The relationship between G-d and Israel is like the relationship of husband and wife, a relationship of faith and love, as well as one of mutual obligations. The Covenant between G-d and Israel is in fact so much like marriage that we can learn reliably about marriage by studying the Covenant and vice versa.



For example, in parshat Ki Tetze we learn that a man should be free for his new wife for a year (Devarim 24:5). This year of devotion clearly reflects the year that Hashem dwelled at Mount Sinai with His bride, Israel.



The parallelism between the Covenant and marriage extends to the area of divorce and remarriage, the laws of which also appear in parshat Ki Tetze. In Devarim 24:1 we read about a man divorcing his wife when he finds a matter of immorality in her.



The verse is the basis of a famous dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai that I would like to postulate stems from different lessons drawn by the two schools from the similarity between the Covenant and marriage.



Beit Shammai derives from the verse that a man may only divorce his wife in matters of immorality. Why does Beit Shammai say this? If they learned it from the Covenant, they must have argued that because the Covenant between Israel and G-d is eternal, marriage should not be terminated for any reason other than the one stated in the Torah.



Beit Hillel teaches that a man is in fact obligated to divorce an unfaithful wife. How does Beit Hillel know this? If they learned it from the Covenant, they must have argued that because Israel was sent into exile for its idol worship, a marriage must be ended once adultery destroyed its holiness.



After divorce, there is a possibility that a man can take back his former wife. From a verse in the same passage, Devarim 24:4, we learn a law that restricts such remarriage. The verse states that a man cannot remarry his former wife once she married someone else after the divorce. Again, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel interpret differently. Beit Hillel argues that if divorce is sometimes reversible, it must be that a man can divorce his wife for other reasons than adultery. Beit Shammai argues that it is not accidental that the verse occurs in the context of a man who found in his wife a matter of immorality. Hence, it must deal with the case of a man who divorced his wife because he suspected her of adultery, but after the divorce, he gets convinced that the suspicion was incorrect.



It is a chilling thought, but the prophet Jeremiah applies the laws of divorce to the relationship between G-d and Israel: "I sent her away and gave her a bill of divorce." (Jeremia 3:8) As the divorce of Israel was mandatory, its reversal would seem very problematic. Indeed, Jeremiah says so explicitly: "If a man sent away his wife, and she went from him, and she was the wife of another man, shall he go back to her? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played harlot with many lovers; and yet you want to return to Me? The words of Hashem." (Jeremiah 3:1)



Yet, we find in the same chapter of Jeremiah: "Return, misbehaving children, says Hashem, because I have taken you as a man takes a wife, and I will bring you one of a city and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion." (Jeremiah 3:14)



In the Haftara for Ki Tetze, the prophet Isaiah says it all in one poetic statement: "For like a wife who had been forsaken, and with a melancholy spirit, Hashem will have called you, and like a wife of one's youth who had become despised - said your G-d. For but a brief moment have I forsaken you, and with abundant mercy shall I gather you in." (Isaiah 54:6-7)



How can the above verses be reconciled? If there was an obligatory divorce, how can there be a return? Maybe the term "misbehaving children" in Jeremiah 3:14 is a clue. Hashem does not punish the children for the sins of the fathers. Every generation is judged independently. The obligatory divorce was for one generation only. Hence we find that the exiles to Babylon could not return, but their children could, after seventy years (Jeremiah 29:10). The punishment for the fathers became a test for the children that would prove to be very hard.



After the divorce of seventy years, Hashem was, as it were, anxiously waiting for His bride to return out of love. The exiles of Babylon should have answered the clear prophetic calling by returning en masse, immediately after the seventy years. Had they done so, also the ten tribes exiled by Sancheriv would have returned, and the words of the prophet would have been realized in full: "In those days, the house of Yehuda will walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the Land that I gave as an inheritance to your fathers." (Jeremiah 3:18) The physical return of a united Israel would have opened the gates of Heaven, and would have brought the final redemption. In the words of our sages, the Temple would never have been destroyed again (Shir HaShirim Rabbah).



The failure to return out of love at the desired time caused the greatest drama of history. The world lost the manifest presence of the Divine. Israel lost ten of its tribes and Judaism became a shadow of itself, without prophecy, the Temple and the Sanhedrin. Falsehoods like Christianity, Islam and hedonism were given the power to sweep the world and plague Israel in a very long exile. Why was all this decreed? There cannot be a full answer. However, one aspect of the answer may be that the long exile was to be a test to remove the Divine suspicion, as it were, which was raised by the failure to return en masse after seventy years.



The Law says that a man who gets convinced of the righteousness of his former wife when he sees her remaining faithful even after divorce can take her back. In fact, he should take her back, because we know that Hashem will act the same way towards Israel. Israel has passed the test of the long exile. Twenty centuries of Jewish refusal to serve the falsehoods of the world brought atonement. Even in the absence of complete teshuva, the suspicion has been removed.



From the dramatic consequences of the original failure to return to the Land, we can understand how equally dramatic will be consequences of the return to the Land that we merit witnessing. How blessed are those who return out of love. They will be credited for gathering the tribes of Israel, for restoring the kingdom of Israel, for destroying the world's falsehoods, for establishing the Sanhedrin, for bringing back prophecy and for building the Holy Temple.