Ki Tetze Schedule

Weekly Words of Torah

Be Real

Insights into Parshat Ki Tetze by Rav Re’uven Ungar of Yeshivat Sha’alvim.

In this weeks parsha we find the very interesting Halacha of “yefat to’ar”. When the Jewish people went to war and saw a beautiful woman who they strongly desired, they were allowed to marry her. This is very strange. The Torah lets one fulfill his lustful desire which in this case is marrying a non-Jew. This seems to be opposite of the Torahs beliefs.

What makes this even stranger is that in last week’s parsha all the “sinners” left the army. So the only people left should be the tzadikim but yet even they can’t overcome their base desires. A common answer is that this desire is so strong coupled with the fact that they are fighting at war, the Torah knew that people wouldn’t be able to overcome their desires even if it was forbidden.

At the beginning of the parsha the Torah discusses a man who has a wife whom he hates. Then the parsha of the “ben sorer u’moreh”, the rebellious son. Rashi explains the juxtaposition of these topics, that someone who marries this woman whom he desired in war will end up hating her, then give birth to a “ben sorer u’moreh”, a rebellious son.

The wording used when the man wants to marry this non-Jewish woman is “vechashakta ba”, and he desired her. Not that he loved her but that he desired her. He never loved her. Rather he loved himself and his desires so he wanted to marry her. It was all about himself. As the mishna in pirkei avot says this is “ahava teluya badavar”, love based on an object, and when then object goes away the love also diminishes. Therefore it’s not a surprise that he ends up hating his wife.

We need to think about ourselves and the difference between what we need and what we want. We need to truly make the right decisions and not convince ourselves that everything we want is a necessity. This is what we do in this month preceding the high holidays, to be real with ourselves because that’s the key to doing teshuva.