Do Not Look Away

At first glance, Parashat Ki Teitzei (Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19) can feel like a collection of unrelated commandments.

There are laws about wayward sons, marriage and divorce, lost animals, bird nests, rooftops, escaped slaves, lending money, paying workers, harvesting fields, administering punishment and, finally, the command to remember Amalek.

It all seems random.

But there is nothing random in Torah.

When so many seemingly disparate teachings appear in one parashah, their randomness is actually the lesson itself: What appears to be accidental is actually God at work.

Several key principles—restraint, human dignity and the struggle between human dignity and human desire—are embedded in Ki Teitzei. Even the opening words, “When you go out…” suggest that HaShem is sending things your way to prompt you to take action that benefits others, but benefits you as well. And Ki Teitzei begins with one of the most difficult examples imaginable.

The Torah describes how a soldier, in the heat of battle, sees a beautiful woman and desires her. For the modern reader, the entire situation is disturbing. But that reaction can obscure the lesson in this commandment. Women captured in ancient warfare were vulnerable to the desires of victorious soldiers. That was reality.

Ki Teitzei says to the soldier: Not so fast!

The woman must be brought into his home and given a full thirty days to mourn her father and mother, during which she is allowed to make herself undesirable to him.

In this we see that even when desire is legitimate, dignity and restraint must come first. If, after the thirty days, the man no longer wishes to marry her, Torah places another restraint upon him:

“You shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her as a slave, because you have afflicted her” (Deut. 21:14).

This echoes Rambam’s teaching that we must distinguish between what we can do and what we should do—we must ask whether it serves a higher purpose.

That principle appears throughout Ki Teitzei.

An employer has power over his worker. But Torah says:

“You shall give him his wages on the same day, and the sun shall not set upon it, for he is poor, and he sets his life upon it” (Deut. 24:15).

And the courts must show mercy.

If a man has been convicted and sentenced to lashes, Torah establishes a limit:

“Forty he shall strike him, he shall not exceed, lest he continue to strike him beyond these many blows, and your brother be degraded before your eyes” (Deut. 25:3).

The man has been found guilty and punished. Yet Torah still calls him your brother.

He does not lose his humanity because he did something wrong.

That may be one of the deepest ideas running through the parashah: power must never erase the dignity of the person beneath it.

Ki Teitzei also tells us what to do when no one is watching.

When you see your brother’s ox or sheep wandering away, you cannot simply turn away:

“You shall not hide yourself” (Deut. 22:1).

When we strive to maintain a life informed by holiness, it changes our perspective. Holiness shapes your roof, your field, your relationship with your workers or those who owe you money.

“When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you shall not place blood in your house” (Deut. 22:8).

Shoftim, the previous parashah, deals largely with the institutions of a just society—judges, kings, priests, prophets and even rules governing warfare. Ki Teitzei takes those great principles and brings them down to street level.

The Torah does not deny appetites, authority, ownership, punishment or economic relationships. It repeatedly tells us: Those in power don’t have the moral right to do whatever they please or treat you without dignity.

At the close of this parashah, Torah buttons the whole thing up by invoking perhaps the most thoughtless, brutal and undignified people Israel encounters in the Torah: Amalek.

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt; how he encountered you on the way and struck those of you who were lagging behind, all the weak at your rear, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God” (Deut. 25:17–18).

Amalek sees the weak, the weary and the innocent as an opportunity to wreak bloodshed and havoc.

That may be one of the deepest contrasts in the entire parashah. Notice how Torah describes Amalek: “He did not fear God.”

Torah teaches Israel and all of humanity how to act, “When you go out…”

And it teaches us not to look away.