Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19
When you [an Israelite warrior] take the field against your enemies, and the Eternal your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife.... - Deuteronomy 21:10-11
Parashat Ki Teitzei includes a rich and varied collection of directives that serve as a partial blueprint for behaviors and norms to create the emerging covenantal culture. As Professor Adele Berlin notes, “Issues pertaining to women are prominent in this parashah. . . . Much in the ideal society that Deuteronomy envisions revolves around the status of women . . .” (The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi [New York: URJ Press, 2008], p. 1,165). The text presents Moses’s interpretation of God’s words concerning women’s position in the family and community, their sexuality, the treatment of their children, and their marital status. As we moderns read these texts, we are struck by the differences between contemporary and biblical assumptions and expectations about appropriate roles for men and women.
Let us examine some of those assumptions. The portion begins, “When you [an Israelite warrior] [go out to] take the field against your enemies. . . .” The editors of The Torah: A Modern Commentary clarify that “you” means “an Israelite warrior.” The masculine singular form of the verb indicates that warriors are assumed to be male.
The text continues, underscoring this assumption: “and your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife . . .” (Deuteronomy 21:10–11). If we take a moment, we realize that the editor’s direction helps us to uncover additional assumptions as well: the enemies, like our Israelite warriors, are also male. The captives, while they may include some male warrior enemies, also include female enemies, probably noncombatants. A third assumption is that beauty is not culturally bound: a non-Israelite woman can be experienced as beautiful. And what does appreciation of beauty “lead to”? The assumption is that the perception of beauty leads to sexual desire, which in this case may also imply an assumption of control and power over the “beautiful woman.” There is an additional assumption here: Israelite warriors desire women. The text continues and the point of this section becomes clear: “You shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive’s garb. She shall spend a month’s time in your house lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and thus become her husband, and she shall be your wife” (Deuteronomy 21:12–13, as translated in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary). We now discover the primary reason for this directive: to humanize this unnamed woman. It is as if the text says, “You may take a woman captive, but you must realize that she is, in some essential ways, a person. She, like you, has parents, and you must give her an opportunity to mourn—literally, to cry over—her separation from her parents.” Instructing her to trim her hair and nails and to change her clothing may be signs of mourning or, as Professor Berlin suggests, may be signals to mark the conclusion of a period of mourning. Alternatively, this process of grooming may make the captive more—or less—appealing to her captor (see Etz Hayim, ed. David L. Lieber [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001], p. 1,112; Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary [New York: Norton, 2004], pp. 981–82; and Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003], p. 629). And here we discover yet another assumption: this is a young and unbetrothed woman. She is given time to mourn her parents, from whom she has been taken, not a husband. It is, of course, possible that a woman, through the process of her abduction, becomes available to the victor in a way that erases her personal history altogether, including an intended or actual husband or children.
Continue reading.
When you [an Israelite warrior] take the field against your enemies, and the Eternal your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife.... - Deuteronomy 21:10-11
D'var Torah By: Sue Levi Elwell Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org
Parashat Ki Teitzei includes a rich and varied collection of directives that serve as a partial blueprint for behaviors and norms to create the emerging covenantal culture. As Professor Adele Berlin notes, “Issues pertaining to women are prominent in this parashah. . . . Much in the ideal society that Deuteronomy envisions revolves around the status of women . . .” (The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi [New York: URJ Press, 2008], p. 1,165). The text presents Moses’s interpretation of God’s words concerning women’s position in the family and community, their sexuality, the treatment of their children, and their marital status. As we moderns read these texts, we are struck by the differences between contemporary and biblical assumptions and expectations about appropriate roles for men and women.
Let us examine some of those assumptions. The portion begins, “When you [an Israelite warrior] [go out to] take the field against your enemies. . . .” The editors of The Torah: A Modern Commentary clarify that “you” means “an Israelite warrior.” The masculine singular form of the verb indicates that warriors are assumed to be male.
The text continues, underscoring this assumption: “and your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife . . .” (Deuteronomy 21:10–11). If we take a moment, we realize that the editor’s direction helps us to uncover additional assumptions as well: the enemies, like our Israelite warriors, are also male. The captives, while they may include some male warrior enemies, also include female enemies, probably noncombatants. A third assumption is that beauty is not culturally bound: a non-Israelite woman can be experienced as beautiful. And what does appreciation of beauty “lead to”? The assumption is that the perception of beauty leads to sexual desire, which in this case may also imply an assumption of control and power over the “beautiful woman.” There is an additional assumption here: Israelite warriors desire women. The text continues and the point of this section becomes clear: “You shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive’s garb. She shall spend a month’s time in your house lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and thus become her husband, and she shall be your wife” (Deuteronomy 21:12–13, as translated in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary). We now discover the primary reason for this directive: to humanize this unnamed woman. It is as if the text says, “You may take a woman captive, but you must realize that she is, in some essential ways, a person. She, like you, has parents, and you must give her an opportunity to mourn—literally, to cry over—her separation from her parents.” Instructing her to trim her hair and nails and to change her clothing may be signs of mourning or, as Professor Berlin suggests, may be signals to mark the conclusion of a period of mourning. Alternatively, this process of grooming may make the captive more—or less—appealing to her captor (see Etz Hayim, ed. David L. Lieber [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001], p. 1,112; Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary [New York: Norton, 2004], pp. 981–82; and Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003], p. 629). And here we discover yet another assumption: this is a young and unbetrothed woman. She is given time to mourn her parents, from whom she has been taken, not a husband. It is, of course, possible that a woman, through the process of her abduction, becomes available to the victor in a way that erases her personal history altogether, including an intended or actual husband or children.
Continue reading.
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