Parsha for Kids: Ki Teitzei 2023
Below is the transcript for this week’s episode of Parsha for Kids, Ki Teitzei 2023.
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Season 5 Episode 6:
Hello! My name is Chana and this is Parsha for Kids. The parsha of the week is Ki Setzei, or Ki Teitzei, which means “when you go out.” In context, it is talking about when the Israelites go out to war.
Moshe teaches Bnei Yisrael about the ethics of war. One might make the mistake of thinking that war is a chaotic time and a free-for-all, meaning that no rules apply. But as you may have already guessed, that is not how God operates. There are rules for war, and rules for our conduct.
Suppose that a male soldier captures a beautiful non-Jewish woman in battle. He decides he wants to make her his wife. Is he permitted to simply marry her once she is captured? The Torah tells us no. First, the woman must live in the soldier’s home for a period of one month. During that time, she shaves her head and lets her nails grow long. She does not wear the beautiful garment she was wearing when she was captured. Instead, she removes it and wears something drab. She mourns for her mother and father for an entire month, crying bitter tears. Thus, her captor has a lot of time to evaluate whether he actually wants to make her his wife after all. His mercy might be aroused, and he might want to allow her to go back to her family.
During that time period, a man was permitted to have more than one wife. Another reason that the non-Jewish woman had to go through this period of transition was for the soldier to evaluate whether he really wanted to marry her, especially if he already was married to a Jewish woman. Maybe when he sees the non-Jewish woman looking sad, he will no longer want to make her his wife.
If, however, the soldier still wants the woman to be his wife after all this, he is permitted to marry her and must treat her with the respect and responsibilities that are due to a wife. If he changes his mind about her and one day does not love her anymore, he is not allowed to abuse her or sell her as a slave.
In this way, God ensures that soldier has to reflect carefully before he makes this woman his wife, and also makes sure that the soldier understands he will not be able to simply marry her and discard her. Once he marries her, he is responsible to treat her well.
TRANSITION
In life, it is important to balance emotions with justice. One might feel strong feelings of love and assume that this means that they will always act positively toward another person because they love them. But the Torah realizes that people’s emotions can sometimes change. Therefore, the Torah tells a story about a man who had two wives. The first wife, whom he disliked, gave birth to his firstborn son. The second wife, whom he loved, gave birth to his younger son. When it comes time to divide up his inheritance, can this man decide to only give his treasure and possessions to the son of the wife he likes better?
The answer is no. The rule is that the oldest son received the birthright, or double portion. It doesn’t matter whether the father likes his mother best; by the law, the son of the first wife is still entitled to his inheritance. This law overrides the emotions of the father.
We learn an important lesson from this. It is our responsibility to be fair to others even if we might not like them or be best friends with them.
TRANSITION
Moshe then reviews the laws of a Ben Sorer U’Moreh, the wayward son. In the Gemara there is an opinion that a son like this never actually existed. In the Torah, the son is rebellious. He doesn’t listen to his father or mother, both of whom rebuke him in the presence of witnesses. The son has to have done specific things wrong- he has stolen money from his father’s wallet, guzzled down a certain amount of wine and devoured a certain portion of meat. If he doesn’t meet all of these criteria, he is not a Ben Sorer U’Moreh. The Talmud further adds that he has to be a very specific age, between the ages of 13 and 13 and ¼.
The Torah states that if the son cannot be swayed from his destructive path, his parents can take him to the elders of the city and have him hanged. Rashi explains that the son is executed because of who he will eventually become. In the end, he will waste his father’s money, still want to guzzle down wine and devour meat, but not have the money to pay for it. Therefore, he will turn into an outlaw, standing at crossroads in order to find people, robbing and killing them in order to uphold his lifestyle. It is a mercy for this man to be killed before he turns fully rotten, when his sins are minor instead of major.
I think an important takeaway of this section, even if, as some rabbis believe, the Ben Sorer u’Moreh never actually occurred in real life, is that it teaches us that small sins and acts of rebellion can become worse sins if they are left unchecked. A person who is cruel and a bully when they are young may grow up to be a cruel and violent adult, for example, if we don’t impose consequences and punishments. It is essential that parents and court systems stop people and help them change direction before they go down a path of darkness.
TRANSITION
The Torah then teaches us something surprising. If a person commits a sin that results in their receiving the death penalty and being hanged, what happens next? You might think that the hanged body should simply stay up there for weeks or until the birds eat the flesh off its bones. But God forbids this. Instead, the body must be buried on the same day that it was hanged.
Rashi explains this in a beautiful way. He points out that human beings are made b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. He tells a story about identical twins. One was the king of the realm and the other was a thief. The one who was a thief was arrested for robbery and hanged. But when people saw him hanging there, they said, “The king is hanging!” This would be offensive to the king. Similarly, for human beings to hang and not be buried properly is an affront to God, whom we resemble. Even a man who receives the death penalty must be treated with dignity and buried after his death.
TRANSITION
Moshe then reminded Bnei Yisrael of the rules of hashavat aveida, returning lost property. He also taught that a man is not supposed to wear distinctively female clothing and a female is not supposed to wear distinctively male clothing. Each gender should wear their own clothes. One reason this is the case is so that people should not be able to disguise themselves and put themselves in spaces that belong to the other gender.
Moshe then taught about the mitzvah of Shiluach HaKan. If a mother bird is sitting on her nest of eggs, you are forbidden to simply remove the eggs from the nest. Instead, you must first chase away the mother bird. Only then may you take her eggs. The Torah says the reward for performing this mitzvah is having a long life.
When a person built a house in the times of the Israrelites, it typically had a flat roof. Moshe taught that a person was obligated to place a fence on the roof. That way, no one would fall from the roof and accidentally die.
Moshe also taught about certain forbidden blends and mixtures, called kilayim. For example, we are not permitted to plow the land with an ox or donkey together. We are also not allowed to wear shatnez, a mixture of wool and linen mixed together. The Torah does not give specific reasons for these prohibitions, though our rabbis offer possible explanations. One explanation as to why an ox and donkey can’t plow together is because an ox chews its cud, which means that after it swallows its food and it goes down to its stomach, the food comes back up to its mouth for more chewing. This might make the donkey jealous because he may believe that the ox has been given food while he has not even though what is actually happening is that the ox is chewing the same food again. When it comes to shatnez, one explanation offered harks back to the sacrifices that Kayin and Hevel brought. According to the Midash, Kayin brought flax, from which linen is derived, and Hevel brought a sheep, from which wool is derived. Since this was the root of the first murder, we remember it by not wearing these fabrics mixed together. The only person who is permitted to wear these fabrics mixed together is the Kohen Gadol, and we know that the first Kohen Gadol, Aharon, was a rodef shalom, someone who chased peace. Thus the Kohen Gadol’s garments signified an ideal world in which wool and linen could be mixed, but the rest of us have not achieved that world yet.
TRANSITION
We learn about a very important law in this week’s parsha. That is the law of divorce.
What is a divorce? Sometimes a man and a woman marry each other. They love each other and hope that they can lead a happy, healthy life together. But then it becomes clear that they will not be able to do this and therefore they decide they need to go their separate ways. The husband must divorce his wife, making clear that she is no longer his wife and thus is able to get remarried to someone else.
The Torah makes very clear that the man must write a document of divorce for his wife, called a sefer kritut, place it into her hand and send her away from his house. Additionally, once this woman marries someone else, she is no longer permitted to remarry her first husband.
The law of divorce is very important because it is how divorces occur today. A husband must write or hire a scribe, called a sofer, to write a document, called a get, for the woman he is married to but now wants to divorce. He has to actually place it into her hand. (There are some circumstances where he can give it to her by proxy, meaning someone else gives it to her on his behalf, but usually he is the one who must give it to her).
Sometimes people wonder why the man has to be the one to give the get to the woman and the woman cannot give the get to the man. It is because the Torah law makes clear this is not the way it can be done. It needs to be the man who writes and gives the divorce document to the woman.
TRANSITION
Once upon a time there were two brothers, Dan and Ned. Dan married a woman called Shoshana. Unfortunately, Dan was killed in battle before he and his wife were able to have any children.
What happens now?
The Torah explains that there is a law called Yibum. In Yibum, Dan’s brother, Ned, would marry Shoshana. Any children that the two of them would have would be considered as though they were Dan’s children. Perhaps they would even call a male child Dan! In this way, Ned’s widow would be taken care of and provided for and Dan would still have a legacy.
If there were more than one brother, the eldest brother would be the one to perform Yibum.
If, however, the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, the woman performs a process called Chalitzah. Chalutz means removal. The woman goes up to the elders who sit by the city gates and says, “My husband’s brother has refused to let his dead brother’s name live on in Israel.” And the living brother would have to stand up and clearly say he doesn’t want to marry the widow. The widow has to remove, performing Chalitzah, the living brother’s shoe from his foot, spit in his face and declare, “Thus shall be done to the brother who refuses to build up his brother’s household.”
Note that the same process occurs if the woman is the one who doesn’t want to marry the living brother.
In the time when the Torah was given, the widow would want to marry the living brother, both because he could provide her with security and because she wanted to have children.
What was the lesson of this story? That brothers should be close to one another and want to take care of each other. Obviously, they should care for each other in life, but this is a way of caring for a brother even in death. By performing this marriage, you are making sure that your brother’s widow is taken care of and provided for, and also ensuring your brother’s name and legacy won’t be forgotten. This is considered an act of chesed or kindness.
TRANSITION
So here’s what we learned this week!
It’s important to think before you act. A soldier should not simply marry a beautiful captive. He should think long and hard about whether he actually wants her as a wife. Once he takes her to be his wife, he is obligated to treat her well.
Emotions can change, but the law remains the same. That’s why it is important to follow the law even if emotions shift.
It’s important to reprimand one’s children in order to make sure their wrong choices don’t get worse and worse. Children who are never reprimanded are likely to simply become worse over time.
There are specific rules for Jewish divorce, where it is the man who must hand the bill of divorce to his wife, and not vice versa.
Siblings should care for each other and should want to help each other.
If you have any questions or comments on this week’s episode, please email me at parsha4kids@gmail.com. That’s parsha the number 4 kids at gmail.com. Good Shabbos