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This week’s
parsha Kee Taytsay, meaning, “When you
go out” covers Deuteronomy chapters 21 through
25. It has been described by at least one rabbi
as “a grab bag” of assorted commands, prohibitions
and exhortations. According to Maimonides, this
one section of the Torah alone contains 72 separate
injunctions. Reducing so many into summary form
is a daunting task.
Some liberal
theologians argue that many, if not most, of these
various commands are irrelevant to today’s world.
I couldn’t disagree more! When, for example, we
read that we are not to turn a blind eye to our
neighbors’ troubles (or that of his animals),
or that we are to treat with dignity those who
have fallen on hard times and are in our debt,
that speaks of compassion. How on earth
is that irrelevant? When we are enjoined to return
lost property to its rightful owner, and warned
that we had better have equal weights and measures,
that speaks of honesty in our dealings
with one another. How can that be irrelevant?
When we are commanded that hired workers be promptly
paid a day’s wages for a day’s work, or when we
are prohibited from taking advantage of our brother’s
financial hardship by charging interest on his
loan, that speaks of fairness in our financial
dealings. That is hardly irrelevant!
Included
also in this section of the Torah are capital
offenses, such as kidnapping people and then mistreating
or (God forbid!) selling them. Kidnappers were
to be put to death. Adultery is also listed as
a crime punishable by death. There is a third
capital crime listed (though no record of its
implementation has ever been recorded): a drunken
or gluttonous and rebellious son could be put
to death if all parental attempts at correction
failed. Scoffers have cited this last example
as an argument against the validity of the Scriptures
- the idea of putting your own son to death. “What
kind of parent would do that?” they argue. But
this is not talking about young children - something
the scoffer might have learned if he were not
simply on a fault-finding mission. After all,
how likely is your eight-year old to be a drunkard
and a glutton (in other words, a societal
degenerate) which is what we read in context?
A lot
of things in this parsha sadden me. For example,
in chapter 21 men who have more than one wife
are warned not to disregard the rights of a first-born
son if that son happens to be from one of his
wives that he doesn’t love. Accusations by a husband
of non-virginity of his wife at the time of their
marriage, if proven false, were to be met with
a stinging public rebuke and a monetary fine.
Laws governing divorce lead off the list in chapter
24. So what we have here is callous favoritism;
defamation of character; the dissolution of one’s
covenant vow of marriage; Who wouldn’t be saddened?
Nor does it seem to get any better. Chapter 22
includes prohibitions against such abominations
as cross-dressing (transvestism), adultery and
incest. Lovely!
These
laws are not, as some suggest, the product of
a backward civilization and therefore unnecessary
for us today. They are, in fact, a necessary gift
- a gift of deterrent - from a loving and
all-wise God, who knows perfectly well the depths
to which human beings are capable of sinking.
These things and much worse fill our newspapers
every day, and we even make public spectacles
of it on grotesque television shows such as Jerry
Springer. You should not be amused, but rather
sickened that people watch those shows. Anyone
who thinks that our society has advanced morally
is deluding himself. Our technology may be developing
at warp-speed, but mankind is still wallowing
in moral decay, which makes the technology even
scarier. We split the atom; we discover the existence
of bacteria, we make advancements in chemistry,
and from this same technology we manage to cure
illnesses and create doomsday weapons.
If there
is a theme that may be discerned running through
these many and varied commands and prohibitions,
it is the need to direct kindness and compassion
and justice especially toward those who are the
most vulnerable members of society: orphans, widows,
unmarried women, those in debt - the very ones
most likely to be taken advantage of. In fact
it has been argued that because compassion toward
the weak and vulnerable is so much a theme here,
that chapter 25 ends with a reminder about the
Amalekites. When Israel had just come out of Egypt,
and were weary and traveling through the wilderness,
the Amalekites ambushed us (cf. Ex. 17:8-16, 1
Sam. 15:2-3). In fact we find here in Deuteronomy
25 that they attacked from the rear - precisely
where those who were elderly and infirmed (perhaps
also women with very young children) were walking,
and the Amalekites slaughtered many of us.
This parsha
is a confirmation of the wisdom in Yeshua’s answer
as to what constitutes the greatest commandment.
He said we are to love the Lord our God will all
our hearts, and we are to love our neighbor (that
means pretty much everybody, in case you were
wondering) as ourselves. If we would just pattern
our lives according to the 2, the other 611 would
not need to have been written. But it is precisely
our sinful nature that necessitates the written
law, and that written law condemns every one of
us, for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails
in one point, has become guilty of all (James
2:10 [cf. Deut. 27:26]). Thanks be to God that
the requirements of the Law have been fully and
finally met through the perfect life, the atoning
death and the triumphant resurrection of Messiah
Yeshua!
Shalom,
Rabbi Glenn
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