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DEUTERONOMY — 20:20 food

DEUT1021 Thousands of years ago, before ecology became a worldwide human concern, Judaism dealt at length and in a most sophisticated manner with these specific dilemmas and other questions involving the environment. The first indication of any attitude to these issues occurs in the first chapter of the Torah [Genesis 1:28] where God commands man to "fill the world and capture it." In his commentary on this verse, Nachmanides explains that the world is given to men for their needs "to do as they wish" and includes, as one of the examples, man digging up the ground to mine copper. Since strip-mining of copper is a prime illustration of the destruction of the environment, it seems that the Torah permits man to use the world as he sees fit, with no ecological concerns or sensitivity. However, a few verses later [Genesis 2:15] the Torah tempers this by telling us that God put man in the Garden (symbolic of the entire world) “to work it and to guard it.”  Since guarding something means preserving it, God essentially wants man to both use the world of his needs, but, at the same time, to preserve the world and not destroy it. How can man do both? How can he use the world for his needs, but at the same time take care to save it? The answer comes from [this verse] in Deuteronomy. When an army at war surrounds a city in siege and it prepares to use a tree is a battering ram, a fruit-bearing tree may not be used for this purpose, only a tree that does not bear fruit. What is the difference? If one uses the food-bearing tree, then the fruit will be needlessly destroyed, since the same objective could be accomplished just as well with the tree that does not bear fruit. However, a person may cut down a fruit tree when it causes damage to other trees (Maimonides, Hilchot Melachim 6:8). This, then, highlights the Torah perspective on the environment. While man may use the world for his needs, he may never use any resource needlessly. Destroying anything in the world needlessly is called Bal Tashchit.

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DEUTERONOMY — 20:20 fruit

DEUT1022 (Continued from [[DEUT1005]] Deuteronomy 20:19 destroy SACTAB 163-5). Biblical Origins of Bal Tashchit. [Deuteronomy 20:19-20]. Chapter 20 of the Book of Deuteronomy contains the biblical origins for the Rabbinic category of bal tashchit. It should be noted that Deuteronomy uses the term lo tashchit (do not destroy), while the Rabbinic texts use the synonymous term bal tashchit. Verses 19-20 prohibit cutting down the fruit trees that surround a besieged city during a time of war, while allowing non-fruit-bearing trees to be cut down and made into instruments of war. The Israelites were allowed to eat the fruit, but they were not permitted to cut them down in order to gain an advantage during combat. Deuteronomy 20 creates a distinction between trees that produce true and trees that do not. According to the medieval biblical commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra from eleventh century Spain, the former is a source of life and the latter is not. For him, there is an implicit relationship between fruit trees and human beings, the fate of one being bound to the fate of the other. Stressing the sacred relationship between fruit trees and human beings, Ibn Ezra writes that the trees of the field are not to be cut down because “the life of man depends on the trees of the field.” Ibn Ezra’s comment implies that the fate of human beings is intimately linked to that of the trees of the field. If humans cut down the fruit trees while besieging a city, then they would essentially be abusing themselves as the beneficiary of the fruit from those trees. Fruit trees are vital to human beings’ existence in times of peace and, all the more so, in times of war. Inherent in Deuteronomy 20:19-20 is the notion that human beings must treat the environment with special care all the time. The implication is that the destruction of trees leads to the loss of food sources and, therefore, the loss of human life that is dependent on this sustenance.

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DEUTERONOMY — 21:1 corpse

DEUT1024 Observe the law of breaking the heifer’s neck. Key concept: Create dismay over the murder. When the residents of the nearest city see their elders and the judges of their highest courts involved with this large animal, taking it to a valley and killing it violently, they will be jolted. They will not stay silent if they know something that might lead to the murderer’s capture. Hearing the cries of the heifer as its neck is being broken, they will be awakened to the depth of the tragedy and will divulge any piece of information that they have. Hopefully, the procedure will lead to the capture of the killer, and thereby, the world will be cleansed of another wicked person. A further benefit of the mitzvah is that it widely publicizes that the elders, judges and other people with wisdom greatly desire to apprehend the killer and bring him to justice.

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DEUTERONOMY — 21:1 slain

DEUT1025 Th[e] regard for the innate dignity of the human being extends in Judaism beyond his lifespan. The human body in death, although now abandoned by the soul, must still be accorded respect and reverence. This is the underlying principle reflected in the Jewish rituals and practices of burial and mourning. Scripture tells of a meth mitzvah: If a human corpse is found in a field, the nearest community is obligated to bury him [Deuteronomy 21:1-9; see T.B. Baba Kamma 81b). The Talmud rules: Should the body of an unknown person be found even at a time when everyone is intent on observing some mitzvah, such as reading the m'gillah on Purim, which must be done at that specific time (Purim eve), the dead man must nevertheless be buried first. Imagine a synagogue packed with impatient men, women and children, and many of the adults have fasted all day (the Fast of Esther): how impatiently they wait for the Purim m'gillah to be read. Yet, they must all wait. The dignity of man, even in death, comes first (T.B. Megillah 3b).

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DEUTERONOMY — 21:2 elders

DEUT1027 There is a ruling in the Torah (Deuteronomy 21:1-8) that if a corpse was found in a field, the leaders of the nearest community as well as national representatives were obligated to bring a heifer and to make a confession that they were in no way involved in the shedding of this blood. The rabbis ask in astonishment, “Can we imagine that the leadership of the Jewish community was responsible for the shedding of this blood?” So the discussion perforce centers around the community's responsibility for the social infrastructure that made possible such a terrible crime as murder. Communal leadership is responsible because it did not, in the words of the Talmud, provide for the stranger, thus forcing him to have to go out and attempt to steal in order to survive, such attempted theft leading either to his own death or to the death of the potential victim. However, it is possible that the murderer was a member of the community. Since he was not given a proper education and preparation for a productive life he turned to brigandage, and it was this brigandage that resulted in the murder of the corpse before them-- and for this the leaders were responsible. Mishnah, Sota, chapter 6, chapter 9; Talmud Bavli, Sota 45b. See also Rashi on Sota 46b; Talmud Yerushalmi, Sota, chapter 9. Such a notion, along with the attitude toward full employment discussed in a previous section of this chapter, would seem to indicate the necessity of public financing for secular and vocational training. The absence of a definite halachic ruling, however, leaves the issue of public financing, in a Jewish state, for universities and technical schools an area still to be resolved.

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DEUTERONOMY — 21:3 heifer

DEUT1028 (Continued from [[DEUT703]] Deuteronomy 15:2 remission LEHRMAN 181-3). When R. Johanan b. Zakkai abolished the laws governing the Sotah (The unfaithful woman whose Ordeal by the Bitter Waters is described in Numbers v.), on account of the spread of immorality in his day (Sotah 47a), he followed a natural process of growth and expansion whereby Judaism developed into a living religion that aimed to regulate all the details of daily life. When this renowned Rabbi saw that murder was raising its head among the dissident groups (sicarii) embittered by the fall of the Second Jewish State, he abolished the laws of the Red Heifer (Deuteronomy xxi. 1-9). His aim was to show that Jewish law is elastic and pliable; but he made one important caveat. This was: provided such changes were undertaken by a trusted Rabbinical Court ever mindful of the original purpose of the Torah and eager to adapt the divine principles to the fluctuating circumstances of the age.

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DEUTERONOMY — 21:4 break

DEUT1029 While Jewish laws overwhelmingly mandate sensitive treatment of animals, there are a few laws that fall into the category of what Rabbi Natan Slifkin terms "commandments of insensitivity to animals." Generally, these laws permit brutal treatment of animals in order to convey spiritual lessons to human beings. For example, the Torah rules that when the body of a homicide victim is found in the open country and the identity of the killer is unknown, the elders of the town nearest to the corpse are obliged to take a heifer to an overflowing wadi, and break its neck. After doing so, they make a declaration: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done" (Deuteronomy 21:1-9). In this case, the heifer was sacrificed as a form of atonement, to underscore that the elders, although not guilty of murder, bore a certain measure of responsibility for not maintaining a safe environment in their city and its environs. Rabbi Slifkin asks: "How can the same Torah that contains so many commandments teaching us sensitivity to animals, also contain commandments that involve such brutality? The answer is that that this is the whole point. These procedures are supposed to be horrific in order to have the desired effect upon the people performing them. When a murder takes place and justice cannot be performed, then the calf having its neck brutally axed impresses upon the elders of the city that they were negligent in their leadership. The…slaughter of animal sacrifices impresses upon us that we may be worthy of such a fate if we do not improve our ways.… these brutal rituals are the exceptions that prove the rule--that the Torah, in general, commands us to treat animals with great sensitivity." Slifkin, Man and Beast, 150. Do I find this explanation fully satisfying? No. Perhaps no explanation is adequate. But what is important to emphasize is that part of reason these laws disturb us is because the Bible itself has sensitized us to high standards of respect for animal life. In large measure, it is only because of the biblical laws commanding us to let our animals rest on the Sabbath, not muzzle an animal working for us, and not slaughter an animal and its young on the same day (laws that are still observed, which is not the case, for example, with the law concerning the breaking of the heifer's neck) that the idea took root in the Western world that animals should be treated with compassion; that is why these laws bother us. But, as Princeton philosopher Walter Kaufmann wrote about the bloody wars waged by Joshua against the ancient Canaanites, "to find the [distinctive] spirit of the religion of the Old Testament in Joshua is like finding the distinctive genius of America in the men who slaughtered the Indians." (Kaufmann, Faith of a Heretic, 193, 260-1).

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