Smacking of Senselessness
When couples come to me to help bring peace into their marriage, I ask them what caused the friction, in order to discover the area in need of improvement. Regrettably, a majority of quarrels which lead to divorce are caused by absurd and irrational reasons.
The following is a case in point. A man came to me and said, “Honored Rav, my wife and I have found no peace with each other for the past four months. Today, we have an appointment with the Beit Din to begin divorce proceedings.”
“Why are you interested in getting divorced?” I asked. “Why are you arguing?”
“Four months ago, I wanted to watch a certain program on television and my wife wanted to watch something else. Neither of us wanted to yield to the other. We argued and shouted vociferously, but got nowhere. By that point, I was so enraged that I slapped my wife in the face. She ran away from home and refuses to come back.”
“Did you try contacting her?” I asked.
“No. I just gave our details to the Beit Din. I will meet her there. The Beit Din will try to patch things up between us in order to avoid a divorce.”
I instructed him to phone his wife then and there, but he flatly refused. I tried mightily to talk some sense into him. But he would not hear of it. He claimed that throughout all this time, she, too, never attempted to make contact.
Seeing that my words fell on deaf ears, I asked my secretary, Mr. Marciano, to ask his wife to take care of the matter and call up the woman. We tried our best to save this marriage, nearly at the brink of collapse for no valid reason.
- Writing a letter in a Sefer Torah. On the right is Rabbi Yitzchak Marciano, the Rav’s secretary
