severing the connection between the man and his wife.”

[B]uried in the fifth chapter of the tractate are stories that retell the events leading to the destruction of the Temple. Traditionally, these are read on Tisha b’Av, when we mourn the destruction of our Temple. Why are they housed in Tractate Gittin? Because Gittin is not just about divorce between a husband and wife; it also retells the marital rupture between the Jewish people and God. If our relationship with God should ideally be seen as a marriage, then when God becomes distant, it feels like a divorce.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Divorce, Halakhah, Talmud

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula