Summary of the Parasha

“When you go out to war” (Ki Teitzei). This parasha alone contains 74 mitzvot, more than any other. The Or HaChaim (Rabbi Chaim ben Attar of Salé, Morocco) reads this opening verse as the soul’s inner war against the evil inclination.

It begins with the captive woman (yefat to’ar), then the birthright, which cannot be taken from the son of the less-loved wife, the wayward and rebellious son (ben sorer umoreh), and the burial on the same day of one who was executed. Next come returning lost objects (“you may not turn away”), helping raise a fallen donkey or ox, the prohibition of wearing the other sex’s clothing, shiluach haken (sending away the mother bird before taking the young, with the promise of long life), the fence on the roof (ma’akeh), forbidden mixtures (kilayim in a vineyard, plowing with an ox and a donkey together, sha’atnez), and tzitzit on the four corners of a garment.

Then laws of marriage and reputation: the husband who slanders his wife, adultery, forbidden unions. Who may enter the congregation: the mamzer, the Ammonite and Moabite (“because they did not meet you with bread and water”), and the Edomite and Egyptian in the third generation, “for you were a stranger in his land”. The purity of the camp; the runaway slave who is not handed back to his master; the prohibition of prostitution; lending without interest to your brother; keeping vows; the worker who may eat in the field where he works.

Divorce and the get; the newlywed exempt from the army for a year to “make his wife happy”; the prohibition of taking a millstone as a pledge; kidnapping; tzara’at (“remember what God did to Miriam”); respecting the borrower’s dignity (“you shall stand outside”); paying wages the same day; each is punished for his own sin; justice for the stranger, the orphan and the widow; gleanings, the forgotten sheaf and what remains on olive trees and vines, for them. Lashes limited to 40 (39 in practice); “do not muzzle the ox while it threshes”; levirate marriage (yibum) and chalitzah; honest weights and measures. And finally: “Remember what Amalek did to you… erase his memory from under the heavens, do not forget.”

We are in the middle of Elul: Selichot resound every morning.

Summary of the Haftara

“Roni Akarah” (“Sing, O barren one”)
Text in Isaiah 54:1–10

The fifth haftara of consolation (the same as the Sephardi haftara of Noach). Jerusalem, “barren one who did not bear”, must sing for joy: she will have more children than ever. “Enlarge the place of your tent”; your children will inherit nations. “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you.” As with the “waters of Noah”, God swears never again to be angry with her: “The mountains may move, but My kindness shall not depart from you.”

Parasha-Haftara Connection

During the seven weeks of consolation the haftara follows the calendar. Yet the two texts answer each other: the parasha protects the most vulnerable, the neglected wife, the widow, the orphan, the servant and even the bird; the haftara shows God who does not abandon Jerusalem, the bride He seemed to have left “for a brief moment”.