Ki Tetzai Parshah Thoughts
Predestination And Us
The Torah teaches us to fence in our roofs “‘and do not place blood in your home, when ‘the faller’ falls from it’s roof”. Why is the victim called ‘the faller’?
Rashi explains that he is ‘the faller’, predestined to fall. He would have died anyhow. Just take care that you not cause his death.
This implies that when one murders, the victim would have died anyhow. So what do we fault the assassin for? We faulted him for trying to kill the other, not for the actual death.
This is hard to imagine; Kayin was told ‘the blood of your brother and his subsequent generations cry out to me, from the earth’, implying that the eventual generations of Hevel were destroyed by Kayin. Were he merely choosing to kill Hevel, then there would be no generations anyhow, because Hevel would never have lived. Why fault Kayin for them?
In addition, the argument seems circular; if I know that I can only kill someone predetermined to die, how am I trying to kill – I am aware that I cannot do anything not destined?
Perhaps there are two tracks. Both need fulfilling, but neither forces the other or connect to one another. Foreknowledge and Free Choice means that Hashem knows what I am going to choose, yet that does not affect my ability to choose freely. Just as we can know what someone has chosen without the knowledge forcing his choice in any way, so does Hashem know what I will choose, yet this does not affect my power to do so.
Similarly, Hashem may know that this person will choose to kill his fellow, and in Hashem’s book the victim is already as good as dead, but only because the murderer chose to do so. So he is hardly absolved because of predestination – on the contrary, – he is actually the cause of that predestination!
(I am still not too clear, about this. The simple reading of the sources is that the fellow would have died without the killer, yet the killer is held responsible for it.)
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Even Forever…
‘You may not marry a Mamzer, (-a bastard). Even a tenth-generation Mamzer is forbidden. You may not marry an Ammoni or Moavi. Even a tenth-generation Ammoni or Moavi is forbidden, forever’. Why does the Torah add ‘forever’ by Ammoni and Moavi, but not by a Mamzer?
An Ammoni or Moavi become less of that as the generations pass. Living among Jews, they become Jewish in mindset and habit. This is why an Egyptian may marry into the Jewish nation three generations after conversion to Judaism. The Torah forbids even a smidgen of Ammoni and Moavi, even after a tenth-generation convert. Forever.
A mamzer, by contrast, is thoroughly a Jew. He does not become less of a mamzer as the generations pass; there is no essential difference between a tenth-generation mamzer and a hundredth-generation mamzer. That is why it does not say by the mamzer ‘forever’. Time does not affect his problem at all.
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Health Vs Right
Rashi comments that the Torah permitted marrying gentile women in war because had it not been permitted they would be taken in sin. Better permit it so no one will have sinned.
This sounds like the Torah is at odds with human nature, and concesses to permit a wrong marriage because there is no other choice. Is this a G-d given Torah?
A normal person functions in a certain way. Not always does being emotionally healthy and doing the right thing dovetail. A classic example is the Rambam who says that it is proper for a person to get angry over very important matters. Being always cool is being an emotional rock, not a feeling person.
What about someone whose idea of important is (nebach!) that his kids keep off the couch – is he to become angry about that? From the viewpoint of emotional health, Yes, he ought to get angry. And something is very confused about the priorities in his life. In principle it is wrong to be angry about this. The duality exists, and is real.
The warrior who has taken a liking to a gentile woman is being healthy emotionally. Situationally, it is normal behavior. The case is where emotional good contradicts moral good. And so the Torah condones the marriage. The Torah is not raising a white flag – it is rather choosing (in this case) that we go with our emotional good.
Often there is a flip side to our instincts. Those instincts are important, but we need to know that health can have side effects. Sometimes we see our fellow doing something and scratch our heads ‘Why is he doing that!?’ Then we realize: its the flip side of his generous nature, or some other fine point of his. Realize this well!
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Too Complicated…
The Torah forbids taking back a wife if she married again after her divorce. If she wasn’t married, only betrothed, then its fine. From the context, the Torah makes it clear that there was no plan of a temporary marriage, of exchanging mates. Rather the second husband hated and divorced her, or died. So what’s the issue?
Perhaps there are too many issues involved in the marriage; 1. the first sour marriage 2. the relationship with another fellow 3. the breakup of that relationship and 4. coming back to the first husband. This marriage is too complicated. The two are ruined (- ‘hutam’a’ah’ -) for each other because there are issues within issues.
The lessoon: A. We need to resolve issues before they become too many and big to resolve. B. Not everything is resolvable – sometimes you simply need to walk away from it.
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Publicize Crime?
A sinner is executed and hung. We do not leave him there even overnight, for ‘kililas Elokim taluy’. The Targum explains that we take him down because he was killed for sinning to Hashem. The Mishna explains “…that people will say ‘Why was this fellow hung? Because he cursed Hashem’!’ This disgraces Hashem’s name!”
What the disgrace? Because a king who’s subjects are unruly and rebellious, is a poor leader. People say “What kind of kingdom is it when the subjects don’t listen to their king? What an impotent king!”
So discussing sinners is a chillul Hashem, – even just talking about them!!
An additional reason we don’t publicize criminals is because these people stand for crime. They are a pro-crime statement. We don’t want to hear that statement. So we pretend they don’t exist!
How does this fit in with the Torah concept of ‘so that people hear and take warning’: discourage crime by publicizing its consequences?
Perhaps a sudden, one-time news of a criminal being punished has a shock effect on the one hearing it. It can deter him from evil. But chronic hearing of evil has the opposite effect. People get used to it; it becomes familiar, hence legitimate. And so we hang him up, all right, to scare everyone; but we quickly take him down too, before we grow familiar with what he represents.
Newspapers, news channels and so on – by definition, titillate our senses. They are not out to educate nor to promote wholesomeness. This parsha serves warning: watch out! – you risk being ruined!
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Judging By Results
We may not marry an Ammoni or Moavi, because they did not welcome us with food and drink in the desert, and because they hired Bilaam to curse us. The Torah then adds: “And Hashem did not wish to hear Bilaam, and changed his curse to a blessing, for Hashem loves you”. Is this pertinent to why we cannot marry an Ammoni or Moavi?
Yes, it is. We tend to lighten the crime of hiring Bilaam to curse us, for it came to nothing. Not so, the Torah informs us; we were in the deadliest danger, had Hashem not exchanged the curse for a blessing.
I guess this runs back to the discussion above: we need judge people more on the basis of if they TRIED to help us or harm us, than by if they actually did.
©2013
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