Parasha: Ki Tetze · Aliyah: First (Chesed)

כי תצא למלחמה על איביך, When you go to war against your enemies, etc. Why did the Torah need to write this whole introduction when it would have sufficed to write: "when you see an attractive woman amongst the prisoners, etc." The whole of verse one seems extraneous to the subject matter under discussion! Furthermore, seeing the Torah did decide to write: "when you go out to war against your enemies, etc.," why did we need the words "against your enemies?" Against whom does one go to war if not against one's enemies? Perhaps the reason is to be found in halachic relaxations which apply to troops in wartime. A woman such as the attractive woman prisoner mentioned here would be totally out of bounds if not for the fact that she was captured in war; the same applies to other relaxations of the halachah such as the prohibition of eating the hind parts of a pig, etc, (compare Chulin 17). This gave rise to the Torah using a different style in this instance. Seeing that the Jewish soldier was aware of the halachic relaxations which are applicable even to Torah law under conditions of war, the Torah was concerned lest some of the soldiers would actually look forward to the battle in order to avail themselves of these relaxations of Torah law. The Torah was keenly aware of this and reminded the soldier that when he goes to war his only purpose should be to avenge himself on the enemies of the Jewish people, not in order to have an excuse to indulge in things which are normally forbidden. The words כי תצא, "when you go out," are a reminder that although you depart from the normal rules of halachic restrictions when your life is at stake, למלחמה, your mind must concentrate only on the war, on the battle, not on what you consider the fringe benefits. The reason the Torah adds the words על איביך, "against your enemies," is to remind you that your enemies are G'd's enemies as we have been told by David in Psalms 139,21: "O Lord, You know I hate those who hate You, and I loathe Your adversaries." Your entire reason for going to war must be for this sole purpose. If that will be the case, then the Torah's assurance: "and the Lord your G'd will deliver them into your hand" will be fulfilled. From our verse (verse 1) you may deduce therefore that unless your motivation is the one the Torah expects of you, your success will not be assured.

ושבית שביו, "and you take a prisoner." This is a commandment, as otherwise you create the impression that you belittle gifts G'd gives you. Alternatively, the Torah emphasises the negative when writing the positive, i.e. you are forbidden to marry such an attractive Gentile female unless she has first been your captive. Under no circumstances must you exploit the Torah's permission to wed such a prisoner by engaging in the pursuit of a woman who catches your fancy with the intention of making her your wife or your concubine if she had not previously happened to be your captive. This is the reason that the Torah writes the sequence ושבית שביו וראית בשביה, "if you have taken a prisoner and then you see amongst the prisoners, etc." The reason the Torah wrote שביו, "its prisoner," instead of simply אותו, "it," is because (according to Sifri) we are not speaking about a defensive war but about a war of acquisition, (authorised by G'd, i.e. the High Priest) and the Torah wishes to include permission to take captive even a Canaanite of the seven nations who would have had to be executed had the Torah spoken about the war when the Israelites captured the Holy Land under the leadership of Joshua. In other words, although such a person would have been killed if she had been encountered in Joshua's wars of conquest, the fact that she was captured outside the boundaries of ארץ ישראל saved her life.

Another thing the Torah has in mind by writing "and He delivers them into your hands," following it up with "and you capture its prisoner," is to limit your authority over human life. Once you have captured a prisoner you are not free to kill him or her unless the Torah had commanded this such as in 20,16 "you must not let anyone survive." The source for this limitation on your powers as a captor is the reminder that G'd delivers your enemy into your hands, you did not achieve victory by your own prowess.

וראית בשביה אשת יפת תאר, "And you see in her captivity a woman of beautiful form, etc." The expression יפת תאר is to be understood literally, whereas according to Sifri the words וחשקת בה, "you will desire her," are understood to include even an ugly looking prisoner. This sounds somewhat strange; if it is true, why did the Torah bother to mention a good looking prisoner if even an ugly looking woman is permitted? All the Torah had to write was: "if you see a woman amongst the prisoners, etc.," and neither the words יפת תאר nor וחשקת בה are needed.

In order to answer these questions we must understand why G'd altogether permits a Jew to defile himself by sleeping with a Gentile. This is even more problematical as the Torah permits this at a time when G'd has been busy performing miracles so that the Israelites were victorious in battle and suffered no casualties. We would have assumed that at such a time more than at any other the laws requiring ritual, i.e. sexual purity would have to be tightened rather than relaxed! How can a time when the Israelite has to cleave to his G'd be the very time when he is allowed to indulge his evil urge in such a fashion? We can understand the need to permit food for soldiers in war although the Torah has otherwise forbidden such food. In his treatise Hilchot Melachim chapter 8, Maimonides explains that when a soldier is hungry and must feed himself it is acceptable to permit him to eat whatever is available. After all, it may be a case of survival; however, no such reasons apply when a soldier wants to indulge his carnal lust. Our sages in Kidushin 21 explain the whole paragraph as addressed to the evil urge within man. If so, surely whatever the Torah legislates ought to be designed to subjugate that evil urge from the hearts of a holy people at a time when they are engaged in war and when they count on their King, i.e. G'd, to fight on their behalf.

I believe the clue to understanding this whole legislation is to be found in the Zohar Chadash Balak page 53. We are told there that at the time Adam sinned many souls who originated in holy spheres were taken captive by the spiritually negative forces known as Sitra Achara. These souls are the ones of people who voluntarily converted to Judaism since that time. Many outstanding Jews have come from such conversions such as Ruth the Moabite, the scholars Shmayah and Avtalyon, as well as Onkelos the proselyte.

I will reveal to you another mystery. There are occasions when a pure soul is very closely attached to an impure soul and the pure soul is unable to exert a spiritually positive influence on the impure soul. The latter remains as it is until the time comes to be freed from its body. We have an example of something like that in the soul of Rabbi Chaninah ben Tradyon whose soul [obviously long before it inhabited the body of that scholar, Ed.] reputedly was attached to that of Shechem, son of Chamor (who had raped Dinah). This is alluded to in the Torah by the letters in the word רחבת ידים (Genesis 34,21) which form the initals of the name of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon, as explained by Rabbi Chayim Vittal in his commentary on the relevant verse in Genesis (Likutey Torah). [I have seen this text and it is somewhat different from what the author quotes. Ed.] This soul of Rabbi Chaninah had not exerted a positive influence on the soul of Shechem so that when the latter committed the rape of Dinah the soul of Rabbi Chaninah departed from him and found its mate in the soul of Dinah whose soul had previously been described as נידה, i.e. as polluted. This is the mystical dimension of the words ותדבק נפשו בדינה, "his soul cleaved to Dinah the daughter of Jacob" (Genesis 34,3). You will do well to keep this principle in mind. Sometimes you find a holy soul mixed in amongst those that belong to the domain of the קליפה, the spiritually negative forces. Such a soul may exert a spiritually positive influence on other souls in its environment, driving out the evil resident within those souls or at least weakening it. These are the souls who eventually become proselytes by their own efforts such as Ruth the Moabite and Naamah the Ammonite who became the mother of King Rechavam.

I have already mentioned repeatedly that by means of the performance of G'd's commandments one's soul becomes "dressed" in the light of the שכינה, so that it is enabled to expel whatever evil still remains within it. This is the mystical dimension of Kohelet 8,5: שומר מצוה לא ידע רע, that "he who observes the commandment will know no evil." This applies in particular to people who are on such a מצוה errand as the soldiers of the Jewish people in war. I have also explained in Parshat Shelach Lecha that people on such an errand are even protected against the evil urge at such a time, not only against the actual commission of a sin (compare the whole discussion in Numbers 13,26 commencing on page 1450). The reverse is true of someone engaged in the commission of a sin; his soul is "dressed" in the spirit of impurity which leads him still further astray.

After G'd had informed us of all these factors, the comments of our sages will greatly enlighten us concerning this whole legislation. The operative clause are the words כי תצא למלחמה, "that you, the soldier are engaged in performing a מצוה errand against G'd's enemies." This very fact already results in your not being tempted by the evil urge while you are engaged in carrying out this errand. The words וראית בשביה, "and you see at the time of her being taken captive, etc." According to Maimonides in the above quoted chapter of his Hilchot Melachim, the Torah speaks about a moment in time when said soldier is still engaged in his sacred task. This is the reason the Torah speaks of אשת, "a woman of," (genitive) instead of אשה יפת תאר. [remember that in halachah the term "wife of," i.e. the normal meaning of the word אשת in the Torah, is not applicable to a Gentile woman who lives with the same man. Ed.] Our sages in Kidushin 21 interpret the term אשת used by the Torah as including a woman who is married, according to the understanding of this term by the Gentiles. They are, of course, correct; however, if that were the only meaning of the word in this case, the Torah should not have written אשת יפת תאר instead of אשה יפת תאר but אשת איש, "a married woman." Clearly, the Torah's choice of the expression אשת יפת תאר is meant to alert us to the fact that G'd opened the eyes of this soldier who is still engaged in performing the מצוה to recognise something spiritually beautiful within the soul of that female prisoner. It is this soul which the Torah describes as יפת תאר. Holy souls are able to radiate a beautiful spiritual light. The soldier is able to recognise the spiritual light which emanates from that prisoner as he is still enveloped by the שכינה, being still engaged in the performance of a holy task himself.

The Torah was very careful to write בה, "something within her" instead of אותה, "her." This means that the soldier in question is not infatuated with the body of the woman but with something inside her, her holy soul which he was able to recognise. This explains why such a woman is permitted even if she is outwardly ugly. The words יפת תאר never related to the external appearance of the woman in question. Carnal lust is always something which feeds on the external appearance not on the invisible part of the woman.

ולקחת לך לאשה, "and you will take her for you as a wife." It is remarkable that throughout this paragraph the Torah always refers to the woman prisoner by a suffix, i.e. והבאתה, ובעלתה, ושלחתה. Only in this instance does the Torah describe the wedding without even mentioning her as a suffix, i.e. ולקחתה. The reason is that the union of the soldier and this woman in marriage occurs in a domain which is hidden from the eye. The Torah does not speak of a union of bodies but of a union of souls. Seeing the souls of the soldier and the prisoner have become attached to one another, the result is marriage. The principle holds true also in normal marriages between Torah-observant Jews, and it was the reason why Dinah's soul was joined by the holy soul of Rabbi Chaninah ben Tradyon as a direct result of her being raped by Shechem.

Having explained that the ultimate fate of souls within the domain of the Sitra Achara which enjoy the close proximity of a holy soul may be one of two possibilities, who is to know if the "holy" soul which was attached to this prisoner's Gentile soul is one which will depart from her at the first contact with the soul of a Jewish male (as in the case of Shechem), so that nothing holy will remain within her, or if the "holy" soul within her has accomplisehd its task so that the entire soul of that prisoner is now fit to convert as was Naamah or Ruth. In order to establish this with certainty the Torah wrote: והבאתה אל תוך ביתך, "you are to bring her inside your house." During the period that the prisoner sojourns in the house of her soldier-captor, the latter will be able to remove from her part of her spiritually negative characteristics. In that event, she is fit to convert and he may marry her. The words והיתה לך לאשה mean that she may become your wife if you want to marry her. If you are not prepared to marry her, i.e. to form a spiritual union with her, this will be proof that the holy part of her soul, i.e. the holy soul within her that kept her Gentile soul company, has already departed from her so that your two souls are not meant to form a union.

Seeing that it is not impossible that even a Torah-observant Jew may become infatuated with a Gentile woman and wants to live with her without the benefit of marriage which sanctifies a sexual union between man and wife, the Torah has to provide for such a situation. Remember that we only described the desire a soldier has for a Gentile prisoner as being inspired by something purely spiritual as long as that soldier was actively engaged in performing the commandment of fighting a war against the enemies of his people. As soon as the soldier has brought the prisoner home, or even sooner, as soon as the war is over, the soldier's reaction to the prisoner may reflect his carnal instincts rather than the longing of his soul for a suitable soul-mate. The Torah therefore prescribes a number of measures which will help establish just what it is that said soldier is attracted to. Shaving off the hair of her head, letting her nails grow, or according to others cutting her nails especially short, are all examples of a deliberate attempt to show the soldier-captor his prisoner when she has been deprived of her physical allure. If the prisoner converts and her soldier-captor still wants to marry her this is considered proof by the Torah that this woman has divested herself of all traces of the spiritual impurity inherent in her background. This is why the Torah says והיתה לך לאשה, "you may marry her." The Torah hints at all this strongly when writing instead of ואם לא חפצת אותה, "and if you do not want her," ואם לא חפצת בה, "and if you do not want what is inside her."

ושלחתה לנפשה, "you must send her away to be on her own." The Torah carefully chose the word לנפשה, to explain why the soldier-captor may not sell this woman (who is after all trophy of the war) as one may sell other Gentile slaves. If he were to sell this prisoner now he would benefit from the proceeds. The Torah had described her as part of the captives G'd had given the people. How could the soldier sell what was G'd's? The word לנפשה reminds the soldier that the only reason this prisoner had been given to him by G'd was because of the soul inside her. Originally, upon meeting her in captivity, the soldier had been attracted to the beauty of her soul and had benefited from her spirituality. It would certainly be inappropriate to now treat her as chattel, cashing in on her as a sex object. Alternatively, the word לנפשה at this stage emphasises that this woman has by now revealed that all she has left is a נפש, the most basic life-force, not a נשמה, a holy soul. Her holy soul from which you originally benefited has already departed from her as did the holy soul of Shechem when he raped Dinah.

ומכור לא תמכרנה, "and you must certainly not sell her." G'd does not want the Israelites to trade in evil. We have a verse in Psalms 69,27 אשר הכית רדפו, "they pursued those whom You have smitten." The Psalmist scores the Gentiles who want to profit from the fact that G'd had smitten the Jewish people." G'd did not punish the Jewish people for their sins in order for the Gentiles to make a profit out of this. --Similarly, the soldier who had already extracted all he wanted from the body of his prisoner must not now also turn her into chattel to make a profit from selling her.

תחת אשר עינית, "because you have afflicted her." This means that you have deprived this woman of all her previous assets including her physical allure and have caused her to become ugly and destitute. This final line in our paragraph is proof for our whole approach to the subject of the יפת תאר. Is it conceivable that a Jew who has sexual intercourse with a Gentile woman would abuse her? Did not our sages say in Gittin 38 that "Gentiles are more fond of the beasts belonging to Jews than they are fond of their own wives?" It follows that they would love female slaves who used to be the property of Jews even more so." How could Jews have acquired such a reputation if they had maltreated their slaves? How could the fact that the prisoner spent a month in the house of her soldier-captor be considered as having suffered maltreatment? Surely the Torah refers to her mental anguish and not to her having been physically mistreated. Her mental anguish consists of her being denied the opportunity to share the sanctity of a Jewish home if her captor had married her.

A moral/ethical approach to our subject is based on the premise that the entire structure of the universe and its continued existence is based on the conduct of the Jewish people. As long as the Jewish people act in accordance with Torah precepts the universe remains intact and there is joy in heaven and on earth. Even G'd Himself is happy and rejoices in the fact that there is a Jewish people. The proper conduct of the Jewish people in turn depends on its ability to vanquish its evil urge. Our verses come to remind man that as soon as his soul leaves the celestial spheres (prior to entering his body) he must be prepared for the struggle with the evil urge. He should not believe that no special valour is needed in order to overcome the spiritually negative forces. On the contrary, the struggle is called מלחמה, "war." This is what our sages had in mind in Avot 4,1 when they said that the true hero is the person who conquers his temptation. This is the reason the Torah did not write le-milchamah i.e. "to any any war," but la-milchamah "to the war, i.e. the well known war against your evil urge."

על איביך. "against your enemies." This is a further reminder that the war the Torah speaks about in our paragraph is not comparable to one fought by a military hero who, once he has conquered the city he fights against, goes home and rests on his laurels. Rather, it is a war which if the victor relaxes his guard even momentarily after having scored a victory, his enemy is liable to revive and destroy him. The Torah assures us that even though the evil urge is an extremely tough adversary, one whose resources are stronger than human powers to overcome unaided, G'd will give this adversary into our hand -if we are actively engaged in fighting him, כי תצא למלחמה.- This is the meaning of the words ושבית שביו. "You will take him captive." The Torah is careful to write שביו instead of אותו, "him." The reason is that the adversary is not something or someone tangible to which the pronoun אותו, "him or it" could be applied. The best that you can hope for is that he will disappear for a while. The meaning of the words ושביתו שביו may be that you will take captive the souls which up until now the Sitra Achara held captive, i.e. you will capture his prisoners. What is described as "your victory" consists of reclaiming souls which your adversary Satan had captured.

וראית בשביה אשת יפת תאר, "and you see in her captivity a beautiful woman." The reason the Torah writes אשת (the possessive form) instead of the more appropriate אשה, is to alert us that the subject is man's soul, the one that is inseparable from her "mate," her body. Satan does not exert any influence on such a soul until it has "descended" and inhabits a body. He is only able to take it into captivity once it has become inseparable from its body. This נפש is called אשה, woman. The reason the Torah describes it as יפת תאר, "beautiful," is because this soul is intrinsically very beautiful indeed and it has only dishevelled herself by means of the sins committed by the body it inhabits. Once man conquers his evil urge he will realise how truly beautiful his נפש really is.

וחשקת בה, "and you will desire her." This means that then the time has come when you will truly desire her, i.e. your soul, instead of the desire you had previously displayed for the seductive machinations of your evil urge.

והבאת אל תוך ביתך, "and you will bring her into your house." This is a reference to the fact that the true soul moves (spiritually) further and further away from the body it inhabits as a result of accumulations of the sins committed by the body. In its place a spiritually negative force occupies the void left by the soul. We find a somewhat similar concept in Job 18,4: טורף נפשו באפו, "who tears his soul apart in his anger." The body is called בית, "house," as we learned in Taanit 11: "who testifies against man? The walls of his house, i.e. the body." When the evil urge defeats the soul it makes itself at home within the body which used to be the exclusive home of the soul. As a result the evil urge will become known as the בעל נפש, the force in control of the soul. The soul that man had acquired originally now has to fight back to regain its original position and has to get rid of the symbols of impurity which have infested it. One such symbol is the hair on his head and this is why the Torah orders it to shave off the hair on its head. The term קליפה, "peel," which is the best known simile for the spiritually negative forces, is represented in the body by the nails which are like a peel. Trimming the nails then is an indication of man's effort to trim the forces of the קליפה. והסירה את שמלת שביה מעליה, "and she is to remove the garment of her captivity from herself, etc." This is a reference to garments acquired as a result of her becoming defiled. The removal is to take place by means of eradicating the traces of her sins through penitence, self-flagellation, etc. וישבה בביתך, "and she is to dwell in your house, etc," during which time she is to confess her sins and weep in sorrow over all the trespasses she has committed against her father and mother, i.e. against G'd and the community of Israel whose traditions she has flouted (compare Berachot 35). ירח ימים, "for a full month," which is sufficient for this purpose. The Torah may have in mind the month of Elul which our sages set aside for penitence prior to the Day of Judgment, Rosh Hashanah.

ואחר כן תבא אליה, "after that you may join her, etc." You are now permitted to benefit from her spiritual light. This is the mystical dimension of Proverbs 16,26: נפש עמל, עמלה לו, "when someone toils for his soul, he toils on behalf of his true self." This will assist him to remain on the correct path. ובעלתה, "and you have become her master." The reason the Torah describes you as her master is because the moral strength of your actions has rehabilitated her. Eventually, this soul will once more inhabit your body and remain in it performing the task assigned to it. This is what the Torah means with the words והיתה לך לאשה, "she may become your wife.

The Torah now spells out the alternative. If the man does not make an effort to rehabilitate his soul so that she will radiate the spiritual light she was meant to radiate within him, the very least he must do is to make sure that her status will not deteriorate further. Solomon said in Kohelet 12,7: "and the spirit returns to G'd who gave it." Our sages in Shabbat 152 comment on this that the reason Solomon added the word "who gave it" [something which is obvious if we speak about "returning" something, Ed.], is to remind us that it must be returned in the mint condition in which we received it from G'd. אם לא חפצת בה ושלחתה לנפשה, "If you do not desire her you must send her away to be on her own." This means that you must not hand her over to a prison guard but to give her her freedom.

It is also possible that these words may be understood in light of what we learned in the Zohar volume three page 67 on Isaiah 26,9: נפשי אויתיך בלילה, "at night my soul yearns for You." The word נפשי represents the שכינה, G'd's Presence. Accordingly, the meaning of the Torah is that the captor must release the captive to return to G'd, the place this soul originally came from. ומכור לא תמכרנה, "but you must not sell her;" this too may be understood in light of the comment of the Zohar volume two page 97 on Exodus 21,8: לעם נכרי לא ימשל למכרה, "he does not have the power to sell her to an alien people." To the Zohar the operative word in our verse is the word בכסף. The word is derived from kosseph, something one desires greatly. The problem with most people is that they sell their souls to the enemy (Satan) in return for material things which they urgently aspire to i.e. כוסף. The Torah issues a warning not to sell something of permanent value in return for something of transient value. We have ourselves mentioned that the word כסף alludes to such imaginary values which a person craves when we explained Leviticus 25,37: "you must not give him your money against interest." לא תתעמר בה, "you must not enslave her." Onkelos understands this to mean that you must not provoke mental anguish in her, i.e. in the soul of the sinner; in terms of the soul, sin is called ענוי, affliction. After all, it is you who have caused her to sin, עינית.

והיה הבן הבכר לשניאה, "and the firstborn son is from the wife whom you hate." The Torah does not describe this as merely a possibility but assumes as a fact that the firstborn son from these two marriages will be that of the wife who is hated. It is similar to Genesis 29,31 where the Torah told us that G'd opened Leah's womb because she was hated by her husband. G'd always looks out for those who suffer from a broken heart.

הנחילו את בניו, את אשר יהיה לו, when he allocates the inheritance to the sons he has, etc. The Torah did not write ביום אשר הנחילו את אשר יהיה, לו את בניו, "on the day he allocates his inheritance to the ones who are his, i.e. his sons," which would have been far more appropriate, because the Torah wanted the word הנחילו to appear next to את בניו. This is an allusion to what we learned in Baba Batra 130 that a father may allocate to one of his sons [because he is his natural heir. Ed.] more than would be his share if all the children would inherit equally when no special allocation has been made.

לא יוכל לבקר "He cannot give preference (the status of being the firstborn), etc." If he did so, he violates a negative commandment. This rule answers a question raised by Tossaphot in Baba Batra 130 which commences with the words תלמוד לומר לא יבכר.

כי יהיה לאיש…איננו שומע, "When a man has a delinquent son…he refuses to listen, etc." Why does the Torah write איננו instead of אינו? Perhaps the Torah wanted to emphasise that when the evil urge dominates within man this deprives man of his normal ability to hear and to understand. The reason is that the evil urge takes up its position at the entrance of man's heart preventing words to get through to the soul. I have compared the matter to a king whose security guards were thieves and robbers. Can one imagine that these guards would permit their victims who want to complain to the king that they have been robbed to gain entrance to the king's palace and thereby to help incriminate themselves? Our situation is quite similar.

בקול אביו ובקול אמו, "to the voice of his father or to the voice of his mother." Why did the Torah have to write the word: "his father," instead of merely writing "his voice," i.e. that of the man who has been described as having this son? The Torah wanted to emphasise that the rebellious son and those who have given birth to him of which the Torah speaks here are his original parents i.e. his Father in heaven and his Mother, i.e. community of Israel, G'd's partner (compare Zohar volume two page 85). This relationship between us and our Father in heaven, i.e. G'd, has already been formulated by Solomon in Proverbs 1,8: שמע בני מוסר אביך ואל תטש תורת אמך, "My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not abandon the teachings of your mother." Solomon refers to G'd and the community of Israel respectively. If the son of a terrestrial union became a delinquent it was only because the parents failed to discipline him in time and did not give him proper guidance. This in turn caused him to rebel. The Torah tells us that "when a 'man' has a delinquent son, etc.," i.e. a son who rebels against G'd, remember that even if both his biological father and his biological mother discipline him he will not pay attention to them seeing that he does not even listen to his Father in heaven. In fact, the result of rejecting the laws governing our conduct between ourselves and G'd bring in its wake that we will also ignore the laws of conduct between man and his fellow.