Q: If a woman was married to two
different men during her lifetime, who will she be with after the Resurrection
of the Dead?
A: There is an answer to this question in the book "Piskei Teshuvah" of Ha-Rav Avraham Pitrakovsky (#124). He quoted the book "Shut Matzav Ha-Yashar" on the Zohar that there was a young woman who was married to a wonderful man who died at a relatively young age. The young woman did not want to marry again. She said, "Why should I get married to someone else? During the Resurrection of the Dead I will be married to my second husband, and my first husband is dearer to me than anything. I prefer to remain a widow all of my life and then be married to my true soul-mate." There is a similar question in the book "Ha-Techiya Ve-Ha-Pedut" (question #6) of Ha-Rav Sa'adia Gaon: how will I find my wife during the Resurrection of the Dead? Ha-Rav Sa'adia did not want to answer since it is forbidden to answer a halachic question before someone who is greater than him in wisdom. Since this is a question of the Resurrection of the Dead, Moshe Rabbenu will be there and it is therefore forbidden for me to answer. If there are questions that arise now - what can we do? We have to answer them. Questions that have to do with the future, however, we leave for Moshe Rabbenu and the other prophets. It therefore seems that the question in "Shut Matzav Ha-Yashar" cannot be answered, but this was before the Zohar was revealed. After the Zohar was revealed, our question was answered. Regarding a Jewish servant, the verse says, "If he arrives by himself, he leaves by himself; if he is the husband of a woman, his wife leaves with him" (Shemot 21:3). This means that he enters the Resurrection of the Dead with his wife – his first wife. There are commentators who explain that the meaning of the Zohar is that she will return to her true spouse, i.e. the most successful marriage (see note in Piskei Teshuvah). Thus, she will return to the marriage which was filled with the most love, fraternity, peace, and friendship.
A: There is an answer to this question in the book "Piskei Teshuvah" of Ha-Rav Avraham Pitrakovsky (#124). He quoted the book "Shut Matzav Ha-Yashar" on the Zohar that there was a young woman who was married to a wonderful man who died at a relatively young age. The young woman did not want to marry again. She said, "Why should I get married to someone else? During the Resurrection of the Dead I will be married to my second husband, and my first husband is dearer to me than anything. I prefer to remain a widow all of my life and then be married to my true soul-mate." There is a similar question in the book "Ha-Techiya Ve-Ha-Pedut" (question #6) of Ha-Rav Sa'adia Gaon: how will I find my wife during the Resurrection of the Dead? Ha-Rav Sa'adia did not want to answer since it is forbidden to answer a halachic question before someone who is greater than him in wisdom. Since this is a question of the Resurrection of the Dead, Moshe Rabbenu will be there and it is therefore forbidden for me to answer. If there are questions that arise now - what can we do? We have to answer them. Questions that have to do with the future, however, we leave for Moshe Rabbenu and the other prophets. It therefore seems that the question in "Shut Matzav Ha-Yashar" cannot be answered, but this was before the Zohar was revealed. After the Zohar was revealed, our question was answered. Regarding a Jewish servant, the verse says, "If he arrives by himself, he leaves by himself; if he is the husband of a woman, his wife leaves with him" (Shemot 21:3). This means that he enters the Resurrection of the Dead with his wife – his first wife. There are commentators who explain that the meaning of the Zohar is that she will return to her true spouse, i.e. the most successful marriage (see note in Piskei Teshuvah). Thus, she will return to the marriage which was filled with the most love, fraternity, peace, and friendship.
Seder Eliyahu Rabbah ch.4:19,
In the Seder
Eliyahu Rabbah: “in the ‘world-to-come.’ What will that life be like? The Holy One will
be seated in His great academy and seated in His presence will be the righteous
of the world, they, their wives, their sons, their daughters…”
Seder
Eliyahu Rabbah ch.4:19, in Braude and Kapstein, trans., Tanna Debe Eliyyahu: The Lore of the School of Elijah, (The Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1981) p.81
Midrash Alpha-Betot, Batei Midrashot
Midrash
Alpha-Betot, Batei Midrashot, II, ed. S.A.Wertheimer: “Each righteous person will draw near
his wife in the world to come…” cited in, David Nirenberg, “Posthumous Love in
Judaism”, in Bernard Jussen, Ramie Targoff, ed., Love after Death: Concepts of Posthumous Love in Medieval and Early
Modern Europe (De Gruyter 2015)
p.60: https://www.academia.edu/10305251/Posthumous_Love_in_Judaism
Ketav Tamim, Otsar Nehmad ed., 91., trans., by David I. Shyovitz
From the thirteenth century Tosafist, Rabbi Moshe Taku
talks about marriage in the resurrection:
“And [after the resurrection] the righteous will take
wives in accordance with their deeds, for each one will not marry the wife he
had in this world unless the two of them are of equivalent righteousness…A
wholly righteous man [who had been married to] a non-wholly righteous woman, or
a wholly righteous woman [who had been married to] a nonwholly righteous man,
will not be rejoined in the future, for death severs their bonds. When they are
resurrected, each person will marry the partner who is appropriate for them, in
accordance with their deeds.” (Ketav Tamim, Otsar Nehmad ed., 91)., trans., by
David I. Shyovitz, in his Doctoral Dissertation in History, “He Has Created a
Remembrance of His Wonders’: Nature and Embodiment in the Thought of the
Hasidei Ashkenaz,” (University of Pennsylvania, 2011) p.317, fn.180
Ketav Tamin is
a polemical work by Moses ben Hisdai Taku (early thirteenth century) against
the Jewish theologians of his time. Only a small part of the work has survived
and it is preserved in Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, hèb. 711, from which
this manuscript was copied by Ber Goldberg.
24 leaves (fols. 10-11, 17v, 20v and 21r blank), 8 ¾ x 6 ¾ inches; 222 x 172 mm, written in
Ashkenazic script in black-brown ink; large inkstain on fol. 13. Brown wrappers.
Gospel of Philip
“the women is united to her
husband in the bridal chamber. Indeed those who have united in the bridal
chamber will no longer be separated” (70:19-20)
Wesley W. Isenberg, trans of
the Gospel of Philip, in J. M.
Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library,
San Francisco, (Harper and Row), p. 142
Zohar III 283b
"It is already been stated that all spirits issue from heaven in pairs male and female, and then separate. Sometimes the spirit of the female goes forth before the male which is her mate, and as long as the time of the male has not come to be united with her another can come and marry her, but when the time of the first arrives to marry her, when righteousness arises to visit the sins the first comes and marries her."
Zohar vol.5:370 in Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon, trans., 2nd edition, (Soncino Press 1984)
{ADDIONAL SITES TO SEE}
Eternal Marriage in Early Jewish and Christian Belief:
David Werden
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