Share this:

art by Laya Crust

Ki Teitze: Devarim (Deuteronomy) 21: 10 – 25: 19

Haftarah- Isaiah 54: 1-10

This week’s Torah reading is dense with laws- an amazingly long list of 74 directives. The laws regard daily behaviour of individuals within a community rather than being laws pertaining to a person’s relationship with God. We don’t read about sacrifices or Temple service. The laws look at relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbours, the underprivileged, trees and crops, and even between humans and animals. This is the parsha that includes the unexpected  decree that before taking eggs out of a nest one must shoo away the mother bird- supposedly to save the mother bird the anguish of seeing its  (future) young being abducted.

art by Laya Crust

The range of laws and guidelines is impressive. They look at family and seemingly personal issues – the unloved wife, the rebellious child, a lost object… and treat those issues with the same gravity as crimes such as murder. The poor and weak members of society are also noticed in this parsha. The treatment of one’s servants is addressed.  All those must be cared for and treated with dignity.

Laws concerning women are quite prominent here. Yibbum or levirate marriage, unloved wives, questioned virginity, and the treatment of women who have been captured in war are all considered in this parsha.  To our modern eyes the reading is often disturbing, but we have to remember what was going on in biblical times.

art by Laya Crust

Women had no status and no rights. They left their  home and family to lead a probably cloistered life with their husband’s family. Abuse and murder of women was ignored because it was seen as being under the jurisdiction and purview of the husband or father.Rabbi Sacks quotes Nahum Sarna, “Exploring Exodus”, p. 176, who writes:

For example, in the Middle Assyrian Laws, the rape of unbetrothed virgin who lives in her father’s house is punished by the ravishing of the rapist’s wife, who also remains thereafter with the father of the victim. Hammurabi decrees that if a man struck a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, it is the assailant’s daughter who is put to death.

The quotation continues indicating that the children of a criminal were often expected to suffer the penalty of their father’s crimes.  If a builder erected a house which collapsed, killing the owner’s son, then the builder’s son, not the builder, is put to death.   Judaism recognized these injustices and established laws to erase the inequality and unfairness. Children were not required to pay for their father’s crimes.

In fact, Cities of Refuge were established so that a person who killed another by mistake would be safe from the revenge.

Many of the laws listed in Ki Teitzei  were ground breaking. An individual was judged for his own crimes. The community was given guidelines for fairness and community responsibility. For the first time a woman’s status and treatment were deemed important enough to discuss. Women were recognized as deserving respect and protection. Children were treated as people, not commodities. And even the land was to be respected.

Judaism is a model for a just and generous society.   “And thou shalt remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt: therefore I command you to do this thing.” Deuteronomy 24: 22).  That one phrase communicates humility and the pursuit of integrity and justice.

Have a meaningful Shabbat,

Laya

VaYishlach

 Laya Crust 2013

As with many of our readings in the book of Bereishit this week’s reading is full of stories and adventures. The event pictured here is that of Shimon and Levi rescuing their sister Dina from a local man who abducted and raped her. In light 0f current events the brothers’ efforts seem quite progressive. (Shimon and Levi didn’t punish their sister for her misfortune and didn’t hide their revulsion of the act because they were afraid of what society would say.) That incident is sandwiched between Jacob’s encounter with Esau, and the death of Rachel at the end of the parsha.

Today I’m going to write about a different incident in the parsha, Jacob’s fight with “a man”  the night  before he was to meet Esau. Jacob was worried- frightened- to see his brother. Esau was a wealthy hunter and fighter. Jacob had wronged Esau in the past and realised that Esau may want to attack him and his family. He divided his family into four camps and put them on the far side of the river Jabok. He camped on the other side of the river so that he would be the first line of defence.

 Golden Haggadah, Barcelona Spain c. 1320

In the middle of the night a man came and wrestled with him. They were obviously well matched because the wrestling continued until dawn. By the end of the night there was still no victor.  The man, an angel,  touched and injured Jacob’s thigh then gave Jacob another name- “Yisrael”, translated as “you have striven with Gd”.

When Jacob first left his parents’ home he had a dream in which angels were climbed up and down a ladder, with Gd at the top of the ladder.

   Laya Crust 2013

Rashi suggested that angels accompanied Jacob in Canaan, the land promised to the Jews. When Jacob fled and lay down to sleep that set of angels left his side and another set of angels came down to accompany him to the unknown country.

Why was an angel sent to fight him on the bank of the Jabok River when Jacob was on his way back to Canaan ? If the angels were there to guide and protect him, why start a wrestling match? Who won? Jacob was given a new name describing a stronger personality but he was injured and limped for the rest of his life.

Some suggest that the fight wasn’t with an angel. Some suggest it was an inner psychological struggle.When you think of it- Jacob was an older man sleeping on the hard ground. He was having nightmares about meeting his brother. Maybe he rolled around and knocked into a sharp boulder. That could explain a pretty painful injury. In any case, the fight was cathartic. After all those years Jacob had to face himself before he saw his brother again.

To deal with our difficulties we all have to look at ourselves and our past. Jacob was a strong man, and a strong leader. He faced his fears and his “ghosts”. He didn’t have an easy life but he left the amazing legacy of b’nei Yisrael, the children of Israel.

Shabbat Shalom,

Laya