Comentário sobre Deuteronômio 22:13

ובא אליה ושנאה [IF ANY MAN TAKE A WIFE] AND COME UNTO HER AND HATE HER, the end will be,

IF ANY MAN ‘YIKACH’ (TAKE) A WIFE, AND COME UNTO HER. The meaning thereof is as follows: When a man will take a wife through the means sanctioned by the Torah which is betrothal with money — this being “the betrothed” he [Moses] mentions [further in Verse 23] — and after some time he came unto her, and hate her because she was not pleasant to him in conjugal relation, and so he arose early in the morning and came before the court claiming that he did not find her to be a virgin. Now this person intends to divorce her without the dowry of virgins,¹⁹¹Exodus 22:16. which is the kethubah (marriage contract) that he wrote her. And because she became betrothed to him under the presumption of virginity, he accuses her of having committed adultery after her betrothal to him. Therefore Scripture states, But if this thing be true¹⁹²Further, Verse 20. as the husband said, they shall stone her.¹⁹³Ibid., Verse 21. The truth cannot be known except by the testimony of two witnesses. And because, concerning the illicit relations of virgins, Scripture will clarify¹⁹⁴Ibid., Verses 23-24; 28-29. that if she were betrothed she is stoned, and if she were not betrothed she is absolved from punishment, it was unnecessary to explain here “But if this thing be true that she was unchaste while betrothed, and [what is more] she so acted willingly [with anyone other than her lawful spouse] they shall stone her.” And instead it says by allusion because she has done a base deed in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house,¹⁹³Ibid., Verse 21. the base deed being that she did so voluntarily.

כי יקח איש אשה, after the Torah has dealt with matters concerning the settling of the people in the Land of Israel, it turns to instructions designed to ensure that the Shechinah, benevolent Divine presence, will maintain its beneficial presence there. One of the most important elements in ensuring this is the avoidance of forbidden mating and the offspring of such couplings. The Torah therefore addresses both forbidden incestuous relations amongst Jewish partners, and intermarriage or living together of Jews and Non-Jews without the benefit of “marriage,” something which is anyway legally impossible. All of this belongs to the headingוהיה מחניך קדוש ולא יראה בך ערות דבר ושב מאחריך, “your encampment shall be holy. Let nothing unseemly be found among you so that He would turn away from you.” (23,15)

כי יקח איש אשה, "when a man takes a wife, etc." The Torah addresses average people even those who have forsaken the path of Torah because they claim that their time is too short and they are so preoccupied with earning a subsistence that they cannot observe all the Torah's restrictions. The words כי יקח איש אשה may be translated as "when a man decides to betroth himself to Torah (which is supposed to be his life's companion)," ובא אליה, "and he consummates this relationship," i.e. a relationship which had been initiated at the time all the Jewish souls stood at Mount Sinai when G'd revealed Himself and they received the Ten Commandments, and now ושנאה, he hates the path of Torah, and he does not want to grant her the things which are due to his "wife" as a matter of right as spelled out in Exodus chapter 21. When his "wife" remonstrates with him asking why she does not receive her due, her "husband" claims that she has not provided him with what he considers the obligation of any wife to her husband, i.e. food and drink. He also claims that he does not observe that his devotion to Torah has paid any dividends such as his economic situation improving. In fact he claims that when he looks around at all his friends who have not adopted the path of Torah they all seem to be better off than he. This is what the Torah alludes to by the sentence ושם לה עלילת דברים והוציא עליה שם רע ואמר את האשה הזאת לקחתי, "and he accuses her and gives her a bad name saying I have married this woman, etc." He does not deny having "married" the woman, i.e. having made a commitment to Torah. The "husband" claims "when I came near to her I did not find her hymen," i.e. a symbol of strength. He claims that people who relied on Torah were compelled to look elsewhere to find sustenance.

כי יקח איש אשה, “When a man marries a wife, etc.” According to Nachmanides the expression כי יקח here does not refer to the final stage of the wedding, but the initial stage, the betrothal, such a when the man hands the woman a piece of jewelry or other trinket and she accepts it as a promise of marriage. Consummation of the marriage was usually delayed by 12 months. When that has occurred, the groom claims that she had not been a virgin at that point. He intends to cause her loss of her life as he claims that at the time of her betrothal she had still been a virgin, becomes guilty of death by stoning, for if she had lost her virginity prior to becoming betrothed she would not be culpable at all. The Torah here hints strongly how it disapproves of a girl losing her virginity voluntarily before her betrothal by writing (verse 21) כי עשתה נבלה בישראל לזנות בית אביה “that (at any rate, even if completely unattached) it would be an outrage if she demeaned herself while still in the home of her parents.” In Biblical usage, a girl, woman who was unattached at the time when she engaged in sexual intercourse is not considered a זונה, harlot.

He will ultimately. . . Rashi is answering: Why does it say, “And he has relations with her and hates her”? It should have written, “If a man marries a woman, and berates her with calumnies etc.”! He explains, this is to teach you that because he hates her, he will ultimately berate her with etc.

V. 13. כי יקח איש אשה. Die vorangehende Gesetzesgruppe (Verse 5 — 12) hat den einen Gedanken zum Inhalt, die hohe Bedeutsamkeit und die Grundbedingungen der Wirksamkeit beider Geschlechter für die gemeinsame zwischen Mann und Frau geteilte Aufgabe des Menschenhauses ihnen und allen stets zum Bewusstsein zu bringen, und steht in ihnen die hochheilige Bedeutsamkeit des weiblichen Geschlechtes voran. Diese mehr typischen Gesetze bilden die Einleitung zu den nun folgenden Gesetzesgruppen, welche den konkreten Aufbau des Hauses und der Gesellschaft auf den in jenen einleitenden Gesetzen zum Ausdruck kommenden Grundlagen zum Gegenstand haben, und steht auch in ihnen wieder das weibliche Geschlecht in seiner Bedeutsamkeit voran.

כי יקח איש אשה, “When a man marries a woman, etc.” seeing that the Torah had dealt with man’s basic preoccupations previously, i.e. building a house, planting and harvesting a field, and the rules governing his clothing, it is appropriate to add some aspects of marriage and its restrictions at this point.

The Torah replies that the wife's father, i.e. G'd, and the community of Israel, will defend her virtue before the Supreme Court. ולקח אבי הנערה ואמה, "the father and mother will display the בתולים, of the "maiden" (wife), i.e. proof that loyalty to Torah results in spectacular achievements by its adherents. The Torah adds that this defence of the Torah's reputation will be public, i.e. השערה, "in the town square." This is an allusion to what the Zohar volume 3 page 80 writes that in the future G'd will demand that the Torah will be compensated for all the insults it had endured for so long. This is also mentioned indirectly in Avot 6,2 where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that day after day a heavenly voice goes forth from Mount Chorev proclaiming: "Woe to mankind for their disregard of Torah." In our paragraph G'd is described as demanding the compensation for the insults endured by the Torah throughout the ages at the hands of those who have rejected it and sold it short, something the author in Avot spoke about.

The expression to play the harlot signifies when a wife being under husband, goeth aside,¹⁹⁵Numbers 5:29. for an unbetrothed maiden is not termed “a harlot” if she lies with one of the people, but the betrothed one is espoused to him [her future husband and therefore she is termed “a harlot” if she commits adultery with another man].

Wir haben schon zu Schmot Kap. 21, 7 die drei Altersstadien: נערה ,קטנה, בוגרת bemerkt, in welchen ein weibliches Wesen seiner geschlechtlichen Reife entgegengeht. Von diesen ist נערה das Antrittsstadium der Reife, die aber erst mit בוגרת sich zur Selbständigkeit vollendet. Wir haben ebenso (daselbst Kap. 22, 16 und Wajikra Kap. 22. 11) bereits angedeutet, wie die jüdische Eheinstitution sich durch zwei getrennte Akte: קידושין( אירוסין) und נשואין (siehe Kap. 24, 1) vollzieht. קידושין( אירוסין) bildet die Basis der jüdischen Ehe. Durch sie wird die persönliche Aneignung der Frau vollzogen. Obgleich die geschlechtliche Annäherung noch nicht gestattet ist und die ארוסה als solche noch nicht dem Hause des Mannes angehört, so ist doch das persönliche Eheband geschlossen und die geschlechtliche Annäherung eines anderen Mannes: Ehebruch (vergl. die Verwandtschaft mit ערם (Bamidbar 15, 20). Es blickt das jüdische Gesetz mit dem Ernst einer ganz besonderen Rücksicht auf גערות, auf jenes erste Stadium der jungfräulichen Geschlechtsreife, und ebenso mit dem Ernst einer ganz besonderen Rücksicht auf אירוסין, auf jenen ersten Stand des erst mit rein persönlicher Aneignung geknüpften Ehebandes, einen Stand, in dessen Heilighaltung sich eben die Heiligkeit und Unverbrüchlichkeit des ja nur rein geistig sittlichen Willensaktes offenbart, auf welchem das ganze Institut der Ehe beruht, der ja überhaupt die Ehe zur Ehe macht. Daher kennt das Gesetz kein geschlechtlich höheres weibliches Wesen als נערה בתולה מאורשה לאיש, als eine schon und noch im ersten Stadium der Geschlechtsreife stehende, einem Manne erst durch den Akt persönlicher Aneignung verbundene Jungfrau, und mit dem Problem eines Frevels des Mannes eines solchen jungfräulichen Wesens gegen dessen jungfräuliche Unbescholtenheit beginnt die hier nun folgende Gesetzesgruppe, uns daran die Wahrheit zu veranschaulichen: es hat die Nation keinen höheren Schatz, als die jungfräuliche Reinheit ihrer Töchter; es hat das Haus keinen höheren Stolz, als die jungfräuliche Reinheit seiner Kinder; in der Unschuld der Jungfrau wird die Ehre des Hauses angetastet, das sie erzogen, sowie der Nation, deren Namen sie trägt. —

ובא אליה ושנאה, “and after having had marital relations with her he hates her;” this translation is inaccurate: the Torah means that he had hated her already previously.

G'd is described as the father of the virgin-bride who has been subjected to unjust accusations, her groom denying her virginity at the time of marriage. The father of the bride, i.e. G'd, says: "I have given My daughter to this man." This means that "I have not given her to him in order that he should abuse her in some out of the way corner of the house, but in order for him to bestow upon her all the rights a wife is entitled to, including her entitlement to physical sustenance, clothing and intimacy." According to Tikkuney Zohar section 6 the Torah is entitled to the same considerations as the physical wife of a husband. The Torah is in need of the same three rights by her partner the Israelite as those the husband has to bestow on his physical wife. וישנאה, "and he hates her." Here the Torah explains that the immediate reason for the estrangement between Israel and Torah, i.e. husband and wife, is an emotion called hatred. The Torah also hints at the underlying reason, i. e. the apparent failure of the Torah to live up to the Israelite's expectations. והנה הוא שם עלילת דברים, "Now, behold, he made a wanton accusation against her;" the reason the Torah underlines the (apparently superfluous ) words והנה הוא, "and behold he," is to alert us that the accusation is unwarranted, is false. It is only due to his hatred of her that the husband made such an accusation. ואלה בתולי בתי, "and here are the signs of my daughter's virginity." This is hyperbole for describing something as clear as daylight. Just as one can prove that a bride was a virgin at her wedding by looking at the sheet on which the marriage was consummated, so the fact that Torah did not disappoint in what one could expect of her can be demonstrated beyond doubt. It had been created prior to the universe, which itself was only created for its sake and which continues to exist only on its account. Any good which is available and which is dispensed in this universe is only acquired through Torah either directly or indirectly.

כי יקח ist der oben erwähnte קידושין-Akt.

The Torah continues that the judgment for the Israelite who accused Torah unjustly of having failed him will be pronounced by the court. In the first instance he will receive 39 lashes. The Talmud in Berachot 5 stated that when a man has been subjected to afflictions he should examine his life-style in order to discover which sins he is guilty of. If he cannot find a specific sin that he was guilty of he should attribute his afflictions to his having neglected Torah study. Most commentators find this difficult to understand, claiming that inasmuch as neglect of Torah study is a grave sin, how can the Talmud consider this as a "sin of last resort," i.e. something to fall back on only if one cannot find onself guilty of any other sin? The answer is that the commandment of Torah study and its fulfilment is not one of the commandments that can be measured. Even a person who has studied a relatively great amount of Torah and has devoted many hours to it on a daily basis cannot be sure that he has fulfilled this commandment adequately. If one is stricken with afflictions and knows of no other sin one is guilty of, it is in order therefore to examine how much time one has wasted, time which could have been put to better use studying Torah.

וענשו אתו מאה כסף, "And they shall fine him one hundred shekalim." This is an allusion to the one hundred benedictions each one of us is meant to recite every day as explained in Menachot 43, based on Deut. 10,12: "and now what, מה, does the Lord G'd ask of you, etc." The Talmud interpreted the word מה as equivalent to מאה, i.e. G'd asks that we recite one hundred benedictions. That verse spoke about a penitent as we know from Bereshit Rabbah 21 that the word ועתה or עתה always refers to a penitent sinner.

ונתנו לאבי הנערה, "and the elders shall give (these 100 benedictions) to the Father of the virgin-bride, i.e. to G'd, etc., because he (the Israelite) has slandered the virgin-bride of Israel." This is a reference to the שכינה, the Divine Presence, which includes all of Israel, the tenth emanation [popularly known as כתר. Ed.] or virtue, called the oral Torah, a concept familiar to students of the Kabbalah.

ולו תהיה לאשה, "and she shall be his wife, and he must not divorce her as long as he lives." Although the commandment to study Torah is normally understood to involve setting aside certain parts of the day and night for study, a person who has rejected Torah study previously and who has thereby slighted the Torah must henceforth occupy himself with honouring the Torah all day and all night, i.e. "he cannot send her away as long as he lives." Vayikra Rabbah 25,1 states that if a person was in the habit of studying Torah for an hour daily before committing a sin, then part of his rehabilitation is to study two hours daily. This is applicable to people whose sins did not consist of insulting the Torah. In order to make up for the insult to Torah which the person in our paragraph is guilty of he has to henceforth devote himself exclusively to Torah.

ואם אמת הדבר, "But if the matter was true, etc." If it turns out that the Torah which this person studied and which he examined and found defective, was taught by heretics, such as the Torah taught by Tzadok and Bayssus, such Torah does not give man strength but exerts a negative influence on him. G'd commands to stone such a "Torah" to death until it is completely dead, as per our verse. Whereas the teachers of this kind of Torah employed words spoken by G'd, i.e. the text of the Torah, the intention of the teacher teaching it disqualifies it. We have been taught in Gittin 48 that if a heretic painstakingly writes an entire Torah scroll it must be burned forthwith, as he did something despicable, etc. When the Torah concludes our paragraph with the words: "you shall wipe out evil from your midst," it refers to someone who deliberately distorts the meaning of the Torah.