Whose laws are we following?

Rabbi Aharon Rose

Free Agent Rabbi

These are life events which affect all of us at some time or other and if a Kohen doesn’t know what he’s meant to do and not to do, all sorts of problems can follow.

Let me give you one example: When a Jewish man and woman get divorced, a document called a “get” is given by the man to the woman, stating that they are divorced. Once divorced, if they change their minds, even years later, they may remarry, unless the woman has remarried in the meantime.

But when a Kohen and his wife divorce, they may not remarry (a Kohen may not marry a divorced woman, even if she is his former wife) – even if they change their minds a few minutes later.

The Talmud teaches that Kohanim tend to be hot-tempered, so they are more likely to want to divorce in a huff than a non-Kohen. This might create a problem, as you can imagine.

So the Sages intervened and required that the Kohen’s divorce document should take much longer to write than a regular one, giving a hot-tempered Kohen time to calm down and reconsider his decision to divorce. After each line is written, the parchment is folded and sewn down, then the next line is written.

I think this is a beautiful example of how the laws of the Sages are designed to help us handle the challenges of life and of our own peculiar foibles. IMHO, the best description of the purpose of rabbinic laws is to protect us against ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I certainly need that!

There is a famous story of a great Sage, Rabbi Yechezkel Landau of Prague (18^th century), to whom a wealthy Kohen came and demanded he conduct his wedding with his fiancé, a divorced woman. The rabbi naturally refused.

The man became infuriated (remember that Kohanim tend to be hot-headed) and he told the rabbi that he would do it whether he wanted to or not. So the man went to Empress Maria Teresa, and convinced her to force the old-fashioned rabbi to conduct the marriage.

When the Empress’ messengers came, the rabbi agreed – how could he refuse the Empress? The whole city of Prague was intrigued how the rabbi could obey the Empress, who desired the marriage, and his G-d, who did not.

At the chuppah, when the rabbi asked the Kohen to place the ring on his bride’s finger, he told him to repeat the following words: “Behold, you are betrothed to me with this ring according to the law of [Moses and of Israel – omitted]… Empress Maria Teresa.” Problem solved.