During Moshe’s second stroll outside Paroh’s palace, he chances upon a pair of quarreling Jews, identified by Rashi as Dassan and Aviram. Moshe tries to break up the fight between the two Anashim Nitzim and he says “Lama Takeh Rayecha.” Rashi notes here that Moshe addressed the individual with his fist raised, the lashon of Takeh is in future tense so Moshe was only asked why he was about to hit his friend.
The lashon of Rayecha in the pasuk is also somewhat strange. Why does Moshe call the victim is this case the attacker’s friend? He surely looks more like an enemy than a friend. Rashi therefore explains that Moshe was drawing a comparison between the assailant and his victim, as if to suggest that their Rishus was on equal par. The problem, however, is that only one of these two men had his fist raised. What gives Moshe the right to call them both Resha’im?
The next pasuk is even stranger. Dassan and Aviram challenge Moshe by asking “Are you going to kill us just like you killed that Mitzri yesterday.” Dassan and Aviram seem to be poking at Moshe with a baseless comparison between two quarreling men and an oppressive taskmaster who beat his slave to near death, why would they ever suspect that they are deserving of death as well?
The Medrash Shemos Rabbah sheds some light on the pasukim in question above: “Davar Acheir [on the word Nitzim]. They had intention to kill one another, like that which it says in Devarim (25:11), ViKi Yinatzu Anashim Yachdav (and Rabbi Elazar says there that the pasuk refers to a Matzus Shel Misah, lethal sparring).”
We see from this medrash that the sparring in our parasha, the Nun-Tzadee shoresh in particular, refers to a fight with lethal intent on both sides. Rashi explains in Ki Teitzei that such a fight will ultimately result in blows. And so it makes perfect sense that Moshe can call even the victim a Rasha equal to his assailant, though he did not have his fist raised at that exact moment, for he too was engaged in this type of fighting. One could assume that each would surely throw punches before settling the quarrel, and so Lama Takeh Rayechah in essence applies to both Dassan and Aviram.
But as this medrash solves one dilemma, it creates another. When one sees a murder about to take place, one is allowed to save the innocent victim and kill the murderer before the crime is committed. In fact, this halacha comes from a drasha in this week’s parasha (22:26). By a Rodief, any method of murder is permissible, so long as the killer is stopped in time. However, by the quarreling men, the pasukim discuss how a woman who breaks up the fight by grabbing the potential murderer by his testicles deserves to have her hand cut off! Talk about a double standard!?
Interestingly, Rashi does not take this pasuk literally, but instead identifies the punishment as Boshes, a monetary compensation of embarrassment. The punishment seems like a much more fit form of justice, but only until we consider the following pair of scenarios. Had this woman killed her husband’s assailant, she would not have had to pay any money, no matter where her hand touched. The only payment forwarded is a compensation for embarrassment, and dead men do not collect Boshes. But if she grabs his testicles, then Beis Din forces a payment upon her. Ironically, it is due to the relatively peaceful settlement of this quarrel that the woman earns her punishment!
Perhaps a resolution to this difficulty can be found in a lesson taught earlier in the parasha. It is easier to forgive a murderer than a person who causes another to sin. This is why we may never accept a member of Ammon or Moav for conversion, for their daughters led us astray in the story of Pinchas and Ba’al Pe’or, but we may eventually accept a Mitzri or Edomi, though they blatantly set out to do battle with us. Why though are we less harsh with murderers? We learn from the Ben Soreir U’Moreh that when one’s fate is clear, he can be judged “Al Sheim Sofo.” Sometimes, we can be so certain that a second chance will fail that it’s worth letting an innocent man be killed with a clean slate. And if we are certain that sparring men will surely land blows, and that they will surely becomes murderers, then perhaps we may judge each “Al Sheim Sofo.”
To kill a potential Rotzei’ach, in some cases, is better than attempting to make peace between him and his friend. However, a woman who grabs her husband’s assailant hasn’t accomplished anything; she hasn’t done any favor to the attacker by letting him live for each man inevitably still hates the other. Therefore, she cannot get the benefits of the Rodeif and must pay for the embarrassment she has caused. Even a man who is better off dead isn’t deserving of embarrassment, and so he is owed his Boshes.
Our understanding of these pasukim in Ki Teitzei now lends new meaning to the pasukim in Shemos. When Dassan and Aviram ask Moshe “Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday,” there really is a good comparison between the two. Rashi teaches us by the Egyptian that Moshe looked this way and that way, meaning into the Egyptian’s future, and decided that this Egyptian’s death would be of no loss to the world because none of his descendants would convert. Quite similarly, two men who are Nitzim with each other are better dead than given a chance to live; no good could possibly come of Dassan’s and Aviram’s futures. Moshe only spared them because he no longer believed the Bnei Yisrael were deserving of a geula (see Rashi, Shemos 2:14, D”H VaYira Moshe), meaning there was no benefit to the nation to dispose of these two men. Yet their deaths would have ultimately been a favor, and would have spared them from a far more tragic Sof at the time of Korach’s rebellion. As the pasuk there says, ViDasan VaAviram Yatzi’u Nitzavim; they left this world as those same upstarts they were first introduced as, but they left with far more guilt to bear.
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