Q&A: One Who Says: I Will Divorce and Take Her Back
One Who Says: I Will Divorce and Take Her Back
Question
If someone says, “I will divorce my wife and then take back my divorcee,” does he receive reward in Heaven in the World to Come for the commandment of taking back one’s divorced wife—according to the view that taking back one’s divorced wife is a commandment?
Answer
Reward in Heaven is not tied to the question of whether a commandment was fulfilled or not. Reward relates to the degree of effort and how much reward you deserve. Therefore, one should distinguish between the question of whether there is a commandment here and whether you receive reward.
See regarding this Rabbi Asher Weiss’s lecture (cited in Column 343): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eia_f83RmE
Discussion on Answer
Dvir, I think you’re talking about the divorce itself, not about remarrying one’s divorced wife after the divorce.
Indeed.
And also regarding divorce, I argued that some hold that way, and I disagree with them.
Besides that, if I remember correctly, the Rabbi once explained that taking back one’s divorced wife is a procedural commandment. Not that there is some value in fulfilling it, but rather that it explains how to act when one needs to divorce. Like the commandment of immersion, where Maimonides writes that there is no special virtue in it; rather, someone who needs or wants to become pure must do it that way…