Out of Context

By Rabbi Joshua (contextually known as the Hoffer) Hoffman

In the beginning of parshas Ki Seitzei, the Torah presents the laws of Yefas Toar, a woman captured in a war, and desired by one of the Jewish soldiers. He is permitted to have relations with her and marry her after she undergoes certain procedures. The reason that this relationship is permitted, the rabbis say, is due to the soldier’s yetzer hora, or evil impulse. It is preferable for him to satisfy his desire in a permissible way rather than in a forbidden way. This explanation is difficult to understand, however, because, as Rashi bring in parshas Shoftim, according to Rabbi Yosi Hagelili, only people without any sin were accepted as soldiers in this kind of war. How is it that a soldier of such spiritual caliber could succumb to such desires?

The great kabbalist, Rav Chaim Vital, raises this question in his Shaar Hamitzvos. He answers that the fact that the righteous soldier is attracted to the captive woman indicates that she was destined to be his wife. Rav Chaim ben Attar, in his Ohr HaChayim, takes a similar approach, and points out that the soldier saw that woman while he was engaged in battle, so that his desire was aroused while performing a mitzvah, and, thus, reflects a holy purpose. We may add, that the Talmud says that even though the captive woman is described in the Torah as being a “Yefas Toar,” of beautiful appearance, the same law applies even if the woman is ugly. Actually, as Ibn Ezra says, the woman is called a “Yefas Toar,” based on the soldier’s perception of her appearance. From a purely aesthetic point of view, then, she may be ugly. However, since she is destined to be his wife, his soul mate, she appears to him as being beautiful, as the late singer R. Shlomo Carlebach once said about soul mates in general.

Another, more common, approach to explain the attraction to the captive, pagan woman, is that, no matter how righteous a person is, he is still a human being, and open to the same temptations that everyone else is. The rabbis in fact say that the greater the person is the greater his yeitzer hara is, and we find related several times in the Talmud that some great Torah scholars felt that they came close to succumbing to temptation. The story is told of Rav Eliyahu Lopian, the great tzadik and mashgiach, or spiritual counselor, of the Yeshiva in Kfar Chasidim. A student once told him that he needed to go to Tel Aviv to attend to some need, and Rav Lopian asked him if he wasn’t worried about what he would see there, given immodesty in dress exhibited by the women in the city. The student said that it didn’t bother him, to which Rav Lopian responded, that it bothered him, even though he was in his eighties, and he gave him some money to see a doctor, since there must be something wrong with him.

Perhaps we can add an additional element to explain how the righteous soldier could be attracted to the captive woman. Although the solder, was, indeed, without sin when he first went out to war, that was in the context of the Jewish community, in an environment which he was used to. The moment he went out to war, however, he left his usual support system, and became more open to temptation and sin. This idea is reflected in the episode of the spies in parshas Shelach, as well. Rashi, on the one hand, says that when the spies were first chosen for their mission, they were all righteous people. However, once they began their mission, they had bad intentions in mind. Many explanations have been given to reconcile this apparent contradiction, but perhaps we can suggest that once they left the context of their familiar surroundings and community, they changed and turned to sin. By presenting the laws of the Yefas Toar, the Torah alerts us to the dangers of a change of context, and teaches us to learn how to deal with them.