Parashat Ki Tetze - First Aliyah

Three passages, and one reading that ties them together

The aliyah opens on a battlefield and ends at the city gate. Between those two ends run three passages that look unrelated to one another: a captive woman of beautiful form taken as a wife, the firstborn’s inheritance in the house of a man with one loved wife and one hated wife, and a wayward son whose parents bring him out to the elders.

Rashi, following Midrash Tanchuma, reads all three as a single sequence: “in the end he will hate her”, “and in the end he will father from her a wayward and rebellious son, which is why these passages were placed next to one another” (Rashi on 21:11). This is a reading of the juxtaposition and not the only plain sense, and other commentators treat each passage on its own terms. But it is the reading that gives the aliyah a direction.

Key verses

• “Vera’ita bashivyah eshet yefat to’ar vechashakta vah velakachta lecha le’ishah” (and you see among the captives a woman of beautiful form, and you desire her and take her for yourself as a wife, 21:11).

• “Vehayah im lo chafatzta bah veshilachtah lenafshah” (and if you no longer want her, you shall send her away to herself, 21:14).

• “lo yuchal levaker et ben ha’ahuvah al pnei ven hasnu’ah habechor” (he may not treat the son of the loved wife as firstborn over the son of the hated wife, who is the firstborn, 21:16).

• “benenu zeh sorer umoreh einennu shome’a bekolenu zolel vesove” (this son of ours is wayward and rebellious, he does not listen to our voice, a glutton and a drunkard, 21:20).

A war of choice, not a war of obligation

There is a war that Israel is commanded to go out to, and there is an optional war, one that is entered by choice. Already in the first verse Rashi specifies that our passage deals with the second kind: “Scripture is speaking of an optional war” (Rashi on 21:10). That changes everything that follows. The captivity is not a decree that fell upon the man, it is the result of a going out that he chose. The Torah begins to deal with the problem at the place he created himself.

The Torah does not permit, it slows things down and warns in advance

It is easy to read the passage as a permission, and Rashi blocks that reading: “the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination” (Rashi on 21:11). What follows is a chain of delays: “vegilchah et roshah ve’asetah et tziparneha” (and she shall shave her head and attend to her nails, 21:12), and then a full month of “uvachtah et aviha ve’et imah” (and she shall weep for her father and her mother, 21:13) inside his house. The Torah also says in advance how this will end, “Vehayah im lo chafatzta bah” (and if you no longer want her, 21:14), and Rashi reads that as a forecast: “Scripture informs you that in the end you will hate her” (Rashi on 21:14). The permission is given, and its price is stated in the same breath.

Birthright does not follow feeling

“lo yuchal levaker et ben ha’ahuvah al pnei ven hasnu’ah habechor” (21:16). The aliyah is not concerned with the feeling itself, but with what the father does with it when he divides property. The birthright is fixed by fact, “ki hu reshit ono” (for he is the first of his strength, 21:17), not by preference. And the size of the right is more precise than it seems: “pi shnayim” (a double portion, 21:17) is not double the entire estate but “as against two brothers” (Rashi on 21:17), a portion twice that of a single brother.

The son is judged for what is expected, not for what he did

Here the aliyah reaches its hardest point. Parents bring their son out to the elders of the city and declare “benenu zeh sorer umoreh einennu shome’a bekolenu zolel vesove” (this son of ours is wayward and rebellious, he does not listen to our voice, a glutton and a drunkard, 21:20). The charge is eating, drinking and refusing to listen, and the penalty is stoning.

Rashi says that he “is put to death on account of what he will become” (Rashi on 21:18), and Ramban spells it out: “he has no capital sin now, and he is judged on account of what he will become” (Ramban on 21:18). He is judged for who he is expected to be, not for who he is now. From there Ramban also explains the closing of the passage, “vechol Yisrael yishme’u veyira’u” (and all Israel shall hear and fear, 21:21): “he was not put to death for the magnitude of his sin, but in order to discipline the many through him” (Ramban on 21:18). This law was not written for the son. It was written for those who see and hear.

The aliyah opens with a man going out to war and ends with a man standing in judgment at the gate of his city. On Rashi’s reading this is not a list of laws but a route: what begins in desire continues into a household and into a child. And even a reader who takes each passage on its own is left with the same question, what a person does with the power that has fallen into his hands.

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