Ki Teitze

Ki Teitze - David Solomon 

David Solomon is a teacher and scholar of Jewish history and thought, well known for his "In One Hour" series of lectures. David lives in Tel Aviv, but travels frequently to save the world.

One of the fundamental axioms of Jewish thought is that the Torah is eternal. Yet although the Torah is to be constantly applied in every generation, it seems that throughout Jewish History, some generations have merited the performance of certain mitzvot while others have not (afterall, Yisrael is a diachronic spiritual revelation).

The Parashah of Ki Teitzei contains a huge array of civil and ethical precepts on a vast range of social topics, but it begins with guidelines for the behaviour of soldiers in war; specifically, in relation to the capture of civilians. Since our generation has an army that fights wars, we should probably read this Parashah very carefully.

There are many moral dimensions to warfare, both individual and collective. Among these, the Torah acknowledges the existence of complex human sentiment when it comes to the enemy, and reveals instructions for a case where a soldier lusts after, or even falls in love with, a captured woman.

There is no obligation upon any soldier of Israel to desire a captured woman (although mystically some may have thought so), but the Torah provides us with a ritual process - a specific mitzvah - for such an eventuality. The Torah does not ban intimate contact with the enemy; rather, it elevates such contact through the compassion of Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) and its capacity for love. By doing so, the Torah insists that unnecessary violence, torture and rape are out of the question.  Soldiers must treat their captives with dignity and respect.

Do we need the Torah to tell us this? Yes. The exponents of Midrash (narrative interpretation) and Parshanut (textual interpretation) (see, for example, Rashi - 11th century commentator) claim that the mitzvot regarding a captured woman are to combat the yetzer harah - the evil inclination - the true enemy. The yetzer harah desires objects and makes objects out of people.. Forget your lust, says the Torah, even your love is not a barrier against objectification, when you are the conqueror. Only G-d consciousness, raised through the performance of mitzvot, can ultimately prevent your degrading others in a time of war.

And yet, in contrast, the Parashah of Ki Teitzei ends on a very different point about war: the obligation to destroy Amalek. Here there are no captives. And while the idea of a holy genocide may trouble some people, myself included, we should remember that the fulfilment of this mitzvah has not been granted to this or any other generation for nearly three thousand years, and cannot be fulfilled without a king and a prophet, when all our other enemies are subdued, and only when Amalek is identified under divine instruction. When it comes to Amalek, the enemy is hated because the enemy is hatred itself. There is no place in this world for those who wish to physically annihilate Am Yisrael (the Jewish people).

These two states of war are different in another important respect. The first is a milchemet reshut (a voluntary war); the latter, against Amalek, is a milchemet mitzvah (a commanded war) whose mitzvah is collective. What unites the beginning and end of Ki Teitzei is the true kavannah (intention) of all mitzvot - and the ultimate purpose of the Jewish People - to bring peace to the world. A voluntary war of conquest, whilst permitted, is not a mitzvah - but the behaviour and responsibility of the individual who partakes in it is a conduit for divine revelation.