Dear Friends;
I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parasha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;
” Parsha in a Nutshell “
Seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 commandments are in this week’s Parsha. These include the laws of the beautiful captive woman, the inheritance rights of the first-born, capital punishment for the wayward and rebellious son, burial and dignity of the dead, returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird before taking her young, and the duty to erect a safety fence around the roof of one’s home.
Also recounted are the judicial procedures and penalties for adultery, for the rape or seduction of an unmarried girl, and for a husband who falsely accuses his wife of adultery. The following cannot marry a person of Jewish lineage: a bastard; a male of Moabite or Ammonite descent.
Our Parshah also includes laws governing the purity of the military camp; the prohibition against turning in an escaped slave; the duty to pay a worker on time; the proper treatment of a debtor and the prohibition against charging interest on a loan; the laws of divorce (from which are also derived many of the laws of marriage); and the procedures for yibbum, marriage beyween the wife of a childless deceased to her brother-in-law.
Parsha concludes with the obligation to remember “what Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt.”
“ Dvar Torah “
Parashat Ki-Tetzei begins with the laws of “Eshet Yefat Toar” (a woman of beautiful appearance), which deals with the case of a soldier who encounters an attractive non Jewish woman while fighting a war, and desires her. The Torah allows the soldier in such a case to marry the woman after fulfilling certain conditions. The commentators explain that the Torah allowed this provision because the soldier would otherwise be likely to engage in forbidden relations with the woman. Human nature being as it is, G-d determined that it would be preferable to permit marrying an “Eshet Yefat Toar” so that soldiers would not be tempted to cohabit with a strange woman and commit a sin.
This section is followed by another exceptional law – the law of the “Ben Sorer U’moreh”, the rebellious son. The Torah commands that under certain very rare and unusual circumstances, a child who does not listen to the voice of his parents and conducts himself in an unrestrained manner is put to death. One of the requirements for a child to be considered a “Ben Sorer U’moreh” is to be a glutton, indulging in meat and wine, excessively. The Sages explain that if a boy displays an uncontrolled lust for meat and wine, he will inevitably reach the point where he will rob and murder in order to obtain the money he needs to satisfy this lust. Therefore, he should be put to death at the early stage of his life when he is still innocent, rather than allowing him to mature to a point where he will actually commit a crime deserving of death.
The Chachamim say that there must be a reason why these two laws are placed next to each other in the Torah. Accordingly, they have come up with the following explanation. The Torah wants to warn us that if a person marries an “Eshet Yefat Toar,” he will end up having a son who is a “Ben Sorer U’moreh.” Although marrying such a woman is technically permissible, it will likely result in the disastrous outcome of having a rebellious child.
But you may ask why?! If a person marries a foreign woman, which is permitted by the Torah, why should he end up with having a rebellious child? He did not commit a sin, so why should he be punished?
Rabbi Eli Mansour gives the following explanation. The Torah commands us to be “holy”. What does it mean to be holy? According to Rambam, being holy does not mean to just restrain ourselves from the things that are not allowed to us, but rather, to be holy means that we should even have control over the things which are even permitted to us too. For example, you are allowed to drink wine and spirits, but to be holy, you have to have control over how much you drink. In the case of “Eshet Yefat Toar”, although the person has not violated any particular law, but what he did was not considered holy, since he did not have control over his desires. And this is why marrying an “Eshet Yefat Toar” can lead to a child who is “Ben Sorer U’moreh”. A child who grows up in an environment, where the parent easily surrenders to his desires and places too much focus on the physical pleasures of life, can easily become a glutton, and may eventually reach the point where he resorts to criminal behavior to satisfy his lusts. In order to teach a child to have restrained over physical pleasures, the parents have to show restrained first!
Yes my friends, the most effective way to educate children is by acting as a role model. Children learn far more effectively with their eyes than with their ears. They learn from watching us, not by being told what to do. The expression which says, “Practice what you preach”, can easily be modified to “Practice, and then you don’t need to preach”. Actions speak louder than words, and so our greatest asset in influencing our children is the personal example we set, exhibiting the kind of behavior we want our children to emulate.
The following story may not be true and is often used for humor purposes, but there is a great lesson to be learned from:
Junior came home from day camp one day without towel.
“Where is your towel?” asked his mom.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I could not find it after swimming. Maybe someone took it.”
The mother was annoyed. “Who could have taken your towel? It was a great towel! Junior you would never take someone else’s towel. You know I raised you better than that. Right?”
A few moments later, she was on the phone with the day camp director.
“Hello. There is a young thief in your camp!”
“How so?” “My son had a towel stolen from camp! He brought it in today and it was nowhere”
“Calm down,” came the voice on the line. “I am sure that no one stole it. Please describe the towel to me.”
“Sure I can! It was white and big. You could not miss it. It had the words “HILTON” emblazoned on it!”
Shabbat Shalom & Regards;
Martin