Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
One day, two lawyers show up at the
beddin. One lawyer is the husband, one
lawyer is the wife. And after many years
of marriage, these two people that were
50 years old or so, wanted to get a
divorce. And they needed the rabbi to
process the get. The rabbi noticed that
the husband was completely dismissing
the fact that his wife has been his wife
for so many years, supportive and
everything. And to his dismay, he saw
how this husband completely mistreated
this wife by cheating on her with his
25-year-old secretary who was half her
age and wanted to leave his soon-to-be
ex-wife with nothing. And he had all
types of legalistic reasons of why he
should leave her with nothing. After of
Shmuel Devir worked on this item by
item, task by task, he completely
destroyed the case of the husband and
showing him how he is not being fair,
he's not being honest, and that he needs
to give his ex-wife the ketubah. He
needs to give her some of the
financials. Of course, the ex-wife is
sad about the divorce, but happy about
that she's not left with nothing. And at
the end of the case, after the husband
leaves, not exactly very happy, the
wife, or the ex-wife, takes her hand and
wants to shake the dayan, of Shmuel
Devir's hand. And of course, the dayan
says, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I cannot
shake your hand. It's against the
Torah." She says to him, "Yes, but for
the rav, there's nothing between us.
This is just a formality. This is how we
conduct ourselves in the world,
especially after everything you've done
for me. The least I can do is shake your
hand." And the rav of Devir says to her,
"I know that Torah's ways seem foreign
to you. Seem ancient to you. Seem
irrelevant to you. But the truth is that
if your husband conducted himself the
same way that I do, the same way that my
forefathers did, all the way back to the
beginning of time, we would not have a
divorce today." This, rabotai karim, the
more you think about this story, the
more you realize how profound and
relevant it is to our times.
