fears' the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
and you may not know why
*Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
and try to love one another right now
Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the One that left us here
returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
fading in the grass
If you hear the song I sing
you will understand...listen
You hold the key to love and fear
all in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
Its there at your command
*Come on people now
smile on your brother
Everybody get together
try to love one another right now." The Youngbloods ,1967 (C)
Rabbi Arthur Segal
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Jewish Renewal
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Parasha Ki Teitzei: Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
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"Bad Boy, Bad Boy, You're Such a Naughty Bad Boy. Beep Beep!"
This parasha is replete with laws to help govern society. We are given the rights of women taken captive in battle, the first born son's inviolable rights, rules of hanging and of burial, obligations to guard and protect our neighbors' property, rules about protective fences, laws for the care of a hen and her chicks, rules against defamation of a married woman's virtue, laws of adultery, rules forbidding and defining incest, rules regarding interest and pledges for loans, rights of workers, rules to protect the poor, the orphaned and the widowed, levirate marriages laws, honest business practice guidelines, and also the lashes one gets for breaking any of these laws. It would be impossible for me to list and explain each law contained in this portion. It should be read individually to be appreciated.
The middle of Autumn is when we normally read the Torah portion about Noah. We will learn about what was occurring during his time that caused God to flood the Earth. It was not a pretty sight. From the way it is described in the Midrash and Talmud, it is no wonder God was determined to flush it away. People were barbaric, amoral, and cruel to each other. Even the animals were amoral if this is possible. I went into detail in Parasha Noach, but I am mentioning it here today because the Haftarah portion for this parasha is the same portion that is read for the portion called "Noach." There is no guidepost telling us this. I recently came to discover this serendipitously. The reason for this, I decided, is that in Noah's times, the rules we will read about this week, did not exist and life was a essentially a sewer. God promised never to destroy the world again after Noah's flood. In this portion, we are taught that society needs rules and boundaries to prevent us from flushing ourselves away.
Assuming that you will read the portion, I will concentrate on just one of the many commandments listed. It is called the "law of the wayward and rebellious son," and hence the title of this D'var Torah. It is found in Deuteronomy 21:18-21. "If a man will have a wayward and rebellious son, who does not hearken to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, that they discipline him, but he does not hearken to them, then his father and mother shall grasp him and take him out to the elders of his city and the gate of his place. They shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not hearken to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' All of the men of his city shall pelt him with stones and he shall die; you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all
I picked this law because it allows us to see how our sages dealt with this harsh and strict law by developing Judaism from the ashes of Hebraism after the fall of the first
The second thing that the rabbis do is to legally parse each requirement of the passages. It is obvious that the rabbis do not want this law enforced. But they just cannot erase a Torah law. So they develop so many legal requirements that it is virtually impossible for this commandment ever to be fulfilled. The rabbis say, in Tractate Sanhedrin 71 A, that the death penalty "never occurred and never will occur" for this situation. One mitzvah down; 612 to go.
For example, they discuss the word "son." This implies that the boy is still a child. As a child, he is not responsible for his actions and these laws and penalties cannot apply at all. A child becomes a man at bar mitzvah, but then the parents no longer have authority over the son anyway. The rabbis decide that the only time frame during which this law can apply is the first three months after a bar mitzvah ceremony (Tractate Sanhedrin 68B). More specifically, "from the time he produces two pubic hairs until the time that his public hairs grow round." Rabbi Dimi traveled from
Nachmonides contends that one sin will lead to another. He says these verses are here to teach us that if one shows disrespect to his parents, he will disrespect the Torah. If one is a glutton with food and wine, it is an indication of a lack of self-restraint that will make it impossible to be a holy person and develop spiritual limitations. Rabbi Bachya says that these verses teach that parents' love of God must supersede the love of their own children. He sites Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice Isaac as the prime example.
The sages still try to add more into this verse to keep it from being used. They decide that the child had to have stolen money from his parents to buy enough food and wine to have become a drunkard and a glutton. This would mean that he is addicted to food and wine and will become a murderous thief in the future to continue his habit. Because the verse says that a man has this wayward son, the rabbis decree that if a minor boy has a son, this son is exempt forever from this law. They decide from their biblical research that a boy as young as nine years old can be a father. They decide that King Solomon's forbearers on his mother Bathsheba's side, procreated when they were nine years old. They also decide that
The rabbis then have the problem of deciding how much a son has to drink and eat to be a glutton. They decide that if the son steals his father's money and buys meat and drink in
After what reads like a wine tasting/gourmet dinner party, the rabbis decide that the boy must steal both from his mother and father; buy the meat and wine; and eat it outside of his parent's property. If he stole the money from people other than his parents; he is not a wayward son. If the boy steals the wine and meat directly, and not the money to buy them; he is not a wayward son. Since the money that his mother has belongs to her husband, it is difficult for the son to actually steal from his mother. The husband would have had to make a legal oath that certain monies belonged to his wife. If the boy's mother and father disagreed, then the boy could not be a wayward son. And if the mother disagreed with the father for any reason, the boy could not be deemed a wayward son either.
The sages also decide that, since the verse says the parents must grasp the boy and take him, they cannot be lame or have an injured hand. Since they both must talk, they cannot be mute. They cannot be deaf, as they must hear their son's rebuff. And they cannot be blind, as they must actually see their son drunk or overindulging in food. They then decide that if all of these above contingencies are met, flogging should be the penalty not stoning. But they want at least two witnesses who saw what the parents saw and who saw the parents warn the son that what he was about to do was punishable by flogging. But if the boy isn't found guilty until after the three-month window of his bar mitzvah, punishment is not allowed.
The rabbis are also unsettled by the prospect of a precedent being set which allows them to punish people for crimes they may commit in the future, like in the film Minority Report. They not only are against this, but they bring up famous people who committed crimes, but were not punished because either there were no witnesses against them, or they were doing it for good motives. They speak of Esther, who publicly co-habitated with a non-Jewish man (King Ahashverous) and was not punished. The rabbis say Esther was completely passive when she and the King had sex, so she was not breaking any law. They say she was "as passive as the soil of the earth" when the King "tilled" her.
The rabbis then throw up their hands and ask why this law was given if they cannot follow it. The rabbis mention another law that gave them the same problem in its impossibility to enforce. This is the law of the subverted city (Deut. 13:13-19) from parasha Re'eh. To review, if a city has more than half of its inhabitants worshipping idols, the entire city and all of its inhabitants are to be burned in the town square. The rabbis first decide that if the town had no square, the law could not be carried out. They eventually decide that if just one mezuzah appeared in the town, it could not be destroyed. Since every town in the
They also discuss the law about the house with tzaraat (mistranslated as leprosy) in Leviticus 14:33-53. This was a house whose walls turned scaly colors. They agree that this only happened twice, as there were ruins of houses in both
The rabbis decide that all of these laws were not meant to be carried out, but were in the Torah for teaching purposes. What the rabbis do is to use the passages to give child-rearing advice. For example, they use the phraseology of both a mother's and father's voice to show that if parents do not speak in one consistent voice, a child will grow up confused and will be apt to commit sins and crimes.
As spiritual Jews today we need to look at the words of Torah and Talmud, not as divinely given, but as teachings that are divinely inspired. The laws are there not to be followed or understood literally, but to guide us in our daily trials of being ethical and good people. The ancient sages, even before the time of the two
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Arthur SegalVia Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
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 Click to Order | THE HANDBOOK TO JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice into a step-by-step process to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality in a concise easy-to-read and easy-to-follow manner. If you find yourself wishing for the strength to sustain you through the ups and downs of life; if you want to learn how to live life to its fullest without angst, worry, low self-esteem or fear; or if you wish that your relationships with family, friends and co-workers were based on love and service and free of ego, arguments, resentments and feelings of being unloved...this book is for you. Price: $19.99 254 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge |
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 Click to Order | A SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL COMPENDIUM TO THE TORAH AND TALMUD Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us. This companion to The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew brings the Torah alive with daily relevance to the Modern Jew. All of the Torah can be summed up in one word: Chesed. It means kindness. The Talmud teaches that the Torah is about loving our fellow man and that we are to go and study. The rest is commentary. This compendium clarifies the commentary and allows one to study Torah and Talmud to learn the Judaic ideals of love, forgiveness, kindness, mercy and peace. A must read for all Jews and deserves a place in every Jewish home. Price: $24.99 494 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge |
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(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal
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In The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality.
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(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud
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A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us.
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(003) Tzadakkah Bundle
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The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud. Purchase both books as a set, and I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to the tzadakkah of your choice. -- Rabbi Segal
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I suspect the high court will try to side step the Kosher Food Labeling Act issue by ruling that the letter "O" in orthodox is in lower case.
"Any food sold as kosher in the state of Georgia must meet the orthodox Hebrew religious rules and requirements,"
The court may define orthodox to mean conventional, accepted, traditional, standard, and established, without any direct reference to a particular branch of the religion. I suggest those interested in the case should be urged to file an amicus curie brief with the court, expressing their concerns.
"There are no pre-existent final truths in doctrine or law; the truth is the considered judgment of the majority of authoritative interpreters in each generation.''
A bit frightening, but quite likely.
A young Moses once set out on a quest to seek the fair maiden, Truth. Learning that she could be found high up in the Sinai Mountains, he struggled to reach its highest peak. There - deep in a cave, he finally found her. She was old, she was fat and she was ugly.
He cried out, "Oh Truth!. How can I go back and tell my colleagues that I found you like this?"
And Truth replied, "Don't. Rather, go back and tell them that you found me young, and beautiful."
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