A Sage Over a Prophet

Rav Moshe Akiva Druck, an editor of Hamodia and a member of Agudas Yisroel, once asked the Tchebiner Rav a pointed question. Since halachic marriage causes so many problems, he wondered, why must it be kept even for secular Jews?

The Rav replied that the law must serve not only this generation but the generations after it. He was certain, he said, that the grandchildren of those who had strayed would one day return to Torah and mitzvos in yeshivos of their own. As long as the laws of marriage and divorce remained grounded in halachah, he explained, one could assume a presumption of kashrus for the families that came back, and he did not want to be the one who had to investigate the lineage of every baal teshuvah when the time came for his chuppah. But if even these minimal laws were abandoned, Heaven forbid, difficult and complicated questions would follow.

It is related that his words proved true: the descendants of those secular families have indeed returned as baalei teshuvah, an example of the saying chacham adif minavi, a sage is greater than a prophet.