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DEUTERONOMY — 23:3 misbegotten

DEUT1208 While the biblical text never defines the word mamzer, Jewish law understands it as referring to a child of an adulterous or incestuous union (see the ruling of Rabbi Joshua in Mishnah Yevamot 4:13, and Shulchan Arukh, Even Ha-Ezer 4:13). Such a child (mamzer is generally translated as "bastard") [I use the word "bastard" hesitantly, since in common American usage, it often refers to a child born to an unmarried woman (with the relaxation of sexual standards in recent decades, the term is now used infrequently, except as a curse). Under Jewish law, no legal stigma or disabilities attach to a child born to an unmarried woman.] along with his or her descendants are forbidden all time to marry other Israelites except for those who are either mamzerim or converts [such a marriage would be very disadvantageous for a convert since, as noted, any children resulting from this union would continue to bear the stigma of mamzerut (Kiddishin 67a)]. While this law does not of course literally violate the provision in Deuteronomy that prohibits executing children for the crimes of their parents, a prohibition that cuts someone off from almost all possibilities of marriage is very severe. It has sometimes been explained that the rationale for this law is that people who are about to sin sexually are often overtaken with lust. Understanding how difficult it might be for people in such a circumstance to observe the Seventh Commandment's prohibition of adultery, the Torah decreed the law of mamzerut, in effect warning the couple: "If you want one another so badly, that's your sin, but know that any child you conceive will be cursed to the day of its death." This, the Torah hoped, would give would-be adulterers the strength to resist temptation, in the same way, for example, that any couple would resist having relations if they knew that the child that would result from their love-making would be born deformed (see Maimonides, The Guide for The Perplexed 3:49). Because the Rabbis felt that the child of an adulterous union was an innocent victim of the parents' sin, they became very creative in devising legal fictions to free a child from the taint of mamzerut, even when it seemed very apparent that the child had resulted from an act of adultery [e.g., Yevamot 80b, Shulchan Arukh, Even Ha-Ezer 4:14].

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DEUTERONOMY — 23:5 meet

DEUT1217 The Torah expresses great condemnation of the citizens of Moab and Ammon, "because they did not meet you [the Israelites] with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt…" [this verse]. In the talmudic discussion of this verse, Rabbi Yochanan comments on the capacity of inhospitality to "repulse those who would otherwise be near, while [timely hospitality] draws near those who would otherwise be distant" (Sanhedrin 103b).

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DEUTERONOMY — 23:17 live

DEUT1266 The Torah commands nations as well as individuals to be hospitable. Three thousand years before the American Supreme Court ruled that slaves who fled to freedom in the North should be forcibly returned to slavery (Dred Scott decision, 1857), the Torah commanded precisely the opposite [this and preceding verse]. In modern times, this ancient biblical law would seem to mandate granting political asylum (the ultimate act of hospitality) to those fleeing dictatorial and totalitarian regimes [In context, Maimonides understands this law as applying to a non-Hebrew slave of a Hebrew master who wishes to move to Israel (see "Laws of Slavery" 8:9–10). In Onkelos's translation of the Torah, he interprets the verse as referring to a non-Hebrew slave of a Gentile master who flees to Israel. While the Torah, written many thousands of years ago, obviously it did not offer specific legislation for a society such as the United States, it would seem that the ethical upshot of this verse, "You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master," would apply to a society such as ours, and certainly to the Jewish community in Israel.

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DEUTERONOMY — 23:20 interest

DEUT1283 People sometimes note that Torah law permitted Israelites to charge interest on loans to non-Israelites, but not to fellow Israelites [this and following verse], and that despite [French rabbi Menachem] Meiri [(1249-ca. 1310)]'s ruling [that all discriminatory legislation in the Talmud applied only to ancient pagans and idolaters who rejected the moral teachings of the Bible, and the belief in one God], Jewish law still permitted them to do so. However, this is not an example of discriminatory legislation. The reasoning of Jewish law can be described as follows: Since non-Israelites charged interest on loans to Israelites, and everybody else, and still do, Israelites were and are permitted to charge interest to non-Israelites. The regulation against charging interest to fellow Israelites was a special provision, a sort of family solidarity with our coreligionists (just as we can imagine a family patriarch or matriarch instructing his/her children and descendants not to charge interest on a loan to a close relative, particularly if the loan is made to cover urgent, personal expenses).

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DEUTERONOMY — 23:25 eat

DEUT1307 In The Golden Rule, Professor Jeffrey Wattles concludes that "golden rule thinking may ... be characterized as recognizing moral implications in the fact that others are like oneself" (page 42). Obviously, this is a basis for applying the Golden Rule in our interactions with other human beings. But while biblical ethics presupposes a deep chasm in intelligence and free will between human beings and animals, there are also significant similarities (particularly in the physical sphere), and the Golden Rule should apply in those areas as well. Thus, animals hate pain, and therefore, as we have seen, the Torah prohibits unnecessary pain, such as that brought about by yoking a weaker animal to a stronger one. And animals, like humans, crave food, hence it is forbidden, as noted, to muzzle an animal working in the field, just as it is prohibited to prevent a laborer working in the field from eating [this and next verse].

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DEUTERONOMY — 24:15 same

DEUT1383 As the wording of this verse suggests, this law would apply with particular force to those who employ domestic help, [If the person is employed on a full-time basis, then other mutually agreed upon arrangements can be made, such as payment once a week] people who often require their wages for their daily needs and who have little or no savings.

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DEUTERONOMY — 25:4 threshing

DEUT1437 [This verse] forbids the muzzling of an ox while it is working in the field. Jewish law understands this prohibition as applying to any working animal, not just an ox (Maimonides, Book of the Commandments, negative commandment 219). It is cruel to muzzle an animal and thereby preclude it from eating of the food it is working with, seeing, smelling, and perhaps hungering for.

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