Elul-ki teizei

Such rich Torah this week!  Like a gusher, releasing water with such force, Ki Teitzeipummels us with 74 of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah.  As usual, some are very difficult to read: a unruly child can be brought to court and stoned to death and so can a young woman, lying about her virginity. When studying texts like these, remember that the Rabbinic conversation that began after the destruction of the Temples was also horrified and went on to create very strict rules of witnessing so that these executions could never take place.  

We see in this parasha the glimmer of women's rights: to be exempt from a forced marriage; compassion when rape is committed and her cries were not heard; and the clarity that a husband to treat all of his children fairly, whether they were born of his 'favorite' wife or the 'unfavorite' wife. 

At the core of this parasha is this: 

לֹ֥א תוּכַ֖ל לְהִתְעַלֵּֽם׃ {ס}

...you must not remain indifferent. (Deut. 22:3)

In other words, no matter what is going on, the bottom line is that we must not remain indifferent to someone else's pain, including the sufferings of animals .  As Eli Wiesel famously taught:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

Our parasha really drives in this point, over and over again.  If you lend money to a fellow Israelite, don't charge interest; if you find someone's animal wandering, or even a garment left lying in the marketplace, you must care for it until the owner is found; if you find a momma bird and her eggs, you may take only the eggs so that the momma can live; you shall not turn over a slave who has run away from his master, and so on (and, yes, this parasha also has teachings that are xenophobic and rather harsh).

For many, one of the experiences  of the Covid isolation was to be cut off viscerally from the presence of other beings; this commandment, not to be indifferent, is perhaps the healing balm we need to mend the breech between us and all of Creation.

--- Rabbi Jan

 

Parashat Ki Tetzey / פָּרָשַׁת כִּי־תֵצֵא
Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19

D'var Torah
Rabbi Seth Daniel Riemer

The parashah is a medley of marriage, family, criminal, civil and ritual law as well as advocacy for behaviors conducive to what the Rabbis later called darhey shalom / “paths of peace.”  A woman captured in battle is not booty (subject to rape); a man who wishes to have sexual relations with her must treat her with dignity and compassion, affording her full-scale marital rights.  A father married to two women must grant his first-born son legal-financial advantage even if the father happens to hate that child’s mother.  Parents of a persistently disrespectful, defiant son must have him stoned to death.  Bodies of executed criminals deserve respect (i.e., may not displayed in public overnight but must be promptly buried).  Neighbors should help neighbors by returning to them their stray livestock and lost possessions and assisting them in emergencies.  A strict gender-differentiated dress code applies to men and women.  Forbidden practices include:  cruelty to animals (including muzzling beasts of burden to prevent them from nibbling on grain they’re helping to thresh); mixing different crops on the same plot of land, and combining linen with wool; adultery (this capital offense is defined as voluntary sex between any man, married or not, and another man’s wife or betrothed - not as sex between an unmarried woman and a married man!); incest; prostitution (whether for recreational or religious-cultic purposes is not made clear); remarriage to one’s ex-wife if at any point following their divorce she was married to someone else; kidnapping; extreme corporal punishment; exploiting, abusing, endangering, humiliating and depriving indigent fellow Israelites (whether in lending and collateral arrangements, in the work place, or through applying a double standard in court proceedings).  Agricultural produce overlooked during the harvest must be left for strangers, orphans and widows to collect.  All roofs must be equipped with parapets to minimize danger.  Israelites should make tassels (fringes) on their garments (according to one explanation, such ornamentation was, in that cultural setting, a badge identifying the wearer as a free man).  Certain people are denied – whether for reasons of physical deformity or social stigma – membership into the Israelite community.  There are rules for maintaining ritual purity (thus, limiting impurity occasioned by the discharge of bodily fluids) in a military camp.  Israelites must protect fugitive slaves and never return them to their masters.  One must honor an oath made in God’s name.  One may go into another Israelite’s vineyard or farm-field and eat of its fruit or crop but may not collect or systematically harvest it.  A newlywed man is exempt from military service.  People should follow the instructions of Levites in cases of tzara’at (a contagious skin disease).  We are liable only for crimes we personally have committed.  The brother of a man who dies heirless must marry his brother’s widow (thereby providing an heir for his dead brother) or face public humiliation.  A wife who grabs the genitals of a man brawling with her husband must have her hand cut off.  Standard weights and measures must be established to prevent unfair trade practices.  The parashah concludes with a reminder to kill off descendants of Amalek, a tribe with a record of perpetrating vicious attacks on its cousins the Israelites (Haman being the most infamous of all Amalekites!).  Some of these commandments strike us as overly harsh, even cruel.  On the other hand, as our text emphasizes, the compassionate measures it enunciates serve to remind Israel of its own history of homelessness, poverty and enslavement.