Our parasha this week includes a collection of ethical laws
regarding individuals, families, and neighbors, and how we are supposed to
treat each other. There are also laws on treatment of animals. Dignity is the
pervasive theme; although, we may not agree that all of these laws truly
preserve human dignity in the ways we would want.
Here are some examples of laws in this parasha:
- What to do when you take a woman captive during war and you want to marry her – let her grieve, then you can marry her. If you don’t want her after a while, you can’t sell her as a slave but must release her.
- What to do with a defiant son – if his parents have put in a good faith effort as changing his ways and he resists, they bring him to the elders, and the community stones him to death.
- Do not ignore your fellow’s stray animal. Return it to him, or if you don’t know to whom it belongs, take care of it until the owner comes to claim it.
- Don’t muzzle an ox who is threshing a field of grain.
- You can take grapes off the vine or ears of corn from a field that you are walking through, but only what you can carry and eat immediately.
- Laws regarding a man who doesn’t like his wife anymore and accuses her of not having been a virgin when they married.
- Laws regarding the rape of an engaged woman if the rape occurs in a town or an open field. Laws regarding the rape of a virgin woman who is not engaged.
- Laws regarding leaving produce in the field for the stranger, widow and orphan.
On this parasha, the medieval commentator Nachmanides
explores the question of the purpose of doing the mitzvoth. Does our observance
of the commandments serve God in any way that actually benefits the Holy One?
Are the commandments meant to bring us some kind of reward? Do the mitzvoth change
us? Are they here to cultivate certain qualities in ourselves, or are they only
important as a way to show our devotion to God?
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