Menachem Bluming Deliberates: is Divorce a Mistake?
People have the option of free choice. One can marry Mr Wrong, or
divorce Mr Right. We have to own up to the responsibility for choosing a
partner, even if things didn't work out.
However, when a marriage ends in divorce, it's not to suppose that it
was not meant to be in the first place. Alongside the trust in free choice, we
also believe that whatever transpired in the past was supposed to happen. And
so you married the spouse you were destined to marry. It was meant to be. And
in retrospect it was meant to end.
Here is the paradox of faith: What I am about to do is my decision. Once
it is in the past, it was meant to be. I am responsible for what I do. I made
the bed, and I have to sleep in it. But now that it’s over, I couldn't have
slept anywhere else.
As full of pain as it may have been, your divorce was a slice of your
soul mission. We can only guess why.
Perhaps the ill-fated marriage was a rectification for something in a
past life. It could be you had a soulmate from your previous incarnation that
you didn't wed the first time around, as well as a soulmate from your current
life, and so you have to marry both.
Perhaps you had to bring a child into the world who else would not have
been born.
Or perhaps it was a necessary step in your journey of learning, bringing
you closer to your real self, and your true soulmate.
Who knows?
We don't take divorce flippantly. It is a tragic last option when all
attempts to heal a toxic marriage have failed. And sometimes it isn't in your
hands. But if it has happened, you have to believe that this is your soul's
path. May G-d give you the strength and wisdom to steer the next step on that
path...
Menachem Mendel Bluming and Rabbi Moss