Ki Tetze has more mitzvot than any other portion in the Torah - 74 of the 613. That is around 12%. Consider that there are 54 portions in the Torah, so if you were going to divide you would expect only 11 mitzvot per portion. That gives you an idea of the sui generis quality of Ki Tetze.
- For our discussion: how do you understand the several cases of capital punishment we find in this week's portion? Why are they here? And most important, what are the limitations saying about the relationship of God with human beings?
(א) כי קללת אלהים תלוי. זלזולו של מלך הוא, שאדם עשוי בדמות דיקנו וישראל הם בניו משל לשני אחים תאומים שהיו דומין זה לזה, אחד נעשה מלך, ואחד נתפס ללסטיות ונתלה, כל הרואה אותו אומר המלך תלוי.
23 For he that is hanged is a reproach unto God. That is, a degradation of the [Divine] King, for the ADAM was made in the likeness (d'mut) of Gd, and Israel is among his children. A parable: There were twin brothers who were very alike one to the other; one became king, the other was arrested as a highway robber and hanged. Everyone who saw him said--the king has been hanged.
A tannaitic tradition: Rabbi Meir told a parable--to what can we compare this issue? To two twin brothers in one city: one was appointed king; the other went out to be a highway robber. The king commanded [concerning his brother] and he was hanged. Everyone who saw him said: "The King has been hanged!" The king commanded [concerning his brother] and he was taken down.
(1) This is the book of the generations of ADAM. In the day that God created ADAM, in the likeness of God made He him; (2) male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name ADAM, in the day when they were created.
(ה) אמר רבי מאיר, בזמן שאדם מצטער, שכינה מה הלשון אומרת. כביכול קלני מראשי, קלני מזרועי. אם כן המקום מצטער על דמם שלרשעים שנשפך, קל וחמר על דמן שלצדיקים. ולא זו בלבד, אלא כל המלין את מתו עובר בלא תעשה. הלינו לכבודו, להביא לו ארון ותכריכים, אינו עובר עליו. ולא היו קוברין אותו בקברות אבותיו, אלא שני בתי קברות היו מתקנין לבית דין, אחד לנהרגין ולנחנקין ואחד לנסקלין ולנשרפין.
From “What Orthodoxy Can Gain from Academic Biblical Studies: The Torah as
Political Theory,” by Joshua Berman
In ways that were astonishingly new and counter-intuitive, in ways that served the purposes of no known interest group, the political philosophy of the Torah may be seen to rise like a phoenix out of the intellectual landscape of the ancient Near East. Throughout the ancient world the truth was self-evident: all men were not created equal. It is in the five books of the Torah that we find the birthplaceof egalitarian thought. When seen against the backdrop of ancient norms, the social blueprint found in the Torah represents a series of quantum leaps in a sophisticated and interconnected matrix of theology, politics and economics…The theological breakthrough of the Hebrew Torah is the transformation of the status and standing of the masses, of the common person, to a new height, and the elimination of nobles, royalty, and the like.
In the Torah, the common man received an upgrade from king’s servant to servant king.
The Unanimous Declaration of 13 United States of America, July 4, 1776
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Rabbi Yehuda Brandes, "Judaism and Human Rights: The Dialectic Betwen 'Image of God' and 'Holy Nation'"
What is the relationship between Judaism and modern discourse on human rights? The short answer to this question is that the humanistic and liberal values that underlie modern human rights discourse are not foreign to Judaism. Quite the contrary: they exist within it and emanate from it, in the Bible, halakhic literature, and modern religious philosophy.
The book of Genesis, especially the story of the Creation, is the wellspring of fundamental human principles. The creation of human beings in the image of God serves as the starting point from which primary values are derived. These include human life, human dignity, property, equality and freedom, and the family. Many precepts originate from these fundamental values. The value of life, first mentioned in the Bible in the verse “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen. 9:6), leads to injunctions such as “You shall not murder” (Exod. 20:13) and “Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is threatened” (Lev. 19:16).
The values of equality and freedom stem not only from the fact that all human beings were created in the divine image but also from the fact that they are all descendants of Adam and Eve; the corollaries of these values include the laws of labor relations, which mandated fair and equal treatment of workers by employers even in societies that practiced slavery, and are all the more applicable in our own day and age.
The universal dimension of the Torah is found in the book of Genesis, which contains ethics that were given to all human beings descended from Adam and Noah. This constitutes the ground floor, the basic values of the Torah and Judaism, parallel to the modern system of human rights and hardly different from it in any essential way. The next level, designated “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6), represents the dimension of the selection of Israel to bear a special divine mission.
Before the Israelites received the Torah at Sinai, we learn that the purpose of this gift was to make them into “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
The concept of a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” obligates the Jewish people to observe an additional and much broader set of precepts than the basic and universal code constituted by the “Seven Noahide Commandments”; even though this code actually encompasses much more than seven precepts, the Torah imposes on the Jewish people an extremely comprehensive canon of statutes that are not incumbent on other nations.
The two tracks are presented not as merging but as colliding—the track of the “image of God,” which is the basis of human rights, and the track of “a kingdom of priests and holy nation,” which constrains and limits universal human values.
How do the Torah and Halakhah deal with the tension between these two tracks or two opposing systems for living? The fundamental axiom is that we are not dealing with tension and contradiction between the Torah and some external and alien culture, but with an internal tension that stems from the existence of two principles that coexist within the Torah itself. Dealing with and resolving these two opposing poles is the very soul of talmudic thought. It is based on the notion that “both these and those are the words of the living God” (BT Eruvin 13b): both of these contradictory positions are valid and true, and no final and absolute decision can be rendered in favor of one or the other.
Rabbi Israel Salanter (1809-1883), father of the Musar movement.
Once, Rabbi Salanter visited a new matzah bakery in order to check its work practices and level of kashrut. He reviewed all the manufacturing procedures extensively and observed the intense labor and toil of the employees. At the end of Rabbi Salanter’s visit, the bakery owner proudly asked him, “What does the rabbi say?” He answered, “The Gentiles accuse us, G-d forbid, of using the blood of Christian children in matzah. While this is not the case, from what I have seen here, there is indeed a violation of the prohibition on blood in food. The blood of the workers is mixed with the matzah! I will not certify this bakery as kosher.”
In another case, Rabbi Salanter was asked what demands particular attention when baking matzah. He answered: “One must be scrupulous not to yell at the woman kneading the dough.”
He was also quoted as saying, “It is prohibited to enhance your mitzvot at the expense of others.” One day Rabbi Salanter was hosted by a rich man. When he performed the ritual hand-washing before the meal, he used a sparing amount of water. He was asked, “Doesn’t the Torah say it is praiseworthy to wash with a lot of water?” He answered, “I can only do that in my own home. Here, however, I must consider the needs of the servant who must carry the buckets of water.”
When attending large dinners, Rabbi Salanter also hurried to finish eating quickly in consideration of the waiters and other workers, who had to wait until the end of the meal to go home. “Justice, justice you shall pursue in order that you may live in and inherit the land.”