From: JoshHoff@aol.com
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 2:50 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort:parshas Ki Seitzei, 5767
                                                     Don't Take Me So Literally
                            By Rabbi Joshua ( imperceptively known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
 
 
This week's parshas begins with the laws of the 'yefas toar;' the beautiful woman, captured from the enemy in war, whom the Jewish soldier desires. The  Torah presents him with a procedure that he should  follow in order to be able to take her as his wife. If, in the end, he decides he does not want her,he must set her free. The rabbis tell us that the Torah offered him this option of marriage because he is driven by his 'yeitzer hora,'or evil inclination, and if he would not  have this opportunity to marry her, he would take her anyway in a manner that is forbidden.  However, continue the rabbis, the soldier needs to know that if he does marry her, the offspring of this union will be a wayward and rebellious son. This is derived from the fact that the section concerning such a son follows shortly after the section on the 'yefas toar.'   What is the analogy between the soldier marrying a 'yefas toar' and the behavior of the wayward and rebellious son? Rav Mordchai Gifter, in his  commentary Pirkei Torah,explains simply that the soldier surrenders to the urgings of his desires in taking the 'yefas toar,'and the rebellious son does the same.As explained by the rabbis in the Talmud,,this son steals from his parents in order to buy excessive amounts of meat and wine for his personal consumption. Coming from parents who did not control their own  desires,he develops into a person who controls his desires even less. I would  like to suggest a different  explanation for the analogy,based on a comment of Rav Gifter himself on a  verse in the section  regarding this son.
 
 
The Torah describes the wayward ad rebellious son as one who"does not listen to the voice of his father and to the voice of his mother"( Devorim, 21:18).Why doesn't the Torah say that he doesn't listen to the 'words' of his father and mother? Rav Gifter explains that the term 'voice' ('kol') does not refer to the specific words that are articulated, but to the general, unspoken message that is behind the words.The wayward and rebellious son may actually listen to the explicit orders of his parents, but he fails to hear the message that is behind what they are saying,  As a result, he ends up acting in a manner that is in  contradiction to   what they really want from him and,more importantly, for him. The Ramban, in his commentary to this section, writes that the wayward and rebellious son transgresses the Torah imperative of 'you shall be holy,'which, as he explains in his commentary to parshas Kedoshim, means setting up safeguards around the commandments of the Torah, and controlling one's intake even of that which the Torah permits him to indulge in. A person,for example,can be careful  to consume only  kosher food and drink,and still transgress this Torah  imperative. Although the Ramban does not spell this out, in regard to his parents'  supervision over him,as well,the son can conceivably do all they explicitly ask of him, and still end up disregarding what they really want him to do. Viewing the wayward and rebellious son in this way, we can now better understand the analogy between the soldier who takes the 'yedas toar' and the wayward and rebellious son.
 
 
As we have seen,the torah permits the soldier to take the 'yefas toar' only as a concession to his evil inclination, which he finds difficult to control while on the battlefield. However,the manner in which he is permitted to take her , the procedure to which she is subjected, is geared toward discouraging him from  marrying her,in the end. As Rashi explains,based on the Talmud, she is required to do things,such as comporting herself in an unkempt fashion,  that actually make her repulsive in his eyes,so that he will not want to marry her. Thus, the true intent of the Torah is that the soldier should desist from marrying the 'yefas toar.' The soldier should be able to understand this,and give upon his desire for this woman. There is,in fact,a concept of 'retzon haTorah,' meaning,God's real expectation from us, that is developed by Rav Elchanan Wasserman in his essay  'Divrei Sofrim,' but goes back to much earlier sources. For example,the medieval Talmudic commentator and halachic authority, Ritva, explains the device of 'asmachta,'by which rabbinic laws are attached to Biblical verses, not merely  as a process of finding some kind of 'peg' to attach the law to, as a kind of reminder. Rather,he explains that, in some cases, the rabbis discerned that the Torah wished us to go beyond the literal meaning of the written word by adding on safeguards to the law that is spelled out in the text. actually,the Ramban writes that the wayward and rebellious son also transgresses the Biblical requirement of 'ubo sidbakun,' to attach oneself to God, to cling to Him.Here,too, he seems to be saying that the failing of the wayward and rebellious son is to ignore the message that is behind the explicit words of the Torah,following only the exact,literal message and taking every liberty that he can find. Such a person has no desire to become what God really wants him to become,and,in this way, he is merely following in the footsteps of his father,who took the 'yefas toar' despite the subliminal message of the Torah that he should control himself and leave this woman for others.
 
 
 
 




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