If we are to be perfectly honest, much of the law codes reorganized and restated in the book of Devarim seem oddly archaic, highly impractical, and at times, even disturbingly unethical! This week’s parashah, Ki Teitse is chocked full of very specific ordinances and stipulations and therefore present many of these apparent difficulties.
The ethical value of scriptural narrative can often be difficult to apprehend. Explanations for God’s instruction surrounding the wars of Israel can often be as uncomfortable as the theodicies used to alleviate our discomfort with the omnipotent and omniscient sovereign’s apparent silence during the Holocaust. But none of the narratives are as tough a pill to swallow in contemporary society as those famously dubbed by feminist theologian Phyllis Trible as the “Texts of Terror.” These are the biblical narratives that describe the regular and dehumanizing rape, mutilation, and general bartering of women as commodities. Though polygamy is a common occurrence on the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, women never possess more than one husband. The woman in scripture is completely dependent upon a man for her sustenance and survival. Of course the biblical narrative is a product of its time and accurately portrays the events within their historical setting. What is striking, however, is the apparent silence of the text concerning any condemnation of these practices, especially the taking of “war brides” at the outset of this week’s readings. In fact, the program of God seems to be advanced through these events and normative practices. If we were to derive any precepts concerning the treatment and role of women solely from the narrative and explicit prescriptions of the law books, they might be as follows.
- A man can have multiple wives and concubines so long as he can support them adequately.
- Actually if a man’s wife is unable to have children it is laudable or at least acceptable for him to sleep with her personal attendant.
- Should a woman’s husband die, it is incumbent upon a righteous relative to take the poor woman in as his own wife.
- It is better for a woman to enter into what we might deem an incestualize marriage rather than for her family inheritance to pass to another tribe.
- If a man takes a woman as a spoil of war, he should give her a place in his harem rather than merely discarding her, in this way domesticating and systematizing war rape.
