Ki Theitze: the line

Ki Theitze: the line

The parsha seems to draw the lines that cannot be passed, even when the violation has occurred, there is a new line that cannot be crossed.  The parsha's name: "when you go out:, when you cross the boundary. 

The victorious soldier takes his captured woman.  A line ( or two) has been crossed.  But now she must be given rights.  She can mourn her family ( killed by the soldier's army, and nurse her hatred of the captor [ who has saved her life for his pleasure] )  And when her captor is done with her, when she pleases him no more, she cannot be treated as chattel,  she has not become a slave.  Even this captured, impressed  woman cannot be sold as a slave. She has rights.  There is still a line that cannot be crossed.

Fairness is an element of the line that cannot be crossed.  The favored child cannot be reassigned  in birth order.   The finder of an identifiable lost object cannot keep it.  One  might have thought otherwise.  The Torah is defining fairness.

The criminal may be punished, but not humiliated.  The criminal has the right to dignity.  The criminal crossed the line, he did not erase it for us.

The parsha ends with the crime that cannot be forgiven: Amalek.  perhaps the work Amalek is a contraction of Am: nation and malek: beheading? ISIS?  There  are situations that have only a final solution.  Even if we cannot identify Amalek and cannot carry out this mitzvah of the annihilation of Amalek, the presence of the mitzvah indicates  that there is a  limit to  the line of fairness and kindness.

Look for the line.
Don't cross it.
If you cross it
Look for the next line