War and Peace in the Talmud: The Meaning of the Event. Part 2

Abstract

In the Talmudic tractate Gittin, the letter of divorce (get) appears as a metaphor of the
divorce between God and Israel. The Destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. was
the major metahistorical event, the point of the divorce. To explain the reasons of this divorce,
the rabbis borrowed the notions of Greek and Roman political philosophy to build their own
system of ideas (“the ways of peace,” “the vain hatred”, etc.). In the terms of everyday existence,
the rabbis optimistically cared about “the improvement of the world” by reconciling human
beings (Jews and non-Jews). In the terms of Metahistory, they lamented the Sacred Divorce and
did their best for the restoration of the Sacred Marriage.