All Is Not Fair

By Rabbi Joshua (vulnerably known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

This week's parsha has more mitzvos than any other parsha at the Torah. At first blush, there seems to be no sweeping connection among all of these mitzvos, although clusters of them have already been shown to be related by our Sages, using the principle of 'mitzvah goreres mitzvah, aveirah goreres aveirah'- one mitzvah drags another along, and one sin drags another along. Thus, for example, as Rashi cites from the rabbis, if one performs the mitzvah of sending the mother bird away before taking its young, he will merit to build a house and thus have the opportunity to perform the mitzvah of making a fence around its roof. On the other hand, if parents fail to implement the laws of the rebellious son when appropriate, their son will grow up to commit sins that will warrant the death penalty. Moreover, Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik has pointed out that the mitzvos in this parsha that reflect this process of causation fluctuate between those that are between man and God, and those that are between man and man, thus showing the interdependence of these two categories. I believe, however, that a closer look at the mitzvos in the parsha reveals that there is an overriding theme that connects them, beyond the natural connection reflected in the principle of causation.

One of the most striking features of our parsha is that it begins with an instance of war, ends with an instance of war, and, almost precisely in the middle, has a discussion of how soldiers should deport themselves while out on the battlefield. In wartime, soldiers, being subjected to a tremendous amount of tension, both inner and outer, have a tendency to forget any sense of morality that they have in normal civilian life. This attitude is encapsulated in the popular expression 'all is fair in love and war'.Just as matters of the heart are very difficult to deal with and often cause people to lose their moral equilibrium, so, too, soldiers in the army often act in ways they would never act in civilian life and garb. The Torah, in fact, takes note of this phenomenon, and even makes certain allowances for it. This is part of the theory underlying the laws of the captive woman as set out in the beginning of the parsha. The Torah tells us that if a soldier captures a beautiful, non-Jewish woman in a war and becomes enamored of her, he is allowed to marry her provided that he puts her through a preliminary process, leading eventually to conversion, but designed, according to many opinions, to discourage him from going ahead with the marriage. The idea behind this process, as Rashi points out from the rabbis, is that the Torah understood human nature in wartime, and knew that a blanket prohibition of this woman to the soldier would not be heeded. Therefore, the Torah, in recognition of human nature, devised a means of allowing the soldier to take her into his house and, if he persists in his desire, eventually marry her.

The process which the Torah prescribes for the beautiful captive woman is, thus, generally looked at from the point of view of the soldier himself, and the urges he has during wartime that the Torah attempts to control. We tend to forger that there is another character involved in this drama, namely, the captive woman herself. She is, of course, a prisoner of war, having been sent to war to advance the cause of Israel's enemy. Exactly what role she played in the war is unclear, although Rabbi Naphtali Tzevi Yehudah Berlin, the Netziv, suggests, in his Torah commentary Ha'amek Davar, that they were sent as an inducement to the young soldiers to fight valiantly and win one of these women as a prize. Whatever the reason, they weren't there to benefit the Jewish people and, in that sense, one can perhaps understand that the process she is made to go through is not unreasonable. On the other hand, we must realize that she is a woman who is now in a vulnerable situation, who is apt to be taken advantage of. Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, one of the three major students of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, explained a further mitzvah mentioned in the section on the captive woman in the light of this vulnerability. The Torah tells us, " But it shall be that if you do not desire her, then you shall send her on her own, but you may not sell her for money; you shall not enslave her, because you have afflicted her" (Devorim, 21,10). True, says Rabbi Blazer, the Torah wants to help the soldier control his desires, but there is a limit to what we will subject the captive woman to for this purpose. If he does not want to marry her as a converted Jew, then he no longer has any license to deal with her, and must set her free. The captive woman, while subject to a conversion process because of the circumstances she chose to expose herself to, is not the chattel of the soldier to do with as he pleases. The captive woman too, then, as a vulnerable target of the soldier's desires, is given due consideration by the Torah.

At the end of the parsha, we are told to remember the deeds of Amalek, and blot out any trace of the nation. We are commanded to wage a war against this nation that attempted to destroy us as we left Egypt, taking advantage of the vulnerable position we were in at the time. However, it is interesting to note that there are limits placed on this war, as well. Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik has pointed out, based on comments of the Rambam in his commentary to the Mishnah, that war cannot be waged against Amalek unless a prophet has first informed us that we may indeed wage it (see his book 'The Warmth and the Light'). There is a need to determine whether the current actions and consequent status of Amalek is commensurate with that of its wicked ancestors and therefore deserving of destruction. The parsha ends with the words ".. you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens-you shall not forget." Rav Kook has pointed out that the words "from under the heaven" are taken by the Zohar to mean that only under the heavens, from our point of view on this earth, is Amalek to be totally wiped out, serving no purpose. However, above heaven, from God's point of view, there is a purpose for Amalek. As part of the reality existent in God's creation, Amalek's existence is not meaningless. True, we are bidden to destroy them in battle, but that battle, too, has its own guidelines.

Our parsha, thus, begins and ends with scenarios of battle situations in which the rights of certain people are compromised, and, yet, there is a limit to which their vulnerability can be exploited. I believe it can be demonstrated that the rest of the mitzvos in the parsha radiate out of these two points, and most, if not all, deal with cases that occur within everyday society in which certain people are exposed to vulnerability and we are told to protect their interests and not exploit them. Thus, we are told that the body of someone who performs a crime for which he receives the death penalty, although it is hanged after death on order to serve as an example and deterrent to others, is not allowed to remain in that state for a sustained period. Why? Rashi explains because he, too, is made in God's image. The punishment of lashes administered to someone who has transgressed a certain category of the laws of the Torah is phrased in a negative way: "Forty shall he strike him, he shall not add; lest he strike him an additional blow beyond these…"(Devorim, 24,3). The limitations of time and space do not allow me to demonstrate how this factor of protecting the rights of the vulnerable applies throughout the parsha, but I believe that a perusal of the various mitzvos presented therein will reveal that it does hold true.

In the middle of the parsha, the Torah tells 'When a camp goes against your enemies, you shall guard against anything evil." (Devorim, 23,10.) The Torah then goes on to describe the precautionary measures one must take while in a military camp to maintain the purity of the site. Someone who has a nocturnal emission must leave the camp overnight, a place for the soldiers to relieve themselves must be set aside, and each soldier must carry a spade in order to be able to dig a place for his waste and cover it up. The Torah then says, "For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you: so your camp shall be holy, so that He will not see a shameful thing among you and turn away from behind you."(23, 15). The rabbis explain that the ark of the covenant was carried along with the camp when it went out to war, and therefore special care had to be taken to maintain the sanctity of the camp. It is interesting to note that a number of laws of proper and improper speech, as well as the requirement for a separation between men and women during prayer, are derived from these verses. For example, in the phrase "and you shall guard against anything evil,' the word for 'anything,'-davar-is read by the rabbis as 'dibur'-speech. Thus, in the very situation of wartime, which is notorious for its laxity in the control of speech, we are told to control our speech. Speech is our bridge between the physical and the spiritual, and a major means of communicaton with God, through the medium of prayer. Precisely within the context of wartime, when man is prone to let his guard down and compromise the principles he would normally follow in civilian life, we are taught the laws of proper speech and prayer, to remind us that precisely in such situations it is important to maintain our connection to God in order to prevent a total collapse of standards. Radiating out from the lesson of wartime is the rest of life, which, as we argued in our message to parshas Shoftim, is a battlefield in a broader sense of the term. By maintaining our connection with God in all of life's situations, we will become sensitive to the rights and needs of all sectors of society, recognizing them all as creations of God.

Note-Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) to JoshHoff @ AOL.com.