The Sacred Obligation to Guard Against the Abuse of Power and Protect the Vulnerable: Parashat Ki Tetzei challenges us in two ways. Contemporary readers might find many mitzvot offensive. For example, the laws of the captive woman, the unloved wife, the rape of married and unmarried women, the rebellious son, cross-dressing, and physical mutilations challenge many modern assumptions and sensibilities about violence, abuse, freedom of expression, human dignity and violent crime. Furthermore, the literary structure of the parasha puzzles the reader. What do all of these mitzvot have to do with each other? The more examples one brings, the less coherent the parasha seems. Some examples include laws requiring one to shoo away a bird from the fledglings, to not return runaway slaves to their masters, to enclose a flat roof, to return lost objects, to validate the virginity of a bride, to not charge interest of fellow-Jews, to set parameters for collateral for a loan, to bury the corpse of an executed criminal, to pay employees on time, to not collect food from a neighbor’s fields in a basket, to require levirate marriages, to have equal weights and measures, and to prohibit marriage between Israelite women and Moabite and Amonite men. And yet, without working through the details here of all of these mitzvot, all of them actually cohere around one central value that emerges as sacred in the heart of Jewish spirituality. Every one of these mitzvot, in obvious ways for some and oblique ways for others, protect the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, the dependent, the outsider, and the pariah, from a potential abuse of power at the hands of the majority, the dominant, the male, the empowered, or the privileged.  Here is a clear example: When you harvest your field and forget a sheaf, do not turn back to get it. That sheaf of grain you left in the field shall now go to the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you harvest your olive trees, do not go over them again. The fruit remaining in the trees shall go to the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not pick them a second time. Whatever remains on the vines shall go to the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment. (24:19-22) Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra offers the following explanation of this mitzvah. On the phrase, in order that the Lord, your God, may bless you, he wrote: “...for you gave of what you only imagine to be yours; but God will give to you of that which is actually God’s.” We live comfortably in this world, nestled and coddled in the assumption that all that we have is coming to us, that we deserve all we possess, that we have ownership of the world. What this entire parasha instructs, and what Ibn Ezra emphasizes, is that once we realize that we own nothing, that life and the world and our health, and our food, and the relationships we build together are all blessings and gifts, we will naturally feel compelled to reach out to others and give freely. That is our mandate, in the belief that we humans are all innately religious, spiritual beings: to give to others. This includes food, clothing, money, time, expertise, love, friendship, companionship, shelter, skills, knowledge, protection, and anything else one person has and another requires. I am proposing that all of the mitzvot in this parasha protect against abuses. Taken collectively, the Torah generates a typology of circumstances which contain vulnerabilities and potential abuse. Women are taken captive in war; the captor must dignify her humanity by enabling her to mourn the loss of her family and to insure her freedom should the relationship end. People build houses; homeowners are responsible to protect guests on their flat roofs. Employees are at the whim of their employers, so bosses must pay salaries on time. The poor remain at the mercy of their creditors, so life-saving equipment like mill-stones or blankets cannot be taken as collateral for loans. The hungry depend upon farmers, so farmers cannot go back and re-harvest forgotten produce a second time. Even the humanity of an executed criminal depends upon the will of society to dignify and not denigrate their remains. The Torah forbids leaving the body of the executed on a pike overnight; society must bury it. Commentators understand the prohibition against cross-dressing in their parasha as contextualized in situations in which men are trying to infiltrate a cohort of women with sexually abusive intentions. Two of the most challenging mitzvot here include the rules governing the rape of an unmarried woman, and the reactions to the “wayward” child, the ben sorer umoreh. The case of the unmarried rape victim is particularly challenging. The law here is that the rapist has an obligation to marry his victim and is never allowed to divorce her. We could not imagine a more horrific rule. However, the rabbis of the Torah shebe’al-peh explicate the details of these laws in ways that reveal important assumptions. One assumption here is that the woman in ancient society is better off protected by security and money in a home, than single and alone, even if she would be emotionally unhappy. The assumption is also that she would no longer suffer continued physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the now-husband rapist. The rabbis in the Torah sheb’al Peh provide more details of these laws of rape. Rape of a single woman carries a heavy monetary fine plus the rapist has to pay reparations for damages, as well as for her suffering, embarrassment and emotional anguish. The rapist also incurs the corporeal punishment of lashes. This is all intended as both a deterrent and a punishment. (Rambam hilchot Rotzai'ach 2:4-5). In addition, the rabbis explain that Continues on the back page >>> |
