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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Parshat Ki Teitzei HERTZ 840 in a Parsha Laden with Captive Woman Taken in the Rachel

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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Parshat Ki Teitzei HERTZ 840 in a Parsha Laden with Captive Woman Taken in the Rachel Parshat Ki Teitzei September 2, 2017 11 Elul, 5777 TORAH ARTSCROLL 1046 Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Parshat Ki Teitzei HERTZ 840 In a parsha laden with captive woman taken in the Rachel. The second wedding laws, one in particular is course of war, the above law took place a mere week after full of fascination. Here it about the rights of the firstborn, the first. We then read: And HAFTORAH is: If a man has two wives, and the “stubborn and rebellious [Jacob] went in also to ARTSCROLL 1201 one loved, the other son” – are all about dysfunctions Rachel, and he loved also HERTZ 857 unloved [senuah, literally within the family. The sages said Rachel more than Leah … God “hated”], and both the that they were given in this order saw that Leah was unloved Bar Mitzvah loved and the unloved bear to hint that someone who takes [senuah] and He opened her of him sons but the firstborn a captive woman will suffer from womb, but Rachel remained Michael Ahdut is the son of the unloved strife at home, and the result will barren. (Gen. 29:30-31). wife, then when he wills be a delinquent son. In Judaism Leah called her firstborn his property to his sons, he marriage is seen as the Reuben, but her hurt at being Times must not give the rights of foundation of society. Disorder less loved remained, and we the firstborn to the son of there leads to disorder read this about the birth of Candle Lighting 7:08 pm the beloved wife in elsewhere. So far, so clear. What her second son: She became Mincha 7:00 pm preference to his actual is extraordinary about it is that it pregnant again and had a firstborn, the son of the seems to be in the sharpest son. ‘God has heard that I Hashkama 8:00 am unloved wife. He must possible conflict with a major was unloved [senuah],’ she Youth Minyan 8:30 am recognize [the legal rights narrative in the Torah, namely said, ‘and He also gave me of] the firstborn of his Jacob and his two wives, Leah this son.’ She named the child Parsha Shiur 8:30 am unloved wife so as to give and Rachel. Indeed the Torah, by Simeon. (Gen. 29:33). Main 9:00 am him a double share of all its use of language, makes he has, for he is the first of unmistakable verbal linkages The word senuah appears Beit Midrash 9:15 am his father’s strength. The between the two passages. One only six times in the Torah, Gemara Shiur 6:00 pm birthright is legally his. is the pair of opposites, ahuvah/ twice in the passage above (Deut. 21:15-17). The law senuah, “loved” and “unloved/ about Leah, four times in our Mincha 7:00 pm makes eminent sense. In hated”. This is precisely the way parsha in connection with the Shabbos Ends 8:15 pm biblical Israel the firstborn the Torah describes Rachel and law of the rights of the was entitled to a double Leah. Recall the context. Fleeing firstborn. There is an even Sun. September 3 7:30/8:30 am share in his father’s from his home to his uncle stronger connection. The inheritance. What the law Laban, Jacob fell in love at first unusual phrase “first of [his Mon. Labor Day 7:30/8:30 am tells us is that this is not at sight with Rachel and worked father’s] strength” appears Tue., Wed. & Fri. 6:45/7:45 am the father’s discretion. He seven years for her hand in only twice in the Torah, here Thurs. 6:35/7:45 am cannot choose to transfer marriage. On the night of the (“for he is the first of his this privilege from one son wedding, however, Laban father’s strength”) and in to another, in particular he substituted his elder daughter relation to Reuben, Leah’s Mincha 7:00 pm cannot do this by favoring Leah. When Jacob complained, firstborn: “’Reuben, you are the son of the wife he “Why have you deceived me?” my firstborn, my might and Latest Times for loves most if in fact the Laban replied, with intentional the first of my strength, first Shema/Shemoneh Esrei firstborn came from irony, “It is not done in our place in rank and first in another wife. to give the younger before the power” (Gen. 49:3). Because September 2 9:38/10:43 am elder.” Jacob then agreed to of these substantive and The opening three laws – a work another seven years for linguistic parallels, the September 9 9:40/10:44 am Kiddush Seudah Shlishit is sponsored by Next Shabbat the Steinberg/Ginsburg Family Ki Tavo is sponsored by Sharon & Mordechai Ahdut on occasion of the 40th Yahrzeit Candle Lighting 6:57 pm in honor of the Bar Mitzvah of Philip R. Steinberg of their son Michael as we lovingly remember our Mincha 7:00 pm father, grandfather and husband 26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Ki Teitzei 5777 attentive reader cannot but hear in the law in our parsha a make clear that the case of Joseph was an exception, not a retrospective commentary on Jacob’s conduct vis-a-vis his own precedent. Ovadia Sforno suggests that the Deuteronomy sons. Yet that conduct seems to have been precisely the prohibition applies only when the transfer of the firstborn’s opposite of what is legislated here. Jacob did transfer the right rights happens because of the father favours one wife over of the firstborn from Reuben, his actual firstborn, son of the another. It does not apply when the firstborn has been guilty less-loved Leah, to Joseph, the firstborn of his beloved Rachel. of a sin that would warrant forfeiting his legal privilege. That is This is what he told Joseph: “Now, the two sons who were born what Jacob meant when, on his deathbed, he said to Reuben: to you in Egypt before I came here shall be considered as mine. “Unstable as water, you will no longer be first, for you went up Ephraim and Manasseh shall be just like Reuben and Simeon to onto your father’s bed, onto my couch and defiled it.” (Gen. me.” (Gen. 48:5) Reuben should have received a double 49:4). This is stated explicitly in the book of Chronicles which portion, but instead this went to Joseph. Jacob recognized each says that “Reuben…was the firstborn, but when he defiled his of Joseph’s two sons as entitled to a full portion in the father’s marriage bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the inheritance. So Ephraim and Menasseh each became a tribe in sons of Joseph son of Israel.” (1 Chron.5:1). It is not its own right. In other words, we seem to have a clear impossible, though, that there is a different kind of explanation contradiction between Deuteronomy and Genesis. How are we altogether. What makes the Torah unique is that it is a book to resolve this? It may be that, despite the rabbinic principle about both law (the primary meaning of “Torah”) and history. that the patriarchs observed the whole Torah before it was giv- Elsewhere these are quite different genres. There is law, an en, this is only an approximation. Not every law was answer to the question, “What may we or may not do?” And precisely the same before and after the covenant at Sinai. For there is history, an answer to the question, “What happened?” instance Ramban notes that the story of Judah and Tamar There is no obvious relationship between these two at all. seems to describe a slightly different form of levirate marriage from the one set out in Deuteronomy. Not so in Judaism. In many cases, especially in mishpat, civil law, there is a connection between law and history, between In any case, this is not the only apparent contradiction between what happened and what we should or should not do. Much of Genesis and later law. There are others, not least the very fact biblical law, for example, emerges directly from the Israelites’ that Jacob married two sisters, something categorically experience of slavery in Egypt, as if to say: This is what our forbidden in Leviticus 18:18. Ramban’s solution – an elegant ancestors suffered in Egypt, therefore do not do likewise. Don’t one, flowing from his radical view about the connection oppress your workers. Don’t turn an Israelite into a lifelong between Jewish law and the land of Israel – is that the slave. Don’t leave your servants or employees without a week- patriarchs observed the Torah only while they were living in ly day of rest. And so on. Not all biblical law is like this, but Israel itself. Jacob married Leah and Rachel outside Israel, in some is. It represents truth learned through experience, jus- the house of Lavan in Haran (situated in today’s Turkey). tice as it takes shape through the lessons of history. The Torah takes the past as a guide to the future: often positive but Abarbanel gives a quite different explanation. The reason Jacob sometimes also negative. Genesis tells us, among other things, transferred the double portion from Reuben to Joseph was that that Jacob’s favoritism toward Rachel over Leah, and Rachel’s God told him to do so. The law in Devarim is therefore stated to firstborn Joseph over Leah’s firstborn, Reuben, was a cause of lingering strife within the family.
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