First came love, then came marriage

Usually, by the time we get to the end of a book or even chapter, we forget the beginning. This week’s Torah portion Ki Teitzei forces us to keep our eye on the ball with a theme that keeps cropping up throughout the text: the utility of marriage.

If you go out to war against your enemies, and G-d, your G-d, delivers him into your hands, and you take captives, and you see a beautiful woman among the captives, and you desire her and take her for yourself as a wife... [Deuteronomy 21:10-11]

So, here’s the scenario: The Jewish army is fighting an enemy far from home and during the successful war — G-d was invited to play a major role in those days — Pvt. Shlomi sees a woman he finds extremely attractive and asks, “Why not?”

There are a thousand reasons why this is a bad idea. The only opposing reason is that Shlomi is in love, or in lust. It’s why tens of thousands of American soldiers married German women after World War II. In our case, the Torah makes an exception: If you really want her, here is what you have to do. You must wait, shave her head, remove her red dress and give her washerwoman’s clothes, order her to grow her nails long and keep her indoors where she will weep day and night for her gentile past.

The Torah spoke merely as a concession to the evil inclination. For if the Holy One, blessed be He, would not allow her, he would marry her in a prohibited fashion. [Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:11]

What about love? Isn’t love all-consuming, unrestricted by borders, nationality, race, religion? Perhaps. But this is not about love. It’s about bringing in your enemy into the Jewish family. Before her nation was defeated by Israel, she was leading marches under the banner of “Free Palestine” and entertaining the troops mobilized to destroy Israel.

Is this going to be your Jewish wife?

Moses Ben Nachman, or the Ramban, goes further. He says the gentile woman must convert to Judaism — and if Shomi insists the ceremony will be forced upon her. The entire relationship will be based on force. Shlomi is the master; she is the captive. Not much chance of love coming out of that union.

And indeed, not. Chances are Shlomi has a Jewish wife back home and now the beautiful gentile comes in and the house turns into a snake pit. The two women hate each other. Their children hate each other, and the former captive’s children end up hating Judaism.

In Judaism, the family means peace, love and responsibility. A man can divorce his wife but never treat her shabbily. So, in Ki Teitzei the Torah raises the case of a man who marries, has second thoughts and decides the best way out is to defame his bride. Soon after the wedding night, he claims that she was not a virgin, the implication that she was an adulterer during the engagement.

The father comes to the town’s court and displays the wedding dress that is stained with vaginal blood. The new husband is proven to be a slanderer. He is whipped and is forced to dig deep in his pockets.

They must fine him 100 shekels of silver for having slandered a Jewish virgin, and he must give it to the girl’s father. She must be his wife; he may not divorce her as long as he lives. [Deuteronomy 22:19]

What kind of woman would want to stay with a man so disgusting that he would accuse her of a capital crime? But it makes sense: Love may have flown the coop, but the husband must never be allowed to renew his allegations against his bride. Being forced to stay with her until she decides otherwise is the best way to keep him straight. If he repents and decides to have a family, it will be clear that the children and their mother are legitimate.

Marriage is the only thing that distinguishes humans from animals. In the animal kingdom, there are no partners and no fathers. It’s as simple as what Paul McCartney wrote as he watched the monkeys in India nearly 60 years ago: “No one will be watching us. Why don’t we do it in the road?”

In Judaism, marriage is a gateway to family. Sex is a tool for procreation. Children are objects of love and education. Relationships are based on respect. And the Chosen People grow.

This leads us to the last scenario in our Torah portion. A man dies childless. He has no heir, nobody to carry his name. He will be forgotten. The Torah presents a solution called levirate marriage. The man’s brother, preferably the eldest, is urged to marry his sister-in-law. The children will bear the name of the deceased. The surviving brother will be compensated by receiving the estate of the dead man.

But the surviving brother refuses. He won’t marry the widow. Why? Maybe he doesn’t feel any love. Maybe the estate is too small to make the sacrifice. Maybe his wife won’t like it.

All this might be good reasons, but the Torah is not happy. The widow is told to confront his brother-in-law in front of the court. Everybody sees what will turn out to be ugly.

His brother’s wife must approach him in view of the elders and remove his shoe from his foot. She must spit in front of him and respond by saying, “Thus must be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s household!” [Deuteronomy 25:9]

Now, the surviving brother takes on a moniker, chanted by the crowd of onlookers: “He who has his shoe removed.” His decision cannot be reversed.

All three examples demonstrate the meaning of marriage in Judaism. Your wife is your partner to build a family not your playmate. Love might be transient, but it cannot be replaced by cruelty. And finally, your obligation to family might include helping your brother. He died childless, but he deserves a family as well.

In discussing the gentile captive taken by the Jewish soldier, Shlomo Yitzhaki, or Rashi, stresses that she must sit in her new home and weep for her parents for a full month. Not only will the soldier see the stream of tears, but also his wife. And now comes the dichotomy of the enemy our Pvt. Shlomi brought home and the one who waited for him to return from battle.

She must weep for her father. Why must she do all this? So that the captor’s Jewish wife be happy and this one sad; the Jewish wife will appear beautiful, and this one appear unsightly. [Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:13]