Q&A: Taking Back One’s Divorced Wife After Betrothal
Taking Back One’s Divorced Wife After Betrothal
Question
Good week, Rabbi,
In the passage dealing with taking back one’s divorced wife, it says this:
24:1 “When a man takes a wife and has relations with her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he found in her some matter of indecency, and he writes her a bill of divorce and places it in her hand, and sends her out of his house.
24:2 And she leaves his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife.
24:3 And the latter man hates her, and writes her a bill of divorce and places it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter man who took her as a wife dies.
24:4 Her first husband who sent her away may not take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord; and you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.” {Samekh}
The Sages disputed how to understand the passage: whether it deals with a woman divorced after marriage, or also after betrothal:
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Yevamot 11b
Rabbi Yosei ben Kipper says in the name of Rabbi Elazar: If one takes back his divorced wife, if she had been divorced after marriage—she is forbidden; if after betrothal—she is permitted, as it is said: “after she has been defiled.” And the Rabbis say: both this one and that one are forbidden. So then how do I interpret “after she has been defiled”? To include a suspected adulteress who secluded herself [with another man].
But it still seems difficult, since the verse says, “and sends her out of his house,” “and she leaves his house” — meaning, the woman had already been brought into his house and now he is sending her away and she is leaving his house. That would exclude a betrothed woman, who has not yet entered his house. It also says in the verse that the man took her and then had relations with her, which would exclude a woman who had not yet had relations after the marriage act. So what made the Rabbis interpret the passage as dealing not only with taking back one’s divorced wife after marriage, but also after betrothal?
With blessings,
Answer
They explain there that it is speaking of a case after “she became another man’s wife,” and “becoming” means betrothal. Beyond that, “after she has been defiled” does not sound like she merely married someone else. What defilement is there in that? So perhaps the Rabbis prefer to speak about a betrothed woman who went astray.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand. The tannaitic dispute is about a woman betrothed to the second man.
So what would the law be regarding someone who betrothed a woman and divorced her, and afterward another man married her and divorced her? Would she now be forbidden to the first?
As far as I remember, the Talmud does not deal with a case where the first man divorced her after betrothal. On the face of it, the verse itself says that it is speaking about divorcing her after marriage.
But it could still be explained that she has to be divorced from the first husband only after marriage to him, and from the second even after betrothal to him. Meaning, if she was betrothed to the first and divorced by him, the whole issue never begins at all; only when she was married to the first and divorced by him, then later betrothal would make her forbidden to the first.