Sotah 052

20:
We have seen that the priests in general (and even more so the High Priest in particular) were seen as invested with a special sanctity – a sanctity that was passed on from generation to generation through the male line from the original High Priest, Aaron the brother of Moses, to all his descendents. This special sanctity precluded them from contracting certain liaisons. The ordinary priest was forbidden to marry a divorcée or a woman who had given Ĥalitzah to her brother-in-law (since ĥalitzah is parallel to divorce in the case of the levirate). This prohibition was extended to include a widow in the case of the High Priest.

21.
In earlier times a certain opprobrium was connected with the divorced woman, and I think that we must understand this opprobrium before we can judge the prohibition imposed on the kohen. The Torah grants a husband the sole right to divorce his wife. (The fact that later on this right was severely circumscribed by according certain rights to the wife is not relevant to our present discussion.) The question of divorce is treated in the Torah [Deuteronomy 24:1-4] almost incidentally:

This is a very convoluted sentence, but within its text is to be found the principle that a marriage can founder and can therefore be terminated. The husband must write his wife a Deed of Separation [Sefer Keritut]. The sages were later to ask whether the right of the husband to dismiss his wife thus was curtailed in any way by implication in the Torah. Two major views emerged from this discussion. Both were centered on the words of the Torah which I translated above as "something wrong". The Hebrew, Ervat Davar, can be understood in two ways. It can be understood to indicate that the husband finds 'something' wrong with his wife – that is to say 'anything': the marriage just fails for any reason. The alternative understanding is connected with the word Ervah, which almost always in Scripture bears a sexual connotation. This second interpretation would indicate that a man divorces his wife because he has found in her some immorality.

Here is Mishnah Gittin 9:10 –

It is quite clear from this that the much more conservative School of Shammai saw that if a woman was divorced it was a sign of some kind of licentiousness in her behaviour. While Halakhah in this matter does not follow Bet Shammai, the feeling obviously was there in Israel's society, and it must explain the prohibition of a priest marrying a divorced woman: the taint of immorality was presumed to be involved.

To be continued.

I wrote: As our mishnah states: Jewish women were never sold into such a bonded servitude.

Meir Noach writes:

We as a people have a problem.

JERUSALEM (Dec. 8) – About 3,000 women, mainly from the former Soviet Union, are sold each year into Israel's sex industry, which takes in about $1 billion annually, a parliamentary report said Sunday, slamming the country's justice system for being lax on punishments. The women, seeking to escape poverty at home, are usually smuggled in by traffickers who promise them legitimate jobs. Once in Israel, they are sold to pimps for between $3,000 and $6,000 each, the preliminary report said.

When the Romans destroyed our holy Temple and Jerusalem, they sent 300 Jewish boys and 300 Jewish girls to Rome for the brothels there. The Girls jumped off the ship and died and then the boys did likewise. A Bat Kol was heard to say, "For this do I weep." But today it is not the Romans who do this to us, but other Jews! For years we fought and prayed for the Jews behind the Iron Curtain to be free. But now we allow those same Jews to be slaves and a type of slavery in which Jews in the past chose death rather than endure! And we do nothing! Why are not Reform, Masorti and all branches of Orthodox working together to free these daughters of Abraham and Sarah?

Think of a young Jewish girl born into an atheistic country. She dreams of going to Eretz Yisrael. Maybe she dreams of lighting candles on Friday night after she works all week at her new job. Maybe she dreams of being a wife and mother. Maybe the Messiah could come from her? But we stand by and allow the Russian Mafia to turn her into one of the worst forms of slaves! Even if half the women there are not Jewish, could you think of a greater Khillul Hashem, than for Non-Jewish women to be used like this in Eretz Yisrael? How must they look at People of the Brit? Pidyon Shvuyim is so import that Rambam states that (Mishneh Torah ," Laws regarding the gifts to the poor" 8:11) it is permitted to take funds meant to build a synagogue and use it for Pidyon Shvuyim

I do not know how many of these daughters of Abraham and Sarah are under the category of Pidyon Shvuyim! But if there are 50 or 40 , 30 , 20 or 10 we must act! As it says in Sanhedrin whoever saves one Jewish life it as if he saves the entire world. What can we do? More than we have! Maybe the Bat Kol is weeping now yet we no longer have ears to hear it.

I respond.

I have included this message because of its pathos and obvious righteous indignation (which we all share). However, it is not an example of slavery in the Halakhic sense. In one thing Meir Noach is wrong: the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel together with the Masorti Movement has publicly decried this trafficking and has called for most stringent action to be taken by the authorities to rectify the situation and to put an end to it.