HOLD ON TO THAT KETUBAH!

2 Peter 1:4

He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature ….

In ancient times in Israel when a young man wanted to marry, he first consulted with the local matchmaker. He then went to the prospective girl’s father or guardian and agreed to a price. The agreement was then sealed with a glass of wine, which allowed the young man to go and ‘prepare a place’, or build a house for them to live in. This period of betrothal was as binding as marriage itself. A ketubah was also written. A ketubah is a legal document written in beautiful calligraphy. This document outlines the bride-price paid for the girl and incorporates all the conditions of the marriage, especially the responsibilities of the groom towards his bride-to-be. It serves as a prenuptial agreement and deterrent in case the husband would leave her as it also makes mention of the money owed to the wife in case of divorce, unless of course the divorce was due to the wife’s marital unfaithfulness. During the ceremony held under a ‘chupah’ which is a cloth held by four poles above the couple, the terms of the ketubah/contract are sealed again through the sharing of a glass of wine. The glass is then placed on the floor for the groom to smash with his foot saying, ‘thus be done to me if I do not honor the words of this contract’. The ceremony is usually followed by a celebration with music, dancing, entertainment, and a copious banquet.

When the Almighty wanted to marry Israel He was His own matchmaker. He also had already prepared a place for them: The Promised Land of Israel. He brought His prospective wife to a solitary place under the 'chupah' of Mt. Horeb's shade so He could have her full attention and bare His heart to her. After the Heavenly Bridegroom made His proposal, Israel agreed and said, ‘all that God said we will do’. The engagement was then rendered valid. Moses along with seventy-three other people (witnesses) climbed Mt. Horeb to get the ketubah/contract written in stone by the finger of Hashem Himself. The whole thing was sealed in blood and followed by a meal with the Almighty Himself (Exodus 19-24).

When God took Israel.as a bride, He entered a covenant with everlasting legal promises. Whereas it can be agreed that the marriage has been ‘rocky’, Hashem is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind (Numbers 23:19), and unlike many men, He is compassion and forgiveness itself; He repents from the evil He wants to do to His people. We Israel need to cling tightly to that ketubah, to the term of the marriage found in the Torah. We need to study it so we can hold our Bridegroom to His terms and to His promises.

We need to be a faithful wife and hold to our terms of faithfulness and obedience. A very wise mother one day instructed her kingly son in the choosing of a wife and said, An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels (Proverbs 31:10). In his search, her son ended up with almost a thousand women. As Israel, let us put on the regeneration offered by the Righteous One, Yeshua the Messiah and become the excellent wife so sought after by the Almighty God.

THE IRREVOCABLE COVENANT

SHEVAT 24                                                                                                        כד בשבט

Romans 11:29

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

The text of rulings started in Exodus twenty can take us back to a time of cultural irrelevancy to the point that we may wonder about their current usefulness. Somehow though, these things about buying and selling children, slavery and polygamy are part of the great Horeb oracle, so to consider them irrelevant can be, and is in my opinion disrespectful.

Let’s look for example at the laws of polygamy. If he (a man) takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her (the first wife) food, her clothing, or her marital rights (conjugal intimacy). And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money (Exodus 21:10-11). Read from our modern western cultural viewpoint, these rulings sound barbaric; but while understanding them within their own merit and context, let’s give them a fair try.

Polygamy was an accepted Middle-East lifestyle in the days of Exodus when marriage was a business transaction. If he could afford it, a man could marry a woman for financial, political, or just plain lustful selfish reasons and once she served her 'purpose', get himself a new one to the neglect of the first one. Apparently God did not approve of this practice so He decreed that if a man re-marries, the food, the clothing and the conjugal rights of the first wife are not in any way to be diminished. If the husband doesn’t hold to that, she has automatic legal grounds to leave him and even remarry. In a certain way, that makes polygamy impossible unless you are as rich as Solomon.

We now are a far cry from these days of healthy ‘woman’s rights’. Today a man can take a woman, and if he has affairs on the side that cause him to neglect the first wife, she has to go through the cruel humiliations of being rejected in public divorce proceedings. This ruling teaches about the heart of the Father against such cruelty as rejecting a wife.

A common teaching today is replacement theology: the ideology that because of sin God rejected His first wife Israel in favor of Christianity. For many, this explains our on-going exile, the inquisitions and the Holocaust. People easily understand replacement theology scenario because of the way they live and generally understand God through the lenses of their own perverted divorce-accepting viewpoint. First, God hates divorce (Exodus 20:14; Matthew 10:2-9), and as far as Israel is concerned, Paul explains that, “the gifts and the calling of Hashem are irrevocable (Romans 11:29)”. First, if God practices the irrevocable putting away of wives because of sin, Christians are also in danger. Second, even if He did, our relationship with Him was not to be diminished.

My point here is that this commandment reveals the true nature and character of the Father. He may chastise us for awhile to help us know and trust Him more, but never in an attempt to drive us away from Him, and He doesn’t go from ‘bride’ to ‘bride’ as mankind seems to enjoy doing today. We can now see not that this seemingly archaic rule teaches us much about our current value system and even our theology. 

THE BALANCE OF A MAN

1Timothy 3:2-6 (CJB)

A congregation leader must be above reproach, he must be faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, orderly, hospitable and able to teach. He must not … get into fights; …, he must be kind and gentle. He must not be a lover of money … if a man can't manage his own household, how will he be able to care for God's Messianic Community? He must not be a new believer, because he might become puffed up with pride and thus fall under the same judgment as did the Adversary.

In Genesis 2:18, Hashem intentions towards Adam in creating Eve are either lost in translation, or in the personal bias of the translator. A more literal reading would say, "I will create someone to be 'against' him". It seems that the help man most often needs is in the form of someone who is ‘against’ him; not someone who necessarily fights him, but someone who challenges him and is a balance to him. Because of this, Judaism even advises to not trust the teaching of a Rabbi who is not married. 

A wise man will invite the counsel of his wife; she really is the one who knows him best. If he willingly listens to her, not only his life will be more harmonious, but he will make wiser decisions. But a wise woman needs to learn how to ‘fitly’ advise her husband. If she nags him or makes him feel inferior, he’ll turn off and she won’t be able to fulfill her God-given duty.  She also needs not to do it as an attempt to control him. If because of control issues, passiveness, or a lack of wisdom a wife is not able to advise her husband, she fails in her main reason for being. The same goes for a wife who fans her husband, which a woman usually does that because she wants to bask in his glory. Such a woman will be responsible for her man's downfall. A beautiful example of a married relationship in American History is that of the second president of the United States John Adams, and his wife Abigail Adams. It is even said that one time Georges Washington asked Abigail Adams' help to try to convince her husband of an important piece of diplomatic strategy.

When Roman Emperor Tiberius started commandeering the Senate, one senator protested and compared his governing body to an unheard and ignored wife. If a man, if a leader does not have a wife, he should at least be able to listen to the counsel of those wise people God put around him. It is a wise man who surrounds himself with people who are wiser than him. Paul was not married, but he worked within counsel. Though he took some liberties, he went to Jerusalem to make sure that his race was not in vain. He sought the approval of his own apostolic leaders (Galatians 2:2). 

Sad to say though, many leaders in their pride, fear, and insecurity surround themselves with passive people who adulate them, or with those who find an interest in the relationship, so they will not balance a leader or a teacher. Even if they try, they eventually will give in. The leader knows it and it will be his downfall in the sight of God if not in the sight of men.

May God give us leaders men who have a right spirit before Him; leaders whom the position of office does not corrupt with pride; true humble ministers of Hashem’s flock who only wish to serve.