Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
You are listening to Rabbe Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the Weekly Parsha Review. This week's Parsha's Parsha's Ki Seitse. It is the sixth portion in the book of Deuteronomy, in the book of Devarim, and the 49th portion since the beginning of the Torah. There are only five more portions in the Torah and I look forward, with good health, god willing, to continue to learn the Torah, not only these coming five weeks, whether it's going to be stopped with a little break of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur schedule, but we're going to make sure that we continue to learn Torah, hopefully as long as we have life on this earth. Here are 110 verses in this week's Parsha, 1,582 words and 5,856 letters, and this week in particular, I mean every single Parsha. We say this why is it important to know how many letters, how many words and how many verses? Because there isn't an extra one, and we're going to see one of the most important lessons about parenting in this week's Parsha from an extra word that's used, seemingly repetitive, for no reason, unless we understand how to learn Torah, and that's what we're doing here in our class. So let's go on the journey. In this week's Parsha we have a very diverse collection of mitzvahs. We have 74 mitzvahs, 27 performative and 47 prohibitions. A lot of mitzvahs and it goes all different things. And if you want to spend a lot of good time learning over the weekend over Shabbos and understanding the Parsha, here's my challenge to you Look in this week's Parsha and try to connect between one section and the next section, like why did God juxtapose these two one to the other? All right, there are many interesting commandments that are given one next to the other, but they have seemingly no connection. They're not even similar topics. It's just, it seems random, but it's not. It's not random, all right. So the Parsha begins.

02:17
A Torah relates the sanctity of human life, particularly during wartime when most militants and warriors suspend all morals and values. If a Jewish soldier desires to marry a captive non-Jewish woman, torah guides us how to morally and properly do so. A man who marries two women the less favored wife beers his firstborn son. The Torah protects this older child's double portion of inheritance, notwithstanding the father's preferences and desires. So what's the case here? The father has two wives. His less favorable wife produces his first child. That first child, the firstborn son, gets a double portion of inheritance. He cannot take away that double portion from the firstborn child who comes from his less favored wife. The Torah protects that A wayward and rebellious son is brought by his parents to the court and stoned to death.

03:20
If a person was judged with a death sentence in a Jewish court, the hanging body must be removed by nightfall and buried that same day to preserve human dignity. Do not turn away or hide your eyes from your enemy's. Lost objects and lost property must be returned. Help your enemy's animal that has fallen on the side of the road. Help stand it up with him. Men are forbidden from wearing women's clothes and vice versa. This is an abomination. If a person happens upon a mother bird roosting on her young or on her eggs, do not take the mother from the children. Rather, send the mother away and then take the children and be blessed with goodness and long life. A fence must be built around the roof of a house. Don't plant seed mixtures or plow an ox and a donkey together or combine wool and linen in a garment Place tzitzis fringes on all four-cornered garments. Again, you see the collection of mitzvahs that one doesn't necessarily connect with the next, but each one is its own independent mitzvah and a beautiful commandment of Hashem.

04:36
A man who defames his wife, claiming she lacks her virginity, is punished by paying a fine to her father. See, he gets married. He comes the next day after the wedding and he says in court this woman that I married, I was told that she was a virgin, but she wasn't, and he defames her because that's not true. So he pays a fine to the father and may not divorce her forever. However, if the accusation was true, the wife is punished for committing adultery. Laws of illicit relationships. A man who sleeps with a married woman, an engaged woman, his father's wife these are all prohibited relationships.

05:17
A momser A momser is a bastard child. This is not a child born out of wedlock, but rather a child born from a forbidden union. This child may not marry into the congregation of Jewish people, even after ten generations. The Ammonite and Moavite shall never enter the congregation for their terrible behavior with the Jews. However, do not reject the Edomite and the Egyptians after three generations, as you have lived in their land, even at wartime.

05:52
The Jewish people are commanded to maintain their state of holiness and purity. Do not return an escaped slave to his master and don't allow sexual promiscuity in the congregation, meaning among the Jewish people. Do not charge interest when lending money to another Jew. Pledges must be repaid immediately. Don't make vows, and a worker may eat from the field he is working, but may not take it home.

06:40
If a man wishes to divorce his wife, he must do so by placing a divorce document in her hand. A divorced woman who marries another man and then divorces may never return to her first husband, but if she did not marry another man and wishes to go back to her husband, they can get remarried. In fact, no, a couple who got divorced and nine years later they had a child, and nine years later they decided to get remarried. Now they are remarried and have several more children. It's a beautiful bringing the family back together. One of the things he would sometimes joke with his wife and say you know, my first wife would cook a little bit better than you. She would say, yeah, my first husband was a little better looking than you. A man is obligated to make his wife happy and may not go to the army during the first year of marriage. There is a special commandment in the Torah to treat your wife very, very, very, very special, and we'll talk about this a little bit more in our important lessons segment.

07:57
A creditor may not impound tools of labor from the debtor. So if someone owes you money and you have to take a collateral, you can't take their drill and you can't take their tools that they earn their livelihood with, because then they're not going to be able to earn a livelihood, they're not going to be able to repay you and it's also going to be demoralizing to them. They're not able to provide an income. Kidnapping is forbidden. Be cautious with sara'as. We mentioned this way back in Leviticus and follow what the Levites teach you. The creditor must return the collateral daily to the debtor. So if he gives you as collateral for that loan pillows every night, you give him back his pillows. Every night you give him back his blankets. If he gives you his car as collateral, now he's got to go to work, you give him back his car so he can go to work. Workers must be paid on time.

08:54
Relatives should not be subjected to the punishments of their guilty family members. Be gentle and cautious with vulnerable populations like widows, orphans and converts. Forgotten or fallen bundles from the fields, trees and vineyards should remain for the poor to collect. Additionally, lashes given by the court for various transgressions are discussed, and ox may not be muzzled in his threshing, leverate marriage and release, which is halitza. So yebum and halitza are taught in this week's parasha.

09:31
The penalty for embarrassing someone is outlined, and be accurate and honest with weights and measures and erase the name of Amalek who ambushed you. So this concludes the parasha summary. It's 110 verses. There's a lot, a lot, a lot 74 commandments. It's tremendous. So let's look at some of the important lessons that we can take home from this week's parasha. The first is the proper treatment of women. It's an amazing, amazing teaching in this week's parasha that is many, many times misunderstood by people. You see, here's a guy who goes to war, he has a captive woman and he wants to marry her. This is things that happen at every war, where there's rape and there's plundering of people's possessions and because there's no laws, now we're at war, the laws are thrown out.

10:31
The Torah wants to maintain two things. Number one you're a human being. Your hormones may be going crazy and you want to be with this woman. On the other hand, you're still a Jew. You're a dignified human being. So is she a human being? You don't use her as an object. She's not an object. You want to marry her. There are very clear instructions of how that's done to humanize her. You know what you do. You bring her into your house, into your tent, and she's there for 30 days and during those 30 days she's going to be sad, she's going to cry, she's going to undo her nails, her hair is going to grow out. She's not going to be the prettiest. If, after those 30 days, you still want her for her virtues, for who she is, then you can be with her. Then you can marry her, but not just as an object. You have a desire, you have a temptation or an urge and you're going to make her your victim. That's prohibited.

11:40
The Torah takes a captive woman and elevates her to human. You're not just an object. Just because he's in a challenging situation, because he's in war, doesn't give him the opportunity or the power to dehumanize her and make her into an object. This is something which is so fundamental and so precious that Artura teaches us not to make an object out of your desires. There's a human being there If you still desire her after those 30 days where she cries for her parents, where she doesn't feel so good about how she looks and you still want her because of who she is, not because of your temptation then you can marry her. Then you can be with her. So I think it's important for us to outline that. Additionally, I think that that goes to many different areas of life. Where in the world people objectify women? They're an object. It's a terrible thing. That's a human being. It's not an object for your desires.

12:53
Okay, now we talk about a very complicated scenario in this week's Parsha A child who is a wayward child, a rebellious child, and we put him to death. The parents bring him to court and put him to death. And I want to focus on the verse in this week's Parsha that talks about that, because if you look at the verse, we say there's not an extra word, not an extra letter in the Torah, correct? So take a look at this and you tell me if you think this is extra or not. If there shall be to a man, a son, who is wayward and who is rebellious, who does not listen to the voice of his father and to the voice of his mother, and they discipline him, but he does not listen to them, then they take him to the court. Let me ask you a question.

13:46
If you were writing the Torah, would you write the following four words To the voice of his father. In Hebrew, it's four words in Hebrew. In English it's many more, it's 12. But to the voice of his father and to the voice of his mother. Would you write it like that? I wouldn't write it like that. I'd write to the voice of his father or mother. What's to the voice of his father and to the voice of his mother? This is the parents coming and saying he doesn't listen to the voice of the father or the voice of his mother. Our sages tell us it's not in vain that the Torah says that.

14:22
The Torah is teaching us about parenting. Parents have to have a unified voice. If the father has one voice, he says one thing, the mother says another voice and they're contradicting each other and he doesn't get a clear message. This is the result. The result is you get a wayward child. So the Torah is not giving extra words. There's no extra letter in the Torah.

14:45
The Torah is telling us a very specific hint here that if you're not going to give your child a unified message as parents, if the child doesn't see one unit in the parents, then it becomes problematic for the child. The child doesn't owe a direction to go, and this is a very, very interesting thing because we don't see ever in the history of the Torah. The Talmud says there has never been a case of Ben-Soromore, there has never been a case of a wayward child that was brought by his parents to the court. And what does it see? Zolael is a soveya. He steals from his parents to buy meat and to drink wine. There's never been a case like this, never been a case.

15:31
So why does the Torah even waste the words of these verses, multiple verses, to talk about a case that will never happen? Because it's not about the story of this boy, it's about the parenting lessons that are required to be derived from the story. Now, it's a little bit harsh, a little bit harsh of a punishment this child you're suspecting of going waywardly, being rebellious, and you're putting him to death. That's pretty, pretty harsh. So we need to understand that there is a big picture perspective that is required, and that is are we here in this world for this world or are we here in this world for the next world? This is one of the hints in the Torah that there is a world to come.

16:24
Because we see that we're very concerned for this child. He's a child. We're concerned that he's going to build up a massive account of sins and then he's not going to get a portion of the world to come. So, as a venture of mercy for this child, we're going to put him to death so that he doesn't accumulate those sins and lose his place in the world to come. We're concerned for his olahmahbah, we're concerned for his reward in the world to come. And because we see that there's a potential that this child is going to become a monster, he's going to act in negative ways. Therefore, you know, we see his inevitable degeneracy forming. We want to limit that in advance. So imagine, imagine just a case, just for our okay. If you were a doctor in Germany pre-Holocaust, dealing with a little child named Adolf, everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? The Torah would say that in such a case, if you know what this child is going to end up doing, it's better to take him when he's young than take him when he's older.

17:47
It's important for us to realize that there's a big picture here. It's not just the little actions that happen in this world. There's a big picture because this is only a world of preparation for the world to come. Obviously, evil and wicked people don't even don't have a place in the world to come. They have eternal damnation. They do have eternal damnation. We don't, it says.

18:14
Now, respecting the body of the dead, we see that someone who's put to death is hung and needs to be removed from the hanging that day. You don't keep it hanging to the nighttime or to the next day. The reason they're hung is that people should learn a lesson and people should be filled with trepidation and fear from the sin that caused this person to be put to death. But still, it's a human being and we bury that person immediately in the most dignified fashion, and we know that there's no dignity like the dignity that's provided by the ritual burial society and how they prepare a body in the most dignified way for burial. That is required, and this we see in this week's parasha as well.

19:05
Now it's very interesting that it points out that if you see your enemy's animal lying beneath its burden or your enemy's lost object, then you should return the lost object and you shall help the animal get back on its feet. So this is a very, very incredibly beautiful way that Torah says important lessons that can be derived from this. Number one if your enemy you have to go, help certainly your friend. Certainly your stranger, stranger I don't have any animosity towards them. My enemy I have animosity towards. And the Torah says if your enemy you have animosity for, you have to help them up. Certainly a random stranger who you don't have animosity for, definitely someone you love. Same thing with a lost object we learn through this about you find the lost object, you got to return it. What are we learning from? Because if you have to return a lost object of your enemy, even more so you have to return lost object of somebody you don't know. It's an incredible teaching here. The Torah says a case, a scenario, and you learn all of the other. You're able to connect the dots and say, oh, if it means such an extreme case, even someone to have a hatred for, and definitely someone who I don't have hatred for, and even more so someone, obviously, who I have a great endearment and love for. So it's important for us to know that a lost object you find a watch on the street, you put up a sign, say I found the watch. Now you don't just return it.

20:43
Talmud is a big track date of Talmud that discusses, you know, lost objects and how you determine who the owner is. How long do you have to announce that lost object and what proofs are required to determine their ownership of it. If you just find a dollar bill everybody's got a dollar bill in their pocket. Maybe it's anybody's, but what's if that dollar bill is folded in a specific way? It's made into a flower. Not everybody does that. That's a specific identifier. And what we do is when someone says yes, I am the one who lost that $20 bill, we say okay, what are the identifiers? And if they're able to identify what it is and in its specific character, then it's same thing as with a book, same thing as with articles of clothing and all of these different things that may be lost. We have to ensure that it's going to the rightful owner, because if we give it to the wrong owner and then the rightful owner comes, says where's my, where's my object? You're like, oh, I gave it to somebody else, then we could be held responsible for that.

21:56
All right, sending away the mother bird, and this is a very, very complicated topic. Again, this is a we're doing an injustice to this week's parter's job by going through it so quickly. But if you see a mother bird sitting on its, on its eggs, on its children, on its young, you're not allowed to take it from its children, but rather you have to shoe it away. So you can ask, you can say it's, you know, come on, what's the difference? There's a difference. You have to show mercy, and our sages tell us that the mercy. I want to share with you an amazing story. I've shared this before, but I think it just puts us into the frame of mind what it means to be merciful. Merciful means that you take away one little smidgen of pain. One of our great sages is Rabbenu Tam, and he got this name. Rabbenu Tam, which means our great teacher, who was perfect in in all perfection. And where did he get this name from?

23:01
So we know the Hallaqah says that everything that a woman brings into her marriage belongs to her husband, it meaning as a unit, it belongs to them. But what happens if they're engaged? And the engagement that they used to have in the times of the Talmud is very different than the engagements we have today. The engagements today are really essentially non-committal. So they're married. We do the engagement and marriage in one, in one shot at the wedding. But it used to be that it was up to a year, a year's time, between the engagement and the marriage. Now, during that year, the girl's family would spend time and money and resources on building a dowry for this young couple that's going to get married. Now what happens if? And again, being engaged means basically married, but there's no relations between the husband and wife, between the bride and groom, till they finalize that engagement with a marriage. So what happens if, during those 12 months of engagement, the girl, the bride, passes away? So obviously it's tragic, but Rabbenu Tamm made a decree that anything that they purchased for this couple and put in the dowry during the engagement goes back to the girl's family. And the reason for that is that the bride and groom, they're engaged. And the reason is so that it takes away one little cry from the girl's family. And imagine they're sitting there, shiva, and they're so sad they lost this beautiful, beautiful girl with so much potential, so much promise. She's going to raise a family, everything's going to be amazing, and they're mourning that. And then they give one extra cry oh, and we also lost the dowry. Imagine Rabbenu Tamm took away one little cry of pain, that compassion, and that is why he got he merited to get that name with. The Jewish people called him Rabbenu Tamm, our sage, who is pure.

25:17
One little drop of pain that you're able to remove from someone else is being merciful. One little drop you take. The mother bird is sitting there on top of its young protecting them. You want to take one of the young. The turtle doesn't say don't take the young, you want to take the young. You're gonna take the young For your birds. You want to. You want to Send away the mother. Don't take it right there from the mother. Take away one drop of pain, one little drop of pain you could take away from that mother. You shoot it away. Now it's away. It comes back. It sees that it's missing one. You limited the pain by even one One, one iota of pain. It was removed. That represents an act of mercy. You know what you bring to yourself. You bring the mercy of Hashem upon yourself and you promised a long life. Why? Because you took away one iota of pain from this little bird, unbelievable compassion.

26:29
That the Torah teaches us. And If we learn this about the pain from a bird, then definitely we shouldn't go around harming animals. It's a sin in the Torah to do that. But it's just an animal. It's my pet, it's my dog, it's my cat, it's my. It doesn't make a difference what it is. It doesn't make a difference what it is. You're not allowed to cause pain to another creature.

26:59
Now the Incredible teaching in this week's parasha of the edomite and the Egyptians that you can have them join our people. What is it the Torah teach us why? Because you resided in their land At last. I checked we were slaves. We were slaves in Egypt for 210 years. We were slaves and we're the ones who have to have Gratitude for what. We were slaves in Egypt and we have to have gratitude for the Egyptians For hosting us. Torah teaches us a very important lesson Anything that you derive pleasure from, you have to show gratitude, even your captors.

27:56
I'll share with you a great story. My wife's grandparents lived in new york and my Wives grandfather was a diabetic and he was blind. One day my wife's grandparents were home and robbers came into the house. They broke into the house and they tied up my wife's grandmother. And they were about to tie up my wife's grandfather. So they said you know, he's a diabetic, he's blind, he doesn't see, any way, don't tie him up, don't cover his eyes, don't you know? Don't tie him up. And they didn't. And they ransacked the house and stole a tremendous amount. But when they left, my wife's grandparents said they yeah, we were robbed, but they were nice robbers. They didn't blindfold him, they didn't tie him up. We told him he was a diabetic, we told him that he was blind and they didn't harm him. So Is that the way we should be living our lives? What these people are evil. Look at them, their thieves. They're terrible.

29:10
The Egyptians they enslaved us and tortured us for 210 years, but you lived in their land and they gave you food to eat and they gave you a place where you had children. You went in a 70 people and you left as how many? 600,000 men between the age of 20 and 60. You multiply that with the women and the children, you're dealing with over 3 million people. It's unreal. We did prosper a little bit there, not very great conditions. You owe a debt of gratitude. And therefore it says don't take revenge of the Egyptian. If they want to convert. After three generations, when that original generation of captors is gone, they can join the Jewish people if they want to convert. And same thing with the Edomites, but about the Moabites and the Ammonites who did not let us into their land and fought battles against us and hired Billum to curse us them. They can never, ever join the Jewish people.

30:30
Now I just wanted to outline something which is very, very important I don't want it to be overlooked and that is the difference between men and women in their obligations in the Torah. So we know that women are not obligated to Mitzvahs that are time-bound Mitzvahs. A Mitzvah that is time-bound, women are not obligated upon. One of those Mitzvahs are mentioned in this week's partial Sitzis. Sitzis is any four-cornered garment needs to have fringes. A woman is not obligated to this Mitzvah. Why not? Because part of the commandment that tells us to place Sitzis on a four-cornered garment also says that you shall see that garment. Or say, just tell us. Seeing is a daytime activity. Nighttime you don't see. Therefore, the Mitzvah of Sitzis is only obligated during the day and therefore women are not obligated to the Mitzvah of Sitzis. Additionally, nighttime garments don't either require Sitzis. I'll give you an example your blanket. Your blanket is a four-cornered garment which you are wearing for possibly eight hours, if you get a good night's sleep eight hours every night and we don't see Sitzis on blankets because it's a nighttime garment. It's designated for nighttime, a daytime garment that has four corners, like a talit or Sitzis, a talit katan that is required to have Sitzis, and it's not obligated upon a woman to fulfill this Mitzvah because it is a time-triggered Mitzvah.

32:12
Okay, first year of marriage we mentioned that this is a special time that a husband should take extra care of his wife, and the Torah commands, as we mentioned last week, there are certain restrictions certain people cannot go to war and battle for the Jewish people. One of them is someone who just got married in their first year of marriage. Why? Because the Torah also, in a roundabout way, tells us the importance of what's known as Shana Rishonah, the first year of marriage. The first year of marriage is a very sensitive, delicate time in a relationship, because here's a young woman. She gets married. She doesn't necessarily feel a sense of security yet with her husband and it takes time for her to feel secure and to know that her husband is there and he's going to take care of her. And our sages say that takes one year.

33:10
Now many of our great rabbis in this generation say that it's not one year anymore. In our generation it's three to seven years for a woman to feel settled in her relationship, to feel secure in her relationship with her husband, which is why the obligation for a man when they get married. A young boy and girl get married during the first year of marriage. It is customary for a man not to leave his home at night during the first year of marriage, even not to learn and call a lot at night. Evenings you spend with your wife, your home, you talk, you can play games, you eat together, you spend time together. You build that solid relationship and this is an emphasis that is taught to every young man who gets married in the Torah community. It's a. You'll have one of the rabbis give him this guidance and instruct him his obligation of the first year of marriage. Again, it's not only the first year of marriage anymore. It's much longer than that, because we have a different generation and it's important. That's a man's obligation to make sure that his wife feels secure in their relationship, as long as it takes. Well, I gave you your one year. Now leave me alone, let me go travel with my friends and go. No, if she doesn't feel comfortable. It's still the first year for you, it's a virtual first year.

34:42
Now imagine, you know, we mentioned in our partial review that fallen bundles in the fields, the trees and the vineyards should remain for the poor to collect. So think of the sensitivity of the Torah in this week's partial. I think, if you want to title one word that defines this week's partial, it's sensitivity. Sensitivity to the woman, the captive woman, it's sensitivity to the bird, it's sensitivity to all the different characters in our partial, but also sensitivity to the poor. See what happens.

35:23
The poor people are sitting there. They're like, oh, they're harvesting their crops. They're sitting there on the outskirts of the crops, of the fields, and they're like hoping that the owner is going to leave something for them. So what happens? The owner is collecting all of his bundles of stuff and he puts it on his back to take it, bring it home, and a few of the pieces of straw or hay or vines fall off. They fall to the ground. The family is now looking and they're like, oh, this poor, poor people are sitting and they're like, oh, I can't wait to get those grapes that they forgot, that fell from their, from their, from their sheaves. I can't wait to get those. And then the guy turns around and picks them up, puts it back on, like, oh, we are hoping to get that food, we're hoping to be able to make a challah for Shabbos with that flower.

36:22
Torah commands us to have a sensitivity to those poor people. There's something called lekhet, which is the things that you fall from your bundles and the others are things that you forget from your bundles, and those were commanded by the Torah not to go back and take them, so that those who are poor, those who are sitting outside of your fields and are worried and concerned oh, we hope we're going to be able to get that so that we can sustain ourselves Shouldn't be disheartened that you turned around, found that you forgot. You forgot it, you left it. Leave it for them. They're looking out for it. It's important for them.

37:05
So, my dear friends, this week's parasha is jam-packed. I urge you, like I do every week, read through the Torah portion. Open up your stone edition art scroll, chumish. Open up your shot and steen edition Chumish, which is all the same Torah, the same Chumish, but with different formats of translation. It's so simple, it's so easy. Learn it. It's your Torah, it's our Torah. Mo-rus-shah-kih-hil-as-yakuh we're going to see in a couple of weeks. Torah portion. It's an inheritance. The Torah is an inheritance for each and every Jew. The Torah tells us it's your Torah, take it, own it, love it, study it, make it yours. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos.