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.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.