Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19

A Common Thread

This week’s reading is full of commandments, more than any other reading in the annual cycle. They cover all sorts of things that can arise in daily life, governing relations between husbands and wives, parents and children, buyers and sellers, and so forth. Despite this great variety, however, there does seem to be an underlying principle in many of them—one that, precisely because of the great number of different topics, is easily overlooked. But it’s there. Consider the following list of some of the commandments included in this week’s reading:

1.     To protect the rights of a less-favored wife in a polygamous marriage

2.     Not to display overnight the corpse of an executed man

3.     To care for and return a neighbor’s lost animal

4.     To help a neighbor whose ox or donkey has fallen under its burden

5.     To release a captured mother bird

6.     To give asylum to a runaway slave and not to return him to his master

7.     Not to charge interest on a loan to a fellow Israelite

8.     To allow [the poor] to eat from someone’s vineyard, so long as the eater does not put the grapes in a container to take with him

9.     To allow [the poor] to pluck ears of grain from someone’s field, so long as no scythe is used

10.  To defer a newly married man from military service

11.  Not to seize a borrower’s a hand-mill or an upper millstone as repayment of a loan

12.  Not to enter a borrower’s house to seize a pledged item

13.  Not to delay a dayworker’s wages overnight

14.  Not to disadvantage the stranger or the orphan in court

15.  Not to take a widow’s clothing as repayment of a loan

16.  Not to retrieve a sheaf forgotten in one’s field, but to leave it for the stranger, the orphan, or the widow

17.  After beating one’s olive trees once for the fruit, not to go over them again, but to leave the remainders for the stranger, the orphan, or the widow.

18.  The same goes for the remaining grapes in one’s vineyard—the second pick is to be left for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.

19.  If someone is sentenced to be flogged, not to have him beaten more than 39 strokes.

20.  Not to muzzle an ox while it is grinding grain.

21.  To perform levirate marriage and thereby safeguard the rights of a deceased brother and his widow.

22.  Not to defraud some customers by keeping two sets of weights or containers.

I’m sure most readers will get the point of this list. The common thread joining all of these is that precious quality called in biblical Hebrew raḥamim, “mercy.”*  In so many of these situations, the person who has the upper hand is called to act mercifully toward the weaker party or the powerless.

Of course, this is a somewhat biased listing—there are other commandments in this week’s reading that have little to do with mercy. I’ve also refrained from listing above things that in today’s society might even be seen as altogether unmerciful, for example, two commandments at the start of this week’s reading, governing:

23.  Steps to be followed before marrying a woman captured in battle

24.  The punishment of a rebellious and defiant son

It should simply be noted that specifying a procedure often has the effect of forcing an otherwise unrestrained person to submit to the law and consider his or her actions. That seems to have been the case not only for a man who seized a woman captured in battle, but as well for the parents of a rebellious son. In the latter case, one should also take seriously what is said at the end of this law, “Let all Israel hear and be fearful”—“all” includes not only the rebellious son but his parents as well. Indeed, there were sufficient restrictions suggested in this particular case to lead the rabbis of the Tosefta and the Talmud to assert: “There never was such a case and never will be one.”

If raḥamim is indeed, the theme of much of this week’s reading, then its occurrence during the month of Elul, which leads up to Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, is altogether felicitous. During this month, when we are advised to “ask of God when He is close by,” He might well answer (as He is said elsewhere to answer): “Be merciful as I am merciful.”

Shabbat shalom!

* Not, by the way, “pity,” as this word has come to mean in modern Hebrew. There’s a difference!