by Rav David Chai HaCohen, Rosh Yeshivat Netivot Yisrael in Bat Yam, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.
This week's Torah portion of Ki Tetze (D'varim 21,10-25,19) deals with several family-related issues, and therefore provides a welcome opportunity to discuss the importance of family life in Jewish national identity.
The Torah emphasizes the family sanctity beginning with the husband and wife, and from there we expand our view and reveal the value of family for the construction of the entire Jewish nation. The recognition that proper family life serves as an important infrastructure for the nation's future is manifest in the various mitzvot that pertain to the proper way to establish it.
Firstly, incest and other illicit relations that cause mamzerut – the illegitimacy of the offspring – are forbidden. The wholeness and integrity of a Jew depends on ensuring a known connection between his special link and the continuing national chain that goes family after family all the way back to the nation's forefathers. The Torah thus warned that one should not take his father's wife [or other relatives, or a married woman], thus blurring the clear succession of whole families, which continue branch after branch, generation after generation, in purity.
In the wake of these and other prohibitions, the clear conclusion is that "a mamzer may not enter the community of G-d" (23,3) [in marriage, though not in other societal frameworks]. The exclusion of the mamzer – the word itself implies foreignness (zar) – indicates the character of appropriate Israelite life, wherein children know their parents and they each relate to one another within a family structure that includes love and educational responsibility. Such relations do not exist when the family unit is broken by moral promiscuity. In this context we see how individual family matters relate to the life of the nation as a whole – for how can responsibility vis-à-vis the nation be taught when even the family societal unit is in ruins?
Amon and Moav: Ensuring Israel's Morality
In this light the Torah also instructs us to stay away from the (now non-existing) Amonite and Moavite peoples and not marry into them; they must be excluded from G-d's community. This is because our post-Exodus history showed us the depths of depravity to which these nations deteriorated. They did not show us even a modicum of humanity and compassion when we left Egypt and needed their help. Their ungratefulness and other negative traits stand in stark opposition to the basic character of Israel that began with our forefathers, marked by "compassion, non-arrogance, and kindness" (Tr. Yevamot 79a).
It's true that other nations warred with us at various times in our history as recorded in the Torah – but none targeted our spirit and character as did Amon and Moav. This is why we are commanded to distance the latter "for even ten generations" (23,4), whereas Edomites and Egyptians we "must not despise" (verse 8) - for they are our brothers and hosted us, respectively; they may marry Jews after three generations and after having converted to Judaism.
After this clarification regarding the attributes of compassion and kindness that are appropriate for the nation that left Egypt and merited to receive G-d's kindness, the Torah portion continues with a series of laws of justice. These include how to properly, and even compassionately, administer the punishment of stripes, and more. {But these take us far afield from our specific topic; as Hillel the Elder said, "The remainder – go and study."]
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