Serving In The Army

The soldiers in King David's army would give their wives a divorce before going out to battle. Rav Kook explains that the reason was not only to avoid a woman becoming an aguna if he would be lost in battle. The goyim would bring their wives and children to the battlefield in order to give the soldiers greater courage, as if to say, look for whom you are fighting. But in David's army the men would divorce their wives in order to disassociate themselves from any personal interests and to fight for the good of the Jewish people as a whole. This is as the Rambam wrote, that a soldier must stop thinking about his own family and be aware that he is fighting in a Divine war. Anyone who is afraid only because of his own individual sins and does not think of the general public during the war is not worthy of fighting in the Army of G-d.