פרשה: כי תצא · עלייה: שני (גבורה)

וכי יהיה באיש חטא משפט מות, "And when a man is guilty of a sin carrying the death penalty, etc." The reason the legislation in this paragraph follows on the heels of the legislation of the previous paragraph is because G'd extols the importance of refining man. First the Torah was concerned with man's personal refinement as expressed in the verse כי תצא למלחמה, man goes to war against his evil urge. Next G'd showed His concern about the rehabilitation of man's children, hence the paragraph about the delinquent son, בן סורר ומורה. In our verse the Torah refers to the scholars of the respective generation whose task it is to watch over evil doers. The Torah writes: כי יהיה באיש חטא משפט מות and he continues to be rebellious against G'd's law without repenting he will wind up being executed, והומת. The Torah blames the fact that it came to an execution on negligence by the leading scholars, the Rabbis. When the Torah writes: ותלית אותו על עץ, "you must hang him from a tree," this refers to the scholar, the fruit-bearing tree, who will have to bear the guilt or punishment of the sinner. G'd had charged the scholars with ensuring that errant sinners become penitents by disciplining them both by word and by deed (compare Erchin 16). We have written about this duty of the scholars already in Parshat Kedoshim. When the scholars are derelict in their duty to persuade the sinner to mend his ways the result is the death by execution of the sinner.

The Torah continues with לא תלין "do not let the body hang overnight." This is a commandment addressed to the people at large not to suspect a Torah scholar of a sin when they have observed him commit a deed which could be interpreted as a sin. You must assume that even if had committed a sin, he had already repented it by nightfall so that he would have rehabilitated himself before the following morning. The word נבלתו, "his dead body" in the sequence לא תלין נבלתו is a reference to the sin. We find that sin is also referred to as a "dead body" on occasion. כי קבר תקברנו, "for you must surely bury him." The Torah speaks about the need for you to bury this sin on that very day when it had been committed or presumed to have been committed. The reason for this is כי קללת אלוקים "for it is a curse of G'd." If you were not to give the scholar in question the benefit of the doubt and at least assume that he has meanwhile repented his mistake you would be desecrating the name of the Lord and would besmirch His honour.

The Torah concludes this paragraph with לא תטמא את אדמתך, "do not defile your soil." We can best understand this in conjunction with Shabbat 119 that Jerusalem was not destroyed until people were wont to impute base motives to the Torah scholars. The Talmud bases this on a verse in Chronicles II 36,16: "But they mocked the messengers of G'd and disdained His words and taunted His prophets." This is the reason that G'd commanded that people must not insult the Torah scholars. If they do, the Jews would be replaced by Gentiles in the Holy Land, who in turn will defile the land by their very presence.

לא תראה את שור אחיך או את שיו נדחים, "You shall not see the ox of your brother or his sheep cast off, etc." This paragraph is an allusion to the need for the scholars to admonish the plain people in order for them to become the true people of the Lord. The term used by the Torah to describe these morally upright righteous people is אחים, brothers. I have already explained to you that this appellation is reserved for the finest group of individuals (compare Shemot Rabbah 52,5). It is these people whom G'd commanded that when they see an "ox" who is lost, i.e. a human being on a lesser moral level who is compared to a beast, to engage in rescuing him. The reason the Torah speaks of "ox and sheep" instead of donkeys, for instance, is that the Jewish people whom the Torah alludes to by the words "ox or sheep" are basically sacred, fit for the altar as opposed to such animals as the donkey. The word אחיך, "your brother," is a simile for G'd who "owns" all of us. The reason that Moses employs this unlikely sounding simile is that the Torah wanted to make plain to which one of His holy people the commandment to restore lost Jewish souls applies, i.e. to the righteous, the Torah scholars.

נדחים, "gone astray;" the word is used in a similar sense in Deut 4,19: "and you are drawn astray." Someone who violates G'd's commandments is considered as having gone astray. The Torah commands that we must not ignore such people but bring them back to one's "brother" i.e. to G'd. The reason the Torah repeats the instruction השב תשיבם, "you shall surely restore them" is that if you will make the first move in setting such people on the right path they will complete the journey back to G'd under their own steam.

ואם לא קרוב אחיך, "And if your brother is not near, etc." Here the Torah hints that it speaks of a period during our final exile, when we will be quite estranged to our Father in Heaven. The period described is the one of which Bileam spoke in Numbers 24,17 when he said: "I can see it but it is not near." The very fact that the redemption does not seem near at hand is apt to estrange the Jewish people to G'd. Even in the present generation the knowledge that the ultimate redemption is so far away undermines the people's faith in G'd. Nonetheless G'd commands ואספתו אל תוך ביתך, "you are to gather him inside your house." The house the Torah speaks of is the Torah academy, etc. There you will teach him the paths of Torah so that the light radiated by Torah study will save this person spiritually. This process will continue until G'd is placated and will claim him back, i.e. עד דרש אחיך אתו. The words והשבות לו, "and you will return it to him," mean that your concern for the straying Jew will be accounted for you as if you had rescued him from becoming totally lost.

Alternatively, the meaning of the verse is that the Jewish people must engage the common people in the study of both halachah and Mussar, religious law and religious morals, until the day one dies, i.e. we are recalled by G'd. The Torah is particular about describing this as והשבת לו, to warn that if we remain inert in this matter we will be responsible for such people winding up in Hades instead of in the Eternal Life in the hereafter.

וכן תעשה, "And similarly you shall do, etc." These additional examples of animals or objects gone "astray," are due to the fact that man is composed of three components. 1) the composition of the body ; 2) the spiritual part of man; 3) the part of Torah to which every Israelite is "betrothed." The Torah writes כן תעשה לחמרו, "so you shall do to his donkey" as a simile for the body. It writes כן תעשה לשמלתו, regarding the spiritual part of man; we have been told in Shabbat 152 that the spiritual part of man is called שמלה "garment," when the Talmud recounts a parable about a king who has given garments to his various servants. Finally, the Torah describes the part of Torah every Israelite is betrothed to as אבדה when our verse speaks of אבדת אחיך. In Kidushin 2 Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai tells a parable explaining why it is that although the Torah describes a betrothal as something initiated by a man the Talmud describes it as something happening to a woman, According to Rabbi Shimon the Torah considers that man when searching for a wife searches for a part he has lost, i.e. אבדה. It is not woman who has to search for what man had lost i.e. the "rib" G'd had taken from Adam when He created woman. Seeing man's betrothed is the Torah, he has to consider it as a lost object if he has strayed from the path of Torah. It therefore is part of our duty to ensure that this lost object is restored to all those Jews who have lost it.

לא תראה את חמור אחיך..נפלים בדרך, "You must not observe the donkey of your brother falling down, etc." This verse speaks of a state of estrangement from tradition which is far greater than that which the Torah spoke of when it referred to נדחים, "straying," in verse one of our chapter. The Torah warns that one must not use this degree of one's fellow's estrangement from G'd and the Torah as an excuse to remain aloof reasoning that any attempt to bring such people back to the fold would end in failure anyway. As long as the "fallen" Jew co-operates in efforts made to rehabilitate him, i.e. עמו, we are not allowed to ignore him; if; however, he refuses to co-operate in such attempts to lead him back into the fold we are allowed to leave him to his own devices. This is what Solomon had in mind when he wrote (Proverbs 9,8): "Do not rebuke a scoffer, for he will hate you."