Ki Tetze

This week we read about one of the most troubling commandments in the Bible.  The first paragraph talks about when a Jewish warrior encounters a beautiful female during the conquest of an enemy city.  What follows is a kind of extended, ritualized rape.  The warrior must take the woman into his house, where she has thirty days to mourn.  Afterwards he can have his way with her.

It’s one of the tougher sections to read in our central holy text.  Some responses, like the midrashic commentary Sifre, retreat into pilpul, perhaps with the motivation of limiting the application of the law. The Sifre asks, what if the captive is ugly, rather than beautiful, as the Torah specifies?  Do the laws still apply?  It’s a question that only the Rabbis would have thought to ask. 

Classic apologetic responses note that rape is often an inevitable part of war, and the ritual as dictated by the Torah slows down the process to offer some protection to the woman.  She has to change her clothes and let her fingernails grow, measures to reduce her attractiveness and perhaps make consummation less likely.  The passage of time might also reduce the likelihood of actions that seem inevitable in the heat of battle.  I don’t find this a productive effort.  Underneath all the details, rape is inescapably ugly, and it is hard to accept it as an inescapable part of human conduct.  Why does the Torah seem to condone it, even with reluctance and perhaps with an attempt to indirectly legislate it out of existence?  Also, I’m certain that the Israeli military Rabbinut today would not permit anyone to actually do this, which leaves us with seemingly useless sections of the Torah.  If every word of the Torah is precious and divine, what do we do with that, other than groan and skip over it?

Being mystically inclined, I try to read this section as a lesson for moral growth with our individual struggles to become better people.  I wander far away from the literal meaning of the text on this journey, but have plenty of company in doing this among our people’s sages. 

In the world we see, it is often too easy to forget our sins.  We can do damage of one sort or another, and then just walk away from it.  The spiritual world, according to Jewish tradition, is completely different.  Rabbi Chaim Vital, as quoted by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, talks about how every bad deed creates a malevolent spirit, called a ‘Mazik’ or ‘damager’ in Hebrew.  These Mazikim are tied to their creator, and follow the creator around.  Each of us has an unseen entourage of such creatures, who are restrained from fulfilling their intended harm to us only by G-‘d’s kindness. 

I find this image terrifying.  I love the images of mercy that are present in the upcoming holidays, and the implied access to forgiveness and a new clean slate in the New Year.  This is the opposite, a trail of blemishes that can’t be erased or escaped. While I hesitate to take the image of Mazikim literally, the idea has helped me put off doing one or two things that I wouldn’t be proud of.

I think the laws of the captive woman are a parable-like message, like this concept of the mazikim, that we need to consider the effects of our actions.  On the battlefield, it would be all too simple for a warrior to see a captive woman as an object of plunder.  Her nation, perhaps even her extended family, was just trying to kill you, and maybe killed some of your comrades.  While I’ve never been in combat myself, I’ve hated people enough to want to hurt them, and it is so easy to write off their subjectivity, their perspective and feelings. 

Taking the woman into the house, and giving her time to mourn, opens up a possibility of change.  How can you ignore someone who is in the depths of grief and loss?  It creates a doubtlessly awkward and painful relationship with the warrior, a reminder of the captive’s humanity.  On the battlefield, a warrior could satisfy a momentary urge and, in his eyes, be done with it.  Having brought her into the house makes the warrior confront the magnitude and lasting impact of his action.  It’s similar to the idea of Mazikim being created by sin.  If you have a continuing, even permanent, relationship with your bad deeds, it makes those deeds less appealing.  Hopefully, incorporating such awareness into our lives can make us better people.

I bless us that, in the coming weeks and New Year, we have the wisdom to, as Ethics of the Fathers says, ‘envision the result’ of our actions in all its fullness.  May such expanded vision help us to do things that heal whatever damage we do, and focus on things that heal the world.