Video Study for Parsha Ki Tetze

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Shalom JTF readers,

It is Wednesday once again and time to start the Torah study for this weeks Shabbat portion. We are reading the portion of Ki Tetze this week, one of (if not the) most mitzvah packed portion of the Torah. If my memory serves me correctly I believe that there are 74 mitzvot in this portion.

The very first commandment concerns the 'captive woman' who is taken as spoils from a war. This command, as many Rabbis explain, is an example of how the Torah knows that even the most righteous Jew has urges and inclinations which need to be mastered. 'War is Hell' and often leads warriors to behave badly. The Torah understands this and provides a 'kosher' way for the righteous warrior to transform his captive into a cultured Jewess, and if he fails to do so, he must release his captive.

Other memorable commandments include the laws of inheritance, the rebellious son, the commandment to bury the dead with dignity, and the construction of a fence around a roof (a parapet) in order to prevent accidents.

Let us review the 'parsha in a nutshell' from Chabad:

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2286/jewish/Ki-Teitzei-in-a-Nutshell.htm

Seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 commandments (mitzvot) are in the Parshah of Ki Teitzei. These include the laws of the beautiful captive, the inheritance rights of the firstborn, the wayward and rebellious son, burial and dignity of the dead, returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird before taking her young, the duty to erect a safety fence around the roof of one’s home, and the various forms of kilayim (forbidden plant and animal hybrids).

Also recounted are the judicial procedures and penalties for adultery, for the rape or seduction of an unmarried girl, and for a husband who falsely accuses his wife of infidelity. The following cannot marry a person of Jewish lineage: a mamzer (someone born from an adulterous or incestuous relationship); a male of Moabite or Ammonite descent; a first- or second-generation Edomite or Egyptian.

Our Parshah also includes laws governing the purity of the military camp; the prohibition against turning in an escaped slave; the duty to pay a worker on time, and to allow anyone working for you—man or animal—to “eat on the job”; the proper treatment of a debtor, and the prohibition against charging interest on a loan; the laws of divorce (from which are also derived many of the laws of marriage); the penalty of thirty-nine lashes for transgression of a Torah prohibition; and the procedures for yibbum (“levirate marriage”) of the wife of a deceased childless brother, or chalitzah (“removing of the shoe”) in the case that the brother-in-law does not wish to marry her.

Ki Teitzei concludes with the obligation to remember “what Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt.”

I like to start with the latest video from Rabbi Richman of the Temple Institute:



From 5 years ago:

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The always hospitable Rabbi Machlis teaches and learns from his home in Jerusalem:

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Rabbi Trugman from BeThereIsrael and Ohr Chadash gives some Chassidic insight into our portion.

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Rabbi Trugmans teacher, the great Rabbi Yitzak Ginsburg, talks about the Kabbalah on this portion.



Amalek = Doubt

http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5758/zachor.html

The clue is right in Amalek's name. Numerically, the word Amalek (ayin, mem, lamed, kuf) is equal to 240. It is brought down that this is not by coincidence, because 240 happens to also be the gematria of the word "sufek," which means "doubt" in Hebrew. This correlation exists to teach us that Amalek is anything that causes doubt in the mind of the Jew. But doubt in what?

The answer to this question comes from pointing out that the name Amalek also equals the words, "el acher" (aleph, lamed, aleph, ches, raish), which means "other god." In other words, Amalek creates doubt in G-d's oneness, which is the source of idol worship, that is, the belief in other powers (be they in the form of wood and stone, or gold and silver, that is, money). This is why the Torah indicates and Rashi explains that Amalek even causes a "split," so-to-speak" in the Ineffable Name of G-d, which is another way of saying that nature gives the impression that it works independently of G-d.

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Rabbi Chaim Miller of Kol Menachem doing his Torah In Ten video...

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Rabbi Yehuda Glick is a Temple Mount activist and he teaches at Otniel Yeshiva in the settlements.

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Rabbi Weisblum's 40 minute talk on this weeks portion:

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A few more Torah shuirs and then maybe a Haftarah talk...


Rabbi Svirsky on the portion:

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A 30 minute Breslav shuir on this weeks portion:

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