Our Gemara on Amud Aleph relates a moral and historical discussion between the prophet Yechezkel and his fellow Jews:

Ten people came and sat before the prophet Ezekiel. He said to them: Repent. They said to Ezekiel: In the case of a slave sold by his owner to another master, or a woman divorced by her husband, does this person have any claim upon that person? Since God gave the Jewish people to other masters, the ties that existed between Him and us were severed.
 

The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to the prophet: Go say to them: “Where is your mother’s scroll of severance, with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors have I sold you? For your iniquities you sold yourselves, and for your transgressions was your mother sent away” (Isaiah 50:1). Learn from this that God did not sever His ties to the Jewish people.

The metaphor—that the Jewish people are banished like a divorced wife or sold off like a rejected slave—is poignant. However, Ben Yehoyada asks: Why does the example use somebody selling off slaves to creditors? Why not just use the metaphor of a master who is fed up with his slave and sells him to get rid of him? Ben Yehoyada answers that this is based on the principle that God does not swindle any of His creations. Since we have a tradition that Nebuchadnezzar merited his successful conquest as a result of the four paces he took to honor God (see Sanhedrin 96a), in effect, God was in debt to Nebuchadnezzar. Therefore, indeed, God had to make good on His obligations, and this allowed Israel to be exiled, with the Jews being sent into exile. Of course, there is an optimistic side to this as well: If God is careful not to overlook reward for such a nominal act by such an evil person, surely the Jews would find redemption if they should repent and restore their loyalty to the Torah.

A wonderful and artistic expression of religious consciousness is found in the constant metaphoric expression of the relationship between the Jewish people and God as a marriage between husband and wife. (See, for example, Psychology of the Daf Rosh Hashanah 30.) This is not just a simple metaphor representing love and devotion, but also involves the complexities and paradoxes of a troubled relationship that has dramatic ups and downs. The relationship is so stormy that, as in many difficult relationships, there are even multiple versions of the story and contradictory declarations.

In Hoshea (2:21), despite the sins of the Jewish people, God declares:

“And I will be betrothed to you forever: I will be betrothed to you with righteousness and justice, and with goodness and mercy. And I will be betrothed to you with faithfulness; then you shall know the LORD.”

That’s quite the pledge of everlasting love. However, it gets more complicated. Yeshayahu (50:1), knowing things have gone quite sour, still offers a last-ditch reassurance:

  “Where is the bill of divorce of your mother whom I dismissed?”

But then, it seems that the divorce actually did happen, as we find in Yirmiyahu (3:1):

“If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and marries another man, can he ever go back to her? Would not such a land be defiled? Now you have whored with many lovers: can you return to Me?—says the LORD.”

Indeed, the Gemara Yoma (86b) notes the contradiction and presents an amazing idea, showing how God’s love transcends all: “Just as it is prohibited for an adulterous wife to return to her husband, it should be prohibited for the Jewish people to return to God from their sins, yet repentance overrides this prohibition.”

Agra Dekallah suggests a clever way to resolve this metaphysical halakhic conundrum, based on a Bereishis Rabbah (11:5):

Tyranos Rufus mocked the Torah, challenging Rabbi Akiva as follows: How can God bring rain on Shabbos? Isn’t that carrying in a public domain? To which Rabbi Akiva responded: The entire universe is God’s private domain; thus, it is no problem for Him to carry. Likewise, Agra Dekallah argues that even though God went through the motions of giving a Get, it was invalidated on a technicality. Since the entire universe belongs to God, it is as if a man gave a woman a Get by placing it in his courtyard. In such a case, she is not divorced because she never acquired the Get and was never sent away. So too, the Jewish people were never divorced and never truly sent away, since God is everywhere, nor could they acquire this Get because all belongs to God.

Agra Dekallah’s answer echoes a similar legalism used later in our Gemara to counter the argument that the Jewish people in exile are like slaves sold to a new master, with no further relationship with God:

And that is what Reish Lakish says: What is the meaning of that which is written: ‘David, My slave’ (II Samuel 3:18), and: ‘Nebuchadnezzar, my slave’ (Jeremiah 43:10)? 

How can the wicked Nebuchadnezzar be depicted as a slave of God in the same manner that David was depicted? Rather, it is revealed and known before the One Who spoke and the world came into being that the Jewish people are destined to say that God sold them to the nations and they no longer have ties to Him. Therefore, the Holy One, Blessed be He, preemptively called Nebuchadnezzar His slave. With regard to the halakha concerning a slave who acquires property, the slave belongs to whom and the property belongs to whom? They both belong to the master, in this case, the Holy One, Blessed be He.”

What is the inner metaphysical truth being expressed by these legalisms within the metaphor? Since God is the owner of all—and though we cannot fully understand how—He is everything, and we do not exist separate from Him, our relationship can never be severed.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com