Ki Theitze: Justice

To be charitable, you must have enough for yourself.  A person struggling to survive: hungry, dirty, poorly shod ,cannot afford to give. That model soon melts when we consider the social aspects. In a family, members will sacrifice more to support each other. The parsha talks to people who have more than they absolutely need and instructs them to curb their advantages over the less powerful. This is the religious teaching that feels right and good. It is just what we hoped Gd would say. The worker must be paid in a timely manner; the debtor cannot be made destitute by compound interest, the pawn shop client deserves  a measure of dignity.

To get to that part of the parha we must get through the beginning. The parsha opens with the soldier who  risked his life for the vision of victory and has captured a fantasy; a dream of lust (and perhaps love). A month-long disfigurement ritual is prescribed before the kidnapper  is permitted to fulfill the remnant of that passion. He is given a chance to give up the fantasy before embarking on the next set of consequences, including the abhorred child who cannot be disinherited.

The subsequent verse is what brings us to the comfortable Gd:

וְהָיָ֞ה אִם־לֹ֧א חָפַ֣צְתָּ בָּ֗הּ וְשִׁלַּחְתָּהּ֙ לְנַפְשָׁ֔הּ וּמָכֹ֥ר לֹא־תִמְכְּרֶ֖נָּה בַּכָּ֑סֶף לֹא־תִתְעַמֵּ֣ר בָּ֔הּ תַּ֖חַת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עִנִּיתָֽהּ׃ {ס}        

Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money: since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.

There is a limit to the abuse. This captive, in the end, must be respected. She cannot be transformed into a chattel slave. She is granted personhood. It is an expensive journey for the victim. 

 Power over others leads to consequences, and the human lord is not omniscient. Every act has thousands of consequences. Some of them must be considered; and their unfathomable number should be appreciated

This is a parsha of obligations. People perform  acts and situations arise:   and here are instructions for handling them.  Some obligations devolve from previous decisions: marriage, hiring workers, etc. Others devolve from circumstances: lost objects, disease. Many of these duties are consequences of previous decisions.

The exercise of power effects change, sometimes progress.  One person becomes richer, more powerful, than another. The entitlement that results from this difference in wealth is taken as a ( Divine)  reward by the winner. The (cheated?) people who did the actual production are sidelined. This model of justice is not abandoned in this parsha. There is merely an attempt to limit the damage. 

The text goes on to deal with the problem of two wives, each of  whom has an heir. The lesser wife bears the first born, the child with the right to the double portion.  Love for the  other wife cannot eclipse the actual birth order  (cf Abraham and Isaac [Ishmael]). The rules surpass sensibility. This is a justice that devolves from fate ( or Divine intervention?) 

The next section deals with the wayward child, stoned for  intractability. In the Midrashic interpretation, this is the end result of the captive marriage that opened the parsha. It is what emerges from disregarding the warnings.

The Midrash Tanchuma at this point,  relates the story of  Avshalom.  Avshalom was the son of Maacah,  whom David had taken as a wife as a spoil of war. Avshalom named his daughter  after his mother. Perhaps he carried some of his mother's resentment for her captivity and the slaughter  of her people.  Avshalom  attempted a coup; he would replace his father, David, as king.  There is no greater turning away and rebellion. Absalom, fleeing from David's army, is caught by his hair ( an echo of the hair that the captive woman must shave off?). This rebellion of this son may have stemmed from some allegiance to his mother's tribe and defense of her honor. The rebel son is the offspring of his captive mother.

There is a chiastic structure to the parsha.  The end reflects the beginning.  The parsha opens with a victory against an unidentified enemy.  It ends with the obligation to obliterate the memory of  Israel’s eternal enemy, Amalek.

The Amalek of my parent's generation. the Nazis, tried to annul the material progress the Jews had achieved.  As the Jews were emerging from their oppression of disenfranchisement in Europe, now able to achieve their newfound dreams; just as they were seeing the European enlightenment as an alternate path to the Old Torah that taught them to eternally hate Amalek, the force of cancellation rose (again?) to create another eternal enemy, whose memory must be erased and can never be forgotten.

Now Jew-hatred is fueled by reports that the state of Israel is violating what many of the laws in this week’s parsha have evolved into: human rights. It is such a severe accusation that the attempt to find justification feels uncomfortable. There are tradeoffs. Greater concern for civilians means more soldiers are killed and wounded. Does victory bring a better peace than settlement?  I cannot validate a murderously  antisemitic organization Hamas. I just want it to end. I want it never to happen again. Justice is a dream.