Parashat Ki Savo

As presented in the pasukim, the Mitzvah of Bikurim epitomizes our gratitude to Hashem for bringing us into Eretz Yisrael. We award the Kohein – Hashem’s designated guardian of holy property – with not the prime of our produce but rather the first; we do not partake of any goods until we have shown sufficient recognition that all our success comes by Hashem’s will. It therefore makes perfect sense that we recall Sippur Yitzeas Mitzrayim, our bitter days of slavery and hardship, and transition into Yerushas Eretz Yisrael. We declare VaYivi’einu El HaMakom HaZeh VaYitein Lanu Es Ha’Aretz HaZos Eretz Zavas Chalav U’D’vash; what greater form of gratitude could one possibly express!

Yet Sippur Yitzeas Mitzrayim and Yerushas Eretz Yisrael do not comprise the entire declaration, for before we mention anything about the hardships in Egypt, we first raise our voices and recall Arami Oveid Avi, how Lavan once thought to kill Yaakov. As Rashi notes, Mazkir Chasdei HaMakom, it is good to mention the acts of kindness G-d has done for us in the past, but does this really make it necessary to recall Arami Oveid Avi – a story that didn’t even happen in Eretz Yisrael, when we bring our Bikurim to the Kohein? What relevance can these three words bear within our declaration?

Perhaps even more puzzling is the announcement that precedes Arami Oveid Avi. Before we begin our declaration, we first claim, Higaditi HaYom LaHashem Elokechah Ki Basi El HaAretz HaZos Asher Nishba Hshem LaAvoseinu Lases Lanu, I am declaring today that I have arrived in the land that Hashem promised our forefathers to give to us. What a bizarre introduction to our tidings of gratitude! This statement is of a totally different nature from Arami Oveid Avi. While Arami Oveid Avi views the land as something Hashem gave to us out of love, this initial declaration makes the Yerushas HaAretz appear out of necessity, that Hashem had to fulfill His promise to the Avos against His will. One statement exalts the land, calling it the Eretz Zavas Chalav U’D’vash, while the other merely recognizes that we have arrived there, not to mention that this recognition is not only obvious and tedious but also a few years delayed.

But most perplexing is that Rashi sees these contradictory declarations in exactly the opposite light:

ViAmartah Ailav, and you should say to [the Kohein, I have arrived in the land Hashem promised…] – So that you should not be an ingrate.

Rashi, Devarim 26:3

To Rashi, it is the first statement that expresses one’s true gratitude towards Hashem. All that talk about Eretz Zavas Chalav U’Dvash is nothing in comparison to the promise Hashem made with the Avos. How can this be? Doesn’t this statement express the exact opposite of gratitude, that we owe nothing to Hashem because He had no choice but to bring us into Eretz Yisrael?

I believe that before we can really understand the incredible relevance of the initial declaration, we must first be critical of the second’s. We praise the goodness of Eretz Yisrael, but only through comparison to our afflictions in Mitzrayim. Does this really express how good the land is, or does it only recognize that it’s better than Mitzrayim? Perhaps we are only gracious that we no longer have to perform back breaking labor for our Egyptian masters; that is certainly something to thank Hashem for, but it by no means addresses the quality of Eretz Yisrael.

Instead, the key to recognizing the objective quality of Eretz Yisrael, beyond its relative superiority to life in Mitzrayim, is to remind ourselves of Hashem’s Shavua to the Avos. Long before the Bnei Yisrael were introduced to Eretz Mitzrayim, we were promised a gift from Hashem, an objectively fine home for our eventual settlement.

And how did we know that the land Hashem had promised us was in fact a good land? Perhaps Hashem has no interest in providing us with the best land; maybe He arbitrarily chose our designated settling grounds, possibly picking Eretz Yisrael because it was where Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’akov all lived. Therefore, it is not enough to specify Asher Nishba Hashem LaAvoseinu LaSeis Lanu; we must also express explicit recognition of Hashem’s care for our people, a care Hashem clearly expressed when He stopped Lavan from annihilating Ya’akov and his family. Like Rashi says, we recall the story of Lavan to be Makir Chasdei HaMakom, to recognize examples of Hashem’s mercy, thus aiding our recognition of the care He always has for His nation. We come to recognize that Hahsem would only designate an objectively superior land to for the Avos’ descendents, and not just arbitrarily choose our plot.

Granted it is valuable to remember how Hashem extracted us from the tyranny of Mitzrayim, but we mustn’t lose focus on the objective value of Eretz Yisrael. The land is not an alternative, not an improvement upon our days of slavery; rather, it is a good unparallel and incomparable to any other land. That is why Hashem promised it to our ancestors long before we experienced our first hardships, whether amidst the perils of Mitzrayim or those brought by Lavan. And that is why we are ever grateful, year after year, unwilling to partake of our earning until we award Hashem what is rightfully His.

Parashat Ki Seitzei

The Torah, as a source of universal timeless truth, is by no means bound to a single cultural interpretation. Its call for such seeming barbarities as animal slaughter and capital punishment, though difficult to accept in our “advanced” age of enlightenment, cannot be dismissed as customs of an archaic era; instead, we are forced to consider how modern society has obfuscated these ideals of old, to consider which age truly is – or was – enlightened.

Can one simply dismiss the words of a Rishon as the culturally confined interpretation of a ubiquitous Written Law? No, not without undercutting all validity of that Rishon’s remarks. Each Rishon’s words can most certainly be critiqued, but must first be understood in a universal context, as defiant as they might seem from our most cherished modern ideals.

But can Rashi’s comments on the process of divorce (Devarim 24:1-4) find their place in even our skeptical post-feminist world. Granted, the Torah never stood for equal rights between men and women, but Rashi inexplicably places all blame for unsuccessful marriage squarely on the woman’s shoulders!

[After the woman is divorced,] she will [wed] an “other” man. [By calling him an “other,” the pasuk informs us that] he is not like the first husband, for the [first husband] sent a wicked woman from his house, whereas this man brought her in.

Rashi, Devarim 24:2

In short, can Rashi’s comments find their place in reality? Is every divorced woman a wicked soul for having separated from her husband, and is every divorced man righteous? It is a distorted image indeed that casts the divorcee in a more positive light than his “counterpart,” the one who remarries. And what is to be of the man who remarries? Rashi notes that pasuk 3 continues with two possible scenarios; either this second husband will too dislike this woman and divorce her, or he will die young! What ever happened to the possibility that the husband mistreats his wife and is forced to separate from her? Would we still consider the wife wicked? Would we consider the husband a saint? Would we cast a single aspersion on the “other” man, who was kind enough to start a second marriage with this woman in need?

Before we blindly dismiss Rashi’s perspective as the product of a medieval culture and chauvinist society, we should first consider whether Rashi is highlighting the only case of divorce, or perhaps one scenario out of many. Maybe Rashi accepts that the husband could be at fault for a poor marriage, but the Torah only assumes such a case, and does not explicitly address it here. The question remains, though, why not address it equally? Why focus solely on the rotten wife? The assessment still screams of a double standard.

A step back from the individual clauses of these pasukim reveals a much broader understanding of the Mitzvah of divorce, one that looks beyond the petty differences that cause breakup and instead looks at the Gerushin’s aftermath:

When a man takes a woman… and she does not find favor in his eyes for he finds something concealed [and improper] about her, he writes her a divorce contract, puts it in her hand, and sends her from his house. And she goes from his house and marries an other man. And the latter man hates her and writes her a divorce contract, places it in her hand and sends her from his house… The first husband, who sent her from his house, is unable to retake her as a wife, for this is an abomination before Hashem…

Devarim 24:1-4

By our initial concept of divorce, the first pasuk teaches the primary law, whereas the remaining three pasukim teach addendums. We learn she can remarry, and we learn she cannot remarry the same man. But there’s something choppy about the syntax. The first pasuk establishes a full sentence, when such-and-such happens, the man writes a Get. But the remaining pasukim are all fragments. We do not say “the woman may remarry,” but rather “the woman “remarries.” We do not say “the first husband may not remarry,” but rather, “the first husband is unable to remarry,” as if it is a continuation of the earlier storyline.

Rashi understands these pasukim as one long run-on sentence, beginning from the first word “When.” As Rashi sees the Torah’s command, these pasukim dictate, “When a couple gets divorced, if the woman finds herself single, the ex-husband cannot remarry her.” Undoubtedly an odd approach to the basic concept of divorce, but such a concept does explain why the Torah would indeed prefer to focus on the man’s obligation to divorce his wife. The Torah identifies the man as the individual with both the power and the desire to stay married to and/or remarry this woman. And in spite of this desire, he must divorce her and stay divorced to her.

We often consider the chiddush of these pasukim to be the very existence of divorce, a counterweight against the overbearing magnitude of marriage. But this new outlook turns our perspective upside down. The obliglation of divorce works against the indelibility of marriage; the Get may be circumstantial and certainly not ideal, but it still bears potential as a Mitzvah LiChatichila! And unlike marriage, it can never be undone, not even if the husband wishes to retake the woman into his home. Not even if she changes for the better.

These pasukim truly do encroach on our culturally influenced vision of marriage. In some modern circles, marriage is considered so holy that divorce is collectively frowned upon, even for separated couples. And even if we accept the importance and validity of divorce, would we ever consider it more binding than the actual marriage?!

When Reish Lakish would open a shiur about Sotah, he would say, “a man must only marry a woman according to his deeds (i.e. a righteous man with a righteous woman)… Is this truly so? Didn’t Rav Yehuda say in Rav’s name that before each soul is born, a Bas Kol emerges and states “so-and-so will marry so-and-so, and will own such-and-such house and field.” [Although one’s status as a Tzadik or Rashah is not determined by Shamayim, one’s future wife is determined, so how can one be expected to only marry according to his deeds if the person he marries is out of his hands?] [Answers the gemara,]This is not a difficulty, [Rav] refers to a first marriage, whereas [Reish Lakish] refers to a second marriage.

Mesechet Sotah, 2a

The gemara makes no guarantees that a first marriage will work. Perhaps either the husband or wife will go rotten; such a fate is not slated in Shamayim and cannot be avoided by the predictions of the prenatal Bas Kol. All the same, the first marriage is decreed in Shamayim; only by a second marriage are we obligated to match the proper pair together. Therefore, it is the second husband in our pasukim who is threatened with early death if he does not marry properly, while no such consequence is alluded to by the first husband.

The power of a marriage is truly a strong statement, an edict decreed in the Heavens! But it pales in comparison to the statement made at a divorce. When the husband divorces his wife, he in essence claims “I am fated a Tzadik, whereas you are fated a Risha’h, and so this G-d given marriage cannot work and must permanently end.” The two may remarry, but never to each other. The husband’s action may not universally or objectively define his ex-wife, but the Get subjectively defines her forever, and subjectively defines any other husband as an “Eesh Acheir.”

We may not believe in the cultural definition of ubiquitous Law, but we still maintain Torah Lo BaShamayim Hi. Our actions and behaviors are above predictions of the Beis Din Shel Ma’alah, and our perception of the world is what shapes it. We may never attest to an obsolete Mitzvas Gerushin, but the Mitzvah does nothing to confine our vision of the world eother. Rather, it is the mechanism that enables us to define those around us and expand our currently limited vision – potentially for better but unfortunately often for worse – in a way that even marriage cannot.