A famous mitzvah in this week’s Parshah is the command that when seeking to take chicks or eggs from a nest one must first chase away the mother. Not only is this one of the few mitzvot where a reward is offered: long life, but the Talmud specifically seems to rule out interpreting it as evidence of G-d’s kindness. An opinion in the Talmud states that a prayer leader who says ‘as You had mercy on the mother and her chicks so have mercy on us’ is to be silenced as he ‘makes the decrees of G-d as mercy’. In other words one should accept the mitzvah as a Divine decree and not seek another reason. Nachmanidies, who does explain this mitzvah in terms of animal cruelty, rejects this approach. He brings several proofs from other Rabbinic sources that we should indeed seek reasons for the mitzvot and that to do so is praiseworthy. He then explains the above Talmudic statement in a quite startling way, one that sounds strange to modern ears. The trouble with the prayer leader is that he sees the mitzvah as evidence of G-d’s mercy to the animal. In this, however, he is mistaken. If G-d really cared about the welfare of animals he would have forbidden the slaughter of animals for food. As the Torah does not command us to be vegetarian, animal welfare cannot be the prime motivator in the Torah’s legislation against cruelty to animals. Rather, Nachmanidies states, these mitzvot are for our benefit. If we are cruel to animals this will have an effect on our psychological make up causing us to become cruel. Conversely, by being kind to animals we will internalise traits of mercy within ourselves. Thus these mitzvot are primarily concerned with human behaviour, not animal welfare. Yet, even taking on board Nachmanidies quite powerful argument, we can still see these mitzvot as telling us something about G-d. We may ask why does G-d care that we have merciful and not cruel natures? The answer that seems to be suggested in several places in the Torah is that G-d Himself is merciful. As created in His image we are required to try and emulate as much as possible the Divine traits. By refraining from cruelty to animals we enable ourselves to become merciful and thus see the world from G-d’s perspective. Thus even while, having animal needs ourselves, we eat other animals, we can also seek to imitate the G-d whose mercy extends to all His creatures.

ALIYAH BY ALIYAH SYNOPSIS

 

Rishon	The war bride, inheritance laws and the rebellious son.
Sheni	Laws of kindness.
Shelishi	Laws of marriage and other relationships.
Revi’i	Laws of holiness and proper conduct.
Chamishi	Worker’s rights and divorce.
Shishi	Laws of humanity.
Shevi’i	Flogging, Levirate marriage and destroying Amalek.
Haftorah	Isaiah 54;1-10: Jerusalem rebuilt.

 

Sidra Statistics

Parshat Ki-Tetze

·               has 110 verses;

·               is the  6th  in Deuteronomy,  49th  in the Torah

·               5th longest in Deuteronomy, 

·               30th  longest  in the Torah  

·                has  27 pos + 47 neg = 74  mitzvot.