DEUT1327 See [[EXOD630]] Exodus 22:10 oath GATES 421

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DEUT1328 It is written here: "thing," and, elsewhere (19:15): "By word of two witnesses… shall a thing be established." Just as there, two witnesses [are required]; here, too, two witnesses [are required to establish her licentiousness] (Gittin 90a)

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DEUT1329 R. Pappa said to Rava: If he found in her neither "nakedness" nor a "thing" [of any kind], and he divorced her, what is the halachah? [i.e., is the divorce valid?] He answered: Since Scripture made manifest in respect to a ravisher (22:29): "He shall not be able to send her away all of his days" -- all of his days he is subject to the positive commandant of taking her back -- it is there that this was made manifest; but here, what was done was done [and the divorce stands] (GIttin 90a)

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DEUT1330 Indeed, it would be contrary to the interests of the couple, their children, and society to preserve a union which generates unceasing discord and antisocial attitudes. To quote a talmudic maxim: "No individual can live permanently in the same den with a snake" (Yevamot 112b). Under some circumstances, the dissolution of a marriage by divorce is not only desirable but meritorious (Eruvin 41b). In the absence of compelling reasons, the termination of a marriage by divorce is regarded in Judaism has a great tragedy. "When a divorce ends a first marriage, the altar shed tears" (Gittin 91b). The altar, a symbol of reconciliation between man and God, shed tears when two individuals in conflict cannot reconcile to one another. The Pentateuch seems to be deliberately vague in its description of a legitimate cause for divorce. A man divorces his wife "because he has found an unseemly thing in her" [this verse]. What is the definition of an "unseemly thing"? Is it in her moral conduct or in her general inadequacy as a wife? Rabbinic interpretations differ. However, the vagueness of the text might indicate that the definition of an "unseemly thing" should be left to the social and moral perceptions of each generation.

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DEUT1331 No man shall remarry a woman he divorced if she had been another man's wife in the meantime. Key concept is to distance us from anything that even resembles promiscuity. If a divorced woman who remarried could later remarry her first husband, it would appear similar to the conduct of an unfaithful wife. Therefore, once a divorced woman remarries, her first husband can never take her back as his wife.

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DEUT1332 (Continued from [[DEUT678]] Deuteronomy 14:21 ate LEHRMAN 67). Another example of the Hebrew verb Yakhol (to be able) being used of moral inability is in [this verse]. Here, too, it is not the physical inability that is alluded to in the words lo yukhal, but the moral imperative that is stressed. Her former husband cannot remarry her after she had married again and was released by her second husband's divorce or death. Such an act would be deemed an "abomination" (toavah) before the Lord." The lesson stressed is that a moral imperative shall make a base action as impossible of fulfillment just as a total lack of physical strength incapacitates action -- an idea which raises Jewish teachings to sublime pinnacles.

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DEUT1333 A newly married man shall remain at home with his bride during their first year of marriage, exempt from all tasks that would take him away from her. During the first year of marriage, a newly married man shall be prevented from taking on any responsibility that would take him far from his wife and home. He is exempt from military service, even in wartime. Not only is he not obligated to fight, he is also exempt from helping the war effort in any way--for example, to bring food and drink to the fighters--if the job that needs to be done requires that he be away from his wife. See Deuteronomy 24:5 happy CHINUCH 371-2

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DEUT1334 During the first year of marriage, a newly married man must make special efforts to make his wife happy. Hashem wants the world that He created to be inhabited by good, moral people born of legal marriages, not promiscuity. For this reason, He commands that when a man takes a wife, he must remain at home with her for their entire first year of marriage. He becomes accustomed to his wife and well acquainted with her mannerisms, personality and total being. As a result, all other women will be to him as strangers, for their behavior and personalities are very different from his wife's. Because of this year with his bride, he will always stay away from other women, and keep his thoughts on his designated mate--his wife. Thereby, the children that they will have will be upright and good, and the world will be settled by the type of people for whom it was created.

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DEUT1335 Simha [joy] in the Torah is never about individuals. It is always about something we share. A newly married man does not serve in the army for a year, says the Torah, so that he can stay at home "and bring joy to the wife he has married" [this verse]. You shall bring all your offerings to the central Sanctuary, says Moses, so that "there, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and rejoice in all you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you" (Deuteronomy 12:7). The festivals as described in Deuteronomy are days of joy, precisely because they are occasions of collective celebration: "you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the strangers, the fatherless and the widows living among you" (Deuteronomy 16:11). Simha is joy shared. It is not something we experience in solitude.

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DEUT1336 To rejoice one’s wife is regarded as a full-time occupation, especially during the first year of marriage, which often either makes or breaks the marriage. This duty is considered as a national and not just a personal obligation. By consolidating your marriage, this law teaches, you perform a greater service to your nation, to the survival of your people, by having a stable home than by joining the army and defending the people in military battle. The ultimate security of our people lies in our homes. Had we relied merely on military strength and victories, we would have been extinct long ago. Hence, in the choice to be made here between home and army, priority was to be given to the home. By staying home for the first year “to rejoice your wife” you render a more essential service to the nation than by joining its defenders in the trenches. In the moral scale of values, then, even in terms of Jewish security, happy homes come before powerful armies. Jewish homes are our principal fortifications, our first line of national defence[sic]. (By Immanuel Jakobovits)

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