“When you go out to the battle to meet your enemy…the officers shall speak to the people, saying: ‘Who is the man who has built a new house and not inaugurated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man will inaugurate it. Who is the man who has planted a vineyard and not redeemed it? Let him go…lest he die in the war and another man redeem it. Who is the man who had betrothed a woman and not taken her to be his wife? Let him go…lest he die in the war another man take her….’ ” (20:1-8)

Rabbi Yehuda Samet, based on the Abravanel, explains: A dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Chance of coming back alive? Not more than 50/50. Who do you send? The single men, of course. If they die it will be a tragedy for their loved ones, but at least there will be no grief-stricken widows and orphans. So says conventional wisdom. In this week’s Parsha the Torah writes “Who is the man who betrothed a woman and not taken her to be his wife? Let him go…lest he die in the war and another man take her….”

This means that an engaged man is exempt from the war but married men with children are sent out to battle. Another categories of military exemption is as follows: “Who is the man who has built a new house and not inaugurated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man will inaugurate it.”Rashi says that the reason is that he will be distressed that someone else will inaugurate it. Does a person really care if someone else inaugurates a house that he never lived in? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about someone who already has a house? Shouldn’t we be concerned about the anguish he’ll feel when he thinks that someone else will take it over? Similarly regarding a spouse – isn’t a person more likely to suffer distress at losing the wife that he already knows and loves rather than losing his fiancee with whom he hasn’t yet bonded deeply?

The Torah is concerned here with the spiritual angst that we feel when we have started a mitzvah and we fear that we won’t be able to complete it. When our soul sees a spiritual project about to be cut off in its prime, we experience great loss and sadness. The three scenarios in the above verse each represent a spiritual project in progress: When we build a house, our soul knows that when we finish the building we will be able to do the mitzvah of making a parapet around the roof. In the time of the Holy Temple, when we planted a vineyard, the soul longed for the fourth year when there would be the opportunity to bring up the produce to Jerusalem and eat it there in holiness and joy. When we get engaged to someone, our soul yearns to fulfill the commandment to be fruitful, to multiply and bring children into the world. The Torah, here, is expressing the longing of the soul. Not the longing of the body.

“When you go out to battle against your enemy and you see horse and chariot Let not your hearts be faint; do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not be broken before them. For Hashem, your G-d is the One who goes with you, to fight for you with your enemies, to save you.”(20:1-4)

The Torah give four warnings here: Let not your hearts be faint; do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not be broken before them. Rashi comments that these four warnings correspond to four strategies that the kings of the nations use in battle:Let not your hearts be faint – from the sound of the stamping of horses hooves and their neighing. Do not be afraid – of the sound of shields being banged together. Do not panic – from the sound of horn blasts. And do not be broken before them – from the sound of their shouting. All of these fears are based on sound. The power of sound is that it draws from the world of imagination, intimation. It lacks the immediacy of sight but therein lies its power.

Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair explains: Sight is unambiguous. When the Jewish People were sinning with the golden calf, G-d told Moshe to go down and see what was happening in the camp. Wouldnt Moshe have believed G-d if He had told him what was happening? If you cant believe the Almighty, who can you believe? And yet G-d wanted Moshe to see with his own eyes what was going on. Because you can’t compare hearing to seeing. The very ambiguity of sound is what makes it so frightening.

Prepared by Devorah Abenheim

Share This