A troubling passage from Ki Tetze
In the very beginning of Parshat Ki Tetze (Deuteronomy 21:10 -25:19), we read about the female captive whom a soldier is permitting to take as a wife.
It's all very well and good that a man who has "humbled" a female captive is not allowed to sell her or deal with her as a slave. But, with her mother and father dead, no husband, probably no surviving relatives, and probably no means of supporting herself, where exactly is she supposed to go, and how is she supposed to survive? Fundamentally, the displeased husband is tossing her into the street.
To my more learned readers, how did/do the rabbis deal with this passage?
It's all very well and good that a man who has "humbled" a female captive is not allowed to sell her or deal with her as a slave. But, with her mother and father dead, no husband, probably no surviving relatives, and probably no means of supporting herself, where exactly is she supposed to go, and how is she supposed to survive? Fundamentally, the displeased husband is tossing her into the street.
To my more learned readers, how did/do the rabbis deal with this passage?
posted by Shira Salamone at 6:15 PM
5 Comments:
Take a look at Rabbi Weiss's Shabbat Forshpeis column on page 3 in this weeks Toras Aish for the parameters of the law as described by the Ramban and the Rambam.
Another source from TorahMusing's parsha roundup. There are also a couple of audio shiurim referenced there that that I haven't listened to.
I read the comments from the Toras Aish and they don't really deal much better with the woman. The article says that Maimonides says Jewish law prohibits us from "taking advantage of the weak". Taking the woman captive isn't really treating her any better than how Amalek would take advantage of the weak.
The torah allows lots of things that are repugnant by contemporary morality. Sotah - a trial by ordeal. Slavery (especially slavery on non=Jews - Hebrew slaves are closer to what we would call indentured servants).
One answer some find satisfying is that in each case these laws raise the customs of surrounding lands at the time of the giving of the Torah to a higher, more human level than was the case. Rambam argues that many of these laws were the best that could be expected of the Jews at that time, but that as they were abandoned they were not be taken up again. (I have deliberately avoided mentioning sacrifices).
OTOH, one can find such a claim difficult to accept in a document given for all time which is intrinsically limited in how much it can be changed.
Ultimately, I can be satisfied with the pragmatic answer that many of these laws are not in force any longer, and no one (outside of a small fringe) is seeking to restore any of them prior to the Messianic age. I can understand someone not finding this answer satisfactory, especially in light of some the remaining problematic issues (agunah and mamzerut to name two of the most prominent).
Colleen, I guess the best that can be said is that the Jewish version of dealing with captives was probably better than the non-Jewish approach generally accepted at that time.
Larry, much as I appreciate the links--thanks!--and your response, neither you nor the rabbis seem to have addressed the question of how the rejected captive was supposed to survive. But the good news, as you said, is that all of this is pretty much theoretical now anyway.
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