Ki Teitzei - A Pretty Captive
In the beginning of our parsha we find a heter (permission) for Jewish soldiers, that if, during war, they see a beautiful woman (eishet yefat toar) amongst the captives and desire her, it is permissible to marry her (under certain, strict conditions). The Torah could just as easily have forbidden marriage to such a woman. The Torah only forbids something we are capable of complying with. The Mefarshim say that the only reason the Torah permits this case is because this is a temptation that is impossible to withstand and if the Torah had not permitted it, many would have transgressed.
Despite the heter, the Torah advises against it and the subsequent paragraphs about the “hated wife” and the “rebellious son,” clearly spell out what we can expect if we go ahead with such a reckless endeavor.
R’ Tzadok HaKohen from Lublin says that if you want to understand something you need to examine its root – the first time it is mentioned in the Torah. The question is, “Do we have a case of eishet yefat toar in the Torah, prior to its mention in this week’s parsha?”
We know the Matriarchs were beautiful women. Just before Avraham goes down to Egypt, he says to Sarah (Bereishit 12:1) “I now know that you are a lovely woman (yefat mar’eh)”. When Eliezer encounters Rivka for the first time the Torah says (Bereishit 24:16) “And the maiden was very lovely (tovat mar’eh)”. In describing Rachel, the Torah says (Bereishit 29:17) “And Rachel was beautiful (yefat toar) and lovely (yefat mar’eh).
The Torah says about Sarah and Rivka that they were lovely (yefat mar’eh) but that Rachel, in addition to being lovely, was also beautiful (yefat toar). So, the only one of the Matriarchs that exactly matches the description of eishet yefat toar is Rachel. If one examines the story of Rachel and Leah and the episode of the eishet yefat toar in this week’s parsha, there are many similarities, including which son Yaakov favored as the true firstborn, Yosef over Reuven.
However, the first case in the Torah of an eishet yefat toar was long before the Matriarchs.
Sefer Meir Panim brings the principle that the origin the sin of Adam HaRishon was his tardiness in performing the first mitzvah he was commanded to by HaKadosh Baruch Hu – to procreate (only after he and Chava were expelled from Gan Eden does it say that Adam had relations with Chava – Bereishit 4:1). Chava, frustrated by her husband’s lack of diligence, decided to take matters in her own hands and speed things up by giving Adam wine to drink, to put him in the right mood.
She thus invited the yetzer hara in, who duped her into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Chava’s intentions were pure – she recognized the delay in performing HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s commandment of procreation and tried to facilitate it. However, by eating from Tree of Knowledge it turned into a “mitzvah that resulted from a sin” (mitzvah haba be’aveirah).
Chava, who had now sinned, became mortal. Chazal tell us that out of jealousy and fear that Adam, who so far had not sinned and was still immortal, would divorce her and remarry another woman, Chava caused Adam to sin as well, making them both mortals.
This is the critical point in the episode that we need to analyze.
We said before that the Matriarchs were all beautiful (even Leah, although the Torah does not spell it out, she had an inner beauty). Chava too was beautiful. The Gemara (Berachot 61a) describes the chuppah of Adam and Chava, relating that HaKadosh Baruch Hu braided Chava’s hair to endear her to her husband. Braiding, gathering up and minimizing the exposure of a married woman’s hair is a sign of modesty. This is one of the reasons why we braid the challahs on Shabbat.
Adam was just waking up with a hangover from drinking too much wine, perhaps still a little tipsy. Chava, who realized she had sinned, was now planning her next move – which was to get Adam to also eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
This encounter between Adam and Chava after she sinned (even though Adam did not yet realize it), was tantamount to waging war. Ki Teitzei LaMilchama Al Oyvecha – the word Teitzei (singular), referring to one person (Adam) going out to war against his enemies, oyvecha (plural), the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara is referred to in the plural because, according to Chazal (Sukkah 52a), he has seven different names – Ra, Arel, Tamei, Sonei, Michshol, Even, Tzfoni.
Adam now sees Chava in a different light than before. Firstly, her status has changed – she is now a captive of the yetzer hara. Secondly, Chava is now pulling out all the stops to appeal to and entice Adam, she is now an Eshet Yefat Toar. She appears to Adam with her hair unbraided/uncovered. She is now devoid of her Heavenly attire (Tziporen) and all that covers her are fig leaves.
Just as an eishet yefat toar in our parsha dresses in her “fanciest dress” and bares her hair to attract the attention of her captors, with the intent of escaping a lifetime of servitude, so too did Chava pull out all the stops to entice Adam.
The reason that the Heter of an eishet yefat toar exists in the first place is only because this is something no human being can resist and the Torah only forbids things that we can comply with. No human can comply with a prohibition of eishet yefat toar, even someone of the magnitude of Adam HaRishon before the sin.
The aftermath of this debacle was that Adam hated Chava (he separated from her for 130 years) and hist firstborn son Kayin was rebellious and killed Hevel. This was the prototype in the Torah for the episode in our parsha.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: What other mitzvah in the Torah (beside Shiluach HaKen in this week’s parsha) is rewarded with long life?Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Question: What “accessory” was a king required to have in close proximity at all times? A sefer Torah that he had written himself.
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