Dear Friends;
This year’s Parshat Ki Tetzei vort is being co-sponsored anonymously dedicated lilui nismas Devorah bat Yechiel Michel Of Blessed Memory and co-sponsored by Reuven and Leah Goldman and family. Both co-sponsors dedicate the vort for the safety of the Chayalim and the liberation of all remaining hostages and their return home without experiencing any further harm, as well as for the good health and security of kol Am Yisrael. To our two co-sponsors, many thanks for your sponsorship and for your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
Skype: mark.burt3
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This author has penned Parshat Ki Teitsei under the heavy cloud of both Hezbollah’s massacre of Druse children playing on a soccer field in Druse town of Majdal Shams and what appears to be an assassination by Israel’s Mossad, of Hezbollah terrorist Fuad Shukr who was responsible for the massacre in Majdal Shams. The Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was eliminated the same day in Tehran.
The Sapirstein Edition: Torah with Rashi’s Commentary (page 222) renders translation of our Parshat’s opening posuk with Rashi’s commentary:
“When you will go out to war against your enemies, and Hashem your G’d, will deliver them into your hand, and you will capture its [people as] captives” (Sefer Devarim, Perek 21, posuk 10)
“When you will go out to war.” The verse speaks of an optional war (1) {for in the war for the Land of Israel — It cannot be said “and you will capture its [people as] captives” for it has already said (2) — “You shall not allow any person to live.”(2)}
(1) Citing Sifrei 211. That is, wars other than those such as the war of the conquest of Canaan and the war against Amalek. These wars were not optional. They are fulfillments of Hashem’s Commandments.
(2) Refers to Sefer Devarim, Perek 20, posuk 16 (Translation rendered by The Sapirstein Edition: Torah with Rashi’s Commentary):
“But from the cities of these peoples that Hashem… gives you as an inheritance, you shall not allow any person to live.”
The use of “When you will go out to war” implies a war initiated by Israel. (Rashi to Sotah 35b)
Sefer Devarim, Perek 20, posuk 17 follows the previous posuk by stating (translation rendered in the Artscroll Stone Chumash):
“Rather you should utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite, and the Jebusite, as Hashem… has commanded you.”
So, to hearken back to Parshat Masei where “Hashem spoke to Moshe… by the Jordan, at Yericho” (Artscroll Stone Chumash, Sefer BaMidbar, Perek 33, posuk 50) telling him to speak to the B’nei Yisrael and tell them:
“…When you cross the Jordan to the land of Canaan, you shall drive out all of the inhabitants of the Land before you; and you shall destroy all their prostration stones; all of their molten images…. You shall possess the Land as an inheritance by lot to your families…. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land before you, those of them whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you upon the Land in which you dwell. And it shall be that what had meant to do to them, I shall do to you.” (Artscroll Stone Chumash, Sefer BaMidbar, Perek 33, p’sukim 51-56, pages 922-923)
Rabbi Artscroll (page 923) then cites the Rashbam and follows with it’s own commentary;
… If they fail to do so, they will suffer the fate Hashem had intended to impose upon the Canaanites, and be driven out.
Only in the perspective of Hashem’s wisdom can this passage be understood. No human ruler has the right to decree that an entire population is to be… exiled, but Hashem revealed that the Canaanite presence was incompatible with both the Land’s holiness and Israel’s mission on earth. History is the most conclusive proof of this, for the fact was that the Jews could not bring themselves to eliminate all of the Canaanites, with the result that the Jews were drawn to idolatry, debauchery, and were in turn periodically oppressed and finally exiled.
This author reasons that there are at least two points to be considered here.
Our modern-day sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) evolved from what we call the “war of independence” both in the run-up to statehood, in four subsequent major wars including the War of Simchat Torah – 7 October, hi-jacked planes and Arab terror attacks in-between and to this very day, the Munich Massacre, the Entebbe hi-jacking and rescue, indicates that we apparently are, or should be, in a perpetual endeavor to fulfill Hashem’s Commanded war for the Land of Israel.
Bearing in mind that we ARE in a state of perpetual Divinely Mandated War, and while in our times, it seems not practical, not feasible nor “politically correct” to “not allow any person [of the enemy] to live”. There are peaceful, win-win alternatives in “driving out all of the inhabitants of the Land”, i.e. the concept of transfer: encouraging Arabs to either emigrate voluntarily and/or through providing compensation packages or, subject to vetting as to adherence to Israel’s laws and sovereignty — Israeli citizenship. Better to destroy and eradicate the various terror organizations currently existing in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and to use future expenditures to defray compensation packages for Arabs seeking to emigrate rather than putting billions of USD in good money after bad in continuing a failed Oslo process which props up a bogus terror-laden “PA” and a fictional, fantasy, delusional (adjective: having false or unrealistic beliefs or opinions) “two state solution.” But we continue to allow these barbarous alien Arab/Islamic terrorists and their terror-inclined so-called “innocent civilian” collaborators to fester their hate and lust for Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication — “pins in our eyes and thorns in our sides.” The politicians, the media, the intellectual elites and, yes, the high command of the IDF who have forgotten how to fight to win — the ingrained Israeli swamp, in their self-disdain for what they are: Jews, view options such as the above as taboo.
May it be that our Chayalim, regardless of the machinations of their high command, emerge totally victorious — eradicating from the face of the earth Hamas, their terrorist buddies and the so-called “innocent civilians” of Gaza who joined with Hamas in their murderous deeds, that the Chayalim return home whole — physically, mentally and spiritually and that the Chayalim Liberate and bring home all remaining hostages. And may we see the restoration of true unity within Am Yisrael.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently re-settled in Gush Katif, once the IDF, by the Yad Hashem, destructs and eradicates the wild beasts of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, all other terror entities, and if necessary Iran, and that our brethren be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them, that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Homesh be rebuilt, as well as the buildings of Yishuv Elchanan, all at total government expense. May our Chayalim return from battle unharmed — physically, mentally and spiritually and may all of the remaining hostages brutally taken by the wild beasts of Hamas be liberated and brought home to their families. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is now in his fourth year at home in Eretz Yisrael and continues in a new chapter in his life. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her spirit and memory continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of ten years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. May we see, in 5784, the REAL Jews from the Ukraine and Russia as well as the US and Canada, the real Jews via matrilineal descent, make Aliyah enmass — via thorough review by Misrad HaPanim. And may we soon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese Wuhan Lab corona virus pandemic and all like viruses and variants. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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