Day 9 - When You Take the Field Against Your Enemies
(Torah Day - On Mondays and Thursdays, the days where we regularly read Torah in synagogues, I will post a reflection and writing prompt based on the week's parashah)
Parashat Ki Teitzei
...כִּי־תֵצֵא לַמִּלְחָמָה עַל־אֹיְבֶיךָ
When you take the field against your enemies...(Deuteronomy 21:10)
August 16, 2021: I write this note on an inauspicious day as the Taliban have taken over Afganistan after the American military withdrawal from the country effectively ending the longest war fought in American history. I have no wisdom to offer at this point, and I am unqualified to offer an opinion based on military tactics. One thing I am compelled to say is that no one person or group is to blame, but we are all responsible. Rather than focus on this war, I wanted us to think about the 'wars' we all fight as individuals, and the wisdom our Torah can give us regarding how best to fight.
During the summer, as in many overnight summer camps, the camp held their annual Color War, but it is called Yom Sport, or Sports Day. The big day begins the previous evening with a surprise 'breakout'. All the children receive their colors (four in all), their sides are identified immediately, and the competition begins. This is not total war though; each team gets points for sportsmanship. When they battle, they must do so with integrity and honor.
Even, or especially, during an all-out competition for dominance, there is a sense of peace and friendship.
I've always wondered, do we need to have a day of division like this at all? However we view these days, whether positive or negative, the simple fact is, our children eagerly await this day, but maybe, so do we. As much as we strive for unity and peace, there is a part of ourselves that seeks dominance.
Our tradition speaks about two inclinations that battle inside of us - the yetzer hatov, the inclination to do good, and the yetzer harah, the inclination to do evil. In the tractate of Talmud that deals with the holiday of Yom Kippur (Yoma 69b), we read a peculiar story. Commenting on the reason for the destruction of the Temple:
Woe, woe. It is this, i.e., the evil inclination for idol worship, that destroyed the Temple, and burned its Sanctuary, and murdered all the righteous ones, and caused the Jewish people to be exiled from their land. And it still dances among us, i.e., it still affects us. Didn’t You give it to us solely for the purpose of our receiving reward for overcoming it? We do not want it, and we do not want its reward. We are prepared to forgo the potential rewards for overcoming the evil inclination as long as it departs from us.
The people fast for three days and three nights, and God delivers the evil inclination in a jail cell! Rather than kill the evil inclination, they leave it in a box and went back to life as usual. Unfortunately, life was anything but usual after the evil inclination was locked away. For three days, they could not find a fresh egg in all of Israel because the urge to reproduce was eliminated when the evil inclination was trapped, and other unintended consequences. It turns out, as much as they wanted to destroy the evil inclination, they realized that they could not. In the end, the rabbis have no choice but to let the evil inclination out of its cage, but they gouged out its eyes so its full damage could not be realized.
Our parashah, Ki Teitzei, which we read leading up the High Holy Days every year, begins with war:
When you take the field against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife, you shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive’s garb. She shall spend a month’s time in your house lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and possess her, and she shall be your wife. Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money: since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.
Here we see two things: war and conflict are inevitable, but total destruction and losing yourself to the yetzer harah is not. In this case, the soldier is barred from letting himself go. In the case of the captive woman, he can't rape her and/or kill her, but he nevertheless does take her to his home. His yetzer harah is quelled by time and the ability to hold it back, to blind it.
Our people have always strived for peace, Shalom, but war is sometimes necessary, perhaps even inevitable. And yet, our tradition teaches us:
גָּדוֹל שָׁלוֹם שֶׁאֲפִלּוּ בִּשְׁעַת מִלְחָמָה צְרִיכִין שָׁלוֹם
Peace is great because even during war, peace is necessary. (BaMidbar Rabbah 11:7)
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