פרשה: כי תצא · עלייה: שלישי (תפארת)

כי יקח איש אשה, "when a man takes a wife, etc." The Torah addresses average people even those who have forsaken the path of Torah because they claim that their time is too short and they are so preoccupied with earning a subsistence that they cannot observe all the Torah's restrictions. The words כי יקח איש אשה may be translated as "when a man decides to betroth himself to Torah (which is supposed to be his life's companion)," ובא אליה, "and he consummates this relationship," i.e. a relationship which had been initiated at the time all the Jewish souls stood at Mount Sinai when G'd revealed Himself and they received the Ten Commandments, and now ושנאה, he hates the path of Torah, and he does not want to grant her the things which are due to his "wife" as a matter of right as spelled out in Exodus chapter 21. When his "wife" remonstrates with him asking why she does not receive her due, her "husband" claims that she has not provided him with what he considers the obligation of any wife to her husband, i.e. food and drink. He also claims that he does not observe that his devotion to Torah has paid any dividends such as his economic situation improving. In fact he claims that when he looks around at all his friends who have not adopted the path of Torah they all seem to be better off than he. This is what the Torah alludes to by the sentence ושם לה עלילת דברים והוציא עליה שם רע ואמר את האשה הזאת לקחתי, "and he accuses her and gives her a bad name saying I have married this woman, etc." He does not deny having "married" the woman, i.e. having made a commitment to Torah. The "husband" claims "when I came near to her I did not find her hymen," i.e. a symbol of strength. He claims that people who relied on Torah were compelled to look elsewhere to find sustenance.

The Torah replies that the wife's father, i.e. G'd, and the community of Israel, will defend her virtue before the Supreme Court. ולקח אבי הנערה ואמה, "the father and mother will display the בתולים, of the "maiden" (wife), i.e. proof that loyalty to Torah results in spectacular achievements by its adherents. The Torah adds that this defence of the Torah's reputation will be public, i.e. השערה, "in the town square." This is an allusion to what the Zohar volume 3 page 80 writes that in the future G'd will demand that the Torah will be compensated for all the insults it had endured for so long. This is also mentioned indirectly in Avot 6,2 where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that day after day a heavenly voice goes forth from Mount Chorev proclaiming: "Woe to mankind for their disregard of Torah." In our paragraph G'd is described as demanding the compensation for the insults endured by the Torah throughout the ages at the hands of those who have rejected it and sold it short, something the author in Avot spoke about.

G'd is described as the father of the virgin-bride who has been subjected to unjust accusations, her groom denying her virginity at the time of marriage. The father of the bride, i.e. G'd, says: "I have given My daughter to this man." This means that "I have not given her to him in order that he should abuse her in some out of the way corner of the house, but in order for him to bestow upon her all the rights a wife is entitled to, including her entitlement to physical sustenance, clothing and intimacy." According to Tikkuney Zohar section 6 the Torah is entitled to the same considerations as the physical wife of a husband. The Torah is in need of the same three rights by her partner the Israelite as those the husband has to bestow on his physical wife. וישנאה, "and he hates her." Here the Torah explains that the immediate reason for the estrangement between Israel and Torah, i.e. husband and wife, is an emotion called hatred. The Torah also hints at the underlying reason, i. e. the apparent failure of the Torah to live up to the Israelite's expectations. והנה הוא שם עלילת דברים, "Now, behold, he made a wanton accusation against her;" the reason the Torah underlines the (apparently superfluous ) words והנה הוא, "and behold he," is to alert us that the accusation is unwarranted, is false. It is only due to his hatred of her that the husband made such an accusation. ואלה בתולי בתי, "and here are the signs of my daughter's virginity." This is hyperbole for describing something as clear as daylight. Just as one can prove that a bride was a virgin at her wedding by looking at the sheet on which the marriage was consummated, so the fact that Torah did not disappoint in what one could expect of her can be demonstrated beyond doubt. It had been created prior to the universe, which itself was only created for its sake and which continues to exist only on its account. Any good which is available and which is dispensed in this universe is only acquired through Torah either directly or indirectly.

The Torah continues that the judgment for the Israelite who accused Torah unjustly of having failed him will be pronounced by the court. In the first instance he will receive 39 lashes. The Talmud in Berachot 5 stated that when a man has been subjected to afflictions he should examine his life-style in order to discover which sins he is guilty of. If he cannot find a specific sin that he was guilty of he should attribute his afflictions to his having neglected Torah study. Most commentators find this difficult to understand, claiming that inasmuch as neglect of Torah study is a grave sin, how can the Talmud consider this as a "sin of last resort," i.e. something to fall back on only if one cannot find onself guilty of any other sin? The answer is that the commandment of Torah study and its fulfilment is not one of the commandments that can be measured. Even a person who has studied a relatively great amount of Torah and has devoted many hours to it on a daily basis cannot be sure that he has fulfilled this commandment adequately. If one is stricken with afflictions and knows of no other sin one is guilty of, it is in order therefore to examine how much time one has wasted, time which could have been put to better use studying Torah.

וענשו אתו מאה כסף, "And they shall fine him one hundred shekalim." This is an allusion to the one hundred benedictions each one of us is meant to recite every day as explained in Menachot 43, based on Deut. 10,12: "and now what, מה, does the Lord G'd ask of you, etc." The Talmud interpreted the word מה as equivalent to מאה, i.e. G'd asks that we recite one hundred benedictions. That verse spoke about a penitent as we know from Bereshit Rabbah 21 that the word ועתה or עתה always refers to a penitent sinner.

ונתנו לאבי הנערה, "and the elders shall give (these 100 benedictions) to the Father of the virgin-bride, i.e. to G'd, etc., because he (the Israelite) has slandered the virgin-bride of Israel." This is a reference to the שכינה, the Divine Presence, which includes all of Israel, the tenth emanation [popularly known as כתר. Ed.] or virtue, called the oral Torah, a concept familiar to students of the Kabbalah.

ולו תהיה לאשה, "and she shall be his wife, and he must not divorce her as long as he lives." Although the commandment to study Torah is normally understood to involve setting aside certain parts of the day and night for study, a person who has rejected Torah study previously and who has thereby slighted the Torah must henceforth occupy himself with honouring the Torah all day and all night, i.e. "he cannot send her away as long as he lives." Vayikra Rabbah 25,1 states that if a person was in the habit of studying Torah for an hour daily before committing a sin, then part of his rehabilitation is to study two hours daily. This is applicable to people whose sins did not consist of insulting the Torah. In order to make up for the insult to Torah which the person in our paragraph is guilty of he has to henceforth devote himself exclusively to Torah.

ואם אמת הדבר, "But if the matter was true, etc." If it turns out that the Torah which this person studied and which he examined and found defective, was taught by heretics, such as the Torah taught by Tzadok and Bayssus, such Torah does not give man strength but exerts a negative influence on him. G'd commands to stone such a "Torah" to death until it is completely dead, as per our verse. Whereas the teachers of this kind of Torah employed words spoken by G'd, i.e. the text of the Torah, the intention of the teacher teaching it disqualifies it. We have been taught in Gittin 48 that if a heretic painstakingly writes an entire Torah scroll it must be burned forthwith, as he did something despicable, etc. When the Torah concludes our paragraph with the words: "you shall wipe out evil from your midst," it refers to someone who deliberately distorts the meaning of the Torah.

כי ימצא איש שוכב עם אשה בעלת בעל, "If a man be found having intercourse with a woman married to someone else, etc." This verse is best understood with reference to Sanhedrin 59 that if a Gentile engages in Torah study he is guilty of the death penalty. The Torah is already betrothed to her husband the Israelite, she is his bride. ומתו גם שניהם, "Both of them shall die etc." both the Gentile studying the Torah and the "Torah" itself. This means that such "Torah" instead of spreading its spiritual light will darken the horizon of the Gentile who studies it. It will not be perceived as possessing life-giving powers as when it is studied by an Israelite. Torah, which according to Proverbs 4,22 is a source of life to those who encounter it, will not prove to be a source of life to pagans who study it but the reverse.

לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל השם, "Neither an Ammonite nor a Moabite may become members of the Jewish people, etc." The reason which the Torah gives for denying the male members of these tribes the right to convert to Judaism, i.e. that they did not come forward with bread and water to assist the Israelites when the latter came out of Egypt is hard to understand. Does not the Torah itself testify in Deut. 2,29: "as did the members of the tribe of Esau and the Moabites?" The reference is to both of these nations having sold provisions to the Israelites at the time. Rashi explains the apparent contradiction as 1) the verse in 2,29 referring to the Israelites' offer to buy food in return for money (2,28). 2) What is written here refers to the fact that they hired Bileam to curse the Jewish people and to lead it into sin at the end of the 40 years trek through the desert whereas what is written earlier refers to what transpired in the first year of the Israelites' wanderings. Perhaps the word על דבר is meant to alert us that what they did with Bileam would have sufficed to exclude them forever as members of the Jewish people. The word קדמו means they should have come forward on their own account offering bread and water as gifts. This would have been only small recompense for all which our forefather Abraham had done for them. Instead of repaying good with good they had repaid good with evil. The plain meaning of the words לא קדמו אתכם is that they did nothing for your benefit.

These verses may also be understood in light of what we have learned in Yevamot 76 where the Talmud searches for a reason why female members of the Moabite and Ammonite people are allowed to convert to Judaism. Rabbi Yochanan is quoted as saying that the daughter of a male Ammonite who converted may marry a priest. The Mishnah there already stated that the prohibition for Moabites and Ammonites to convert applies only to the males as the Torah speaks of עמוני and not of עמונית. It is not the way of the women to go out. Women are supposed to be in their homes. This is why they were not guilty of not coming forward with bread and water. This interpretation is based on the interpretation by Avner, Saul's general. In fact Amasa was very adamant about this halachah threatening to stab to death anyone who refused to accept it. [there was an attempt to use these verses to declare David as a bastard on the basis of his being descended from Ruth the Moabite. Ed.] According to the Talmud (at least one opinion) the tradition to permit a female member of these tribes to convert was approved at the time of the prophet Samuel already; otherwise how could Samuel have crowned David king if his great-grandmother Ruth had not even been Jewish? The argument between the teachers of the Mishnah Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon did not concern the validity of Ruth's conversion, but on which scriptural verse such a validity was based i.e. on the word עמוני being restrictive and excluding the females, or on the reason provided for by the Torah a for the non-admission of the male Moabites seeing only the males normally come out of their houses to welcome strangers, not females. Tossaphot on the following folio, commencing with the words: כתנאי, comment as follows: "if you were to argue that according to Rabbi Yehudah there is a difficulty where the Torah writes that a מצרי i.e. only a male Egyptian must not be rejected for conversion for up to three generations, the answer is that in the case of the עמוני and the מואבי the Torah could have written the shorter version עמון,מואב instead of the longer version עמוני,מואבי so that I have reason to believe that if the Torah employed more lettters than necessary it was in order to exclude the females. In the case of the Egyptians, however, this argument does not apply as the word מצרים instead would have been longer than מצרי not shorter as in the case of עמון.

I do not find the words of Tossaphot convincing at all. We do not find instances where the Torah writes something at the beginning of a paragraph prejudging a halachah to be discussed later; this would be especially inadmissible if it would lead to our misunderstanding the Torah's halachic intention. According to Tossaphot we would have to "guess" at why different yardsticks apply to the use of the word מצרי than apply to such words as עמוני or מואבי. Furthermore, even assuming that the Torah did have to write the word מצרי in order for us to know that there is a halachic distinction between the conversions of male and female Egyptians respectively, it could be argued that the Torah had to change the manner in which it described the nationalities mentioned earlier in order to fall in line with the word מצרי. However, if the word מצרי itself is already a change from the normal word מצרים which the Torah should have employed if it wanted to apply the same rule to male and female Egyptians then the whole thing cannot be explained other than that the Torah preferred to use as short a version of the word as was compatible with what the Torah wanted to say.

However, to get to the crux of the problem; why did Avner use both arguments? First he relied on the Torah writing מואבי as excluding female Moabites, just as did Rabbi Yehudah a millenium later. Immediately afterwards the Talmud quotes Avner retorting to Doeg that the reason the conversion rules do not apply to female Moabites is that females do not go out and offer food and drink to another people. This latter argument was that of Rabbi Shimon, not that of Rabbi Yehudah. We must assume that Avner did not withdraw his first argument but buttressed it by additional proof from our verse here. Logic supports this theory for if Avner had retracted from his original argument that the word מואבי was restrictive, why would he have used it altogether knowing it could be refuted from the word מצרי a few verses later? True, if we accepted the answer Tossaphot have given it is conceivable that one could have construed Avner as changing his mind, although we raised objections to Tossaphot's answer. The fact is, however, that Avner made it clear by the manner he dealt with the objection based on the word מצרי that he did not share Tossaphot's opinion.

I believe that Avner shared the same approach as did Rabbi Yochanan who arrived at the halachah on the basis of both verses combined, i.e. the restrictive meaning of מואבי as well as the Torah citing the fact that these people failed to offer bread and water to the Israelites when the latter needed it. He needed this as the exegesis based on the latter verse alone could have been neutralised by the word מצרי. We would simply have assumed that even though women do not go out to offer bread and water to another people, the fact that the men failed to do so would disqualify the entire nation not merely their males. Besides, the Moabite and Ammonite women have at least 50% genes of their fathers who are disqualified as potential Jews, so why make special allowances for them, unless we had more cogent proof from the Torah such as the restrictive word מואבי instead of מואב. Under normal circumstances the genes of the father determine what nation one belongs to as per Numbers 1,2 "according to their fathers' families." Unless we had additional reason to do so, the word מואבי by itself would not have been sufficient proof to change the halachah from the norm. Only both indications combined could accomplish this exegesis as being ironclad.

This then is why Avner offered both verses as proof that Moabite and Ammonite women may convert to Judaism. Seeing that this argument appears to have been settled 1000 years before that of Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon, we must try and understand what Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon argued about. I believe that Rabbi Yehudah felt that the word מואבי is sufficient to prove the point that Moabite women may convert. As to the words על דבר אשר לא קדמו, etc, this neither adds nor detracts from his case, according to Rabbi Yehudah. I will explain later why this is so. The reason that although the Torah also wrote מצרי and אדומי, which at first glance suggests that this legislation also applies only to the males of these nations whereas we do not make such a distinction, is simple. In their case there is no reason to make a distinction as neither their males not their females had been called upon to provide the Israelites with bread or water. Seeing the Torah had used this as a criterion for denying the male Ammonites and Moabites the right to convert, there is no reason to treat Egyptian males and females as different from one another when it comes to accepting them as converts. This is precisely the reason the Torah did not have to bother to write the longer word מצרים in order to make its point. Rabbi Yehudah did not agree with Rabbi Shimon that one had to worry either about the comments of Avner or those of Doeg.

As to the reason why the Talmud interpreted the verse כל כבודה בת מלך פנימה, "that the true distinction of a king's daughter (a chaste woman) is the fact that her activities are confined to her house (Psalms 45,14)," the implications of this verse apply only to chaste women. The Moabite women who had already engaged in luring the Israelites into being both sexually and religiously disloyal to their G'd, could certainly not claim to be better than their male counterparts by reason of the verse in Psalms. The Torah could therefore have expected them to be at least equally forthcoming when it came to offer bread and water to the Israelites. Since neither they nor their males had done this, this constituted an a priori case for denying them the right to convert. On the other hand, one may argue that what these women did when they lured the Israelites into sexual promiscuity at Shittim did not reflect negatively on their character. 1) They were forced to do so by their respective husbands. 2) The fact that it is not normal for women to go out and offer food and drink to other nations is a natural trait of women. The fact that these Moabite women [not the Ammonites anyway. Ed.] did not act in character in one single instance, is no reason to deprive them of the status of normal women. As a result of all these considerations, the message from the word מואבי instead of מואב is inconclusive.

Rabbi Shimon holds that the message we derive from the verse in Psalms 45,14 is quite conclusive, i.e. it relieves the women from the obligation to offer food and water outside their homes. Moreover, he holds דרשינן טעמי דקרא, that when the Torah bothers to write a reason such a comment may be used exegeticaly to establish a halachah. When the Talmud refers to the dispute between teachers of the Mishnah it does mean that Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon disagree on something more than the applicability of the verse in Psalms 45,14 to the women mentioned in our verse.

As a result of what we have explained so far you may find that there are actually three distinct approaches to the subject in the Talmud as to why women of the tribes of Moab and Ammon may convert. 1) The opinion of Rabbi Yochanan who uses both the word מואבי and the words על דבר אשר לא קדמו jointly. 2) Rabbi Yehudah who relies exclusively on the word מואבי as distinct from מואב. 3) Rabbi Shimon who relies principally on the words על דבר אשר לא קדמו.

According to Rabbi Shimon then Rabbi Yochanan's reliance on the words על דבר makes sense. The question why we need the words על דבר at all remains open only according to the approach of Rabbi Yehudah. It may be answered in accordance with what we wrote previously.

After having taken another long look at the whole subject, I have come to the conclusion that one cannot fault the Moabite women for not offering bread or water as they could not have done so without first obtaining their husbands' consent. The conduct of their husbands towards the Israelites made it plain that even if these women had asked for permission to offer such supplies to the Israelites, their husbands would never have consented. The argument offered in the Talmud by Doeg therefore must be viewed as the argument of an heretic. We find something analogous when the prophet Achiyah Hashiloni was confronted with what he considered a spurious question by the wife of King Jerobam and he described it as being an heretic's question (compare Midrash Shemuel 22 on Kings I 14,6).

ולא אבה ה׳ אלוקיך לשמוע אל בלעם, "but the Lord your G'd refused to listen to Bileam, etc." Although G'd could have found a reason for allowing Bileam to curse the Israelites seeing they were guilty of sins, He decided not to allow him to do so and to extend His goodwill to the Israelites even though they could not claim it by right. The Torah adds כי אהבך, "because G'd loves you," i.e. not because of your merit. Please read what I wrote on the meaning of לא אבה on Deut. 2,30.