DEUT320 See [[EXOD272]] Exodus 17:15 Amalek LOC 149-50

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DEUT323 See [[LEV795]] Leviticus 19:34 love OXFORD 46-7

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DEUT324 Do not show favor or mercy towards those who worship idols. Key concept: Actions are born of thoughts. After having a thought, a person will express the thought verbally and eventually he acts upon his thought. Through the Torah’s command to not think or speak positively about idol worshippers, we will stay far clear of them and never associate with them. We will neither seek their affection, nor learn from anything that they do.

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DEUT325 "You must not regard them favorably" [this verse]. Our Sages, z"l, have commented (Avodah Zarah 20a), "Do not attribute to them any grace; it is forbidden to say, 'How beautiful is this gentile.'" They further interpreted it to mean that it is forbidden to give a gift to a gentile for no [legitimate] reason. [The words "lo t'chanaym" are interpreted as "lo titen cheenam."

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DEUT326 It is a negative commandment to have no mercy on idol-worshipers as Scripture says, nor shall you show mercy to them [this verse]. If someone sees an idol-worshiper drowning, he is not to save him. In his illness, he is not to cure him. If he is afraid of him, or there is the consideration of [consequent] enmity, let him cure him for a fee, but not for nothing. It is, however, forbidden to end the man's life with one's own hands or to push him into a pit, and so on, if the other makes no hostile attack against him. One is not to give him any free gift, nor is one to speak his prayers, and all the more certainly not in praise of his actions.

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DEUT327 Destroy the seven nations. The seven nations were the ones that introduced to the world all sorts of idol-worship, as well as all of the other abominations that Hashem hates. Since they were the center of idol-worship and they introduced it, we were commanded to annihilate them and leave no trace of them under the heavens. None were to be left among the living, and all remembrance of them was to be obliterated. This mitzvah was to serve a benefit, that having annihilated these nations, the Jewish People would never follow in their ways. Also, by fiercely attacking them and chasing after them to kill them because of their idol worship, we would take a lesson and no Jew, even for a moment, would think to imitate these nations, for any reason in the world.

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DEUT328 A "holy people" must remove all obstacles to the purity of family life and regard them as abominations [this verse]. Marriage is something more than a civil contract; it is an institution based on morality and implying the most sacred duties. It was wrong for one to betroth a wife before he had seen her (Kidd. 41a), or to marry a partner much younger or much older than himself (Yeb. 101b) In either case, the main object of marriage, procreation, would be jeopardized on account of age and impotency. The wife must be fully conscious of the implications of her marriage vow which, as the name Kiddushin implied, meant that she had been consecrated for her husband alone. It was R. Abba Areka of Sura (Rav) who emphatically protested against the practice of infant marriages, declaring it to be morally wrong for a father to contract a marriage on behalf of his daughter before she had attained the age of consent (Kidd. 41a).

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DEUT330 Parental educational duties extend beyond the narrow limits of religious instruction. Parents of the biblical era were expected to continue the supervision of their children for the duration of their lives in the parental home. Parents were charged with the duty of marrying off their children and seeing to it that they took proper mates. The Bible warned against the giving of a child in marriage to a heathen [this verse]. When Sampson sought parental consent for his marriage to a Philistine girl, he was administered a stern rebuke, "Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?" (Judges 14:3). The fact that Sampson's parents eventually surrendered to his persistence illustrates a common parental weakness in permitting love to overcome their sense of responsibility. Parental control over the marriage of their children had as its primary aim the safeguarding of religious continuity. However, it was also intended to be used as a restraint on hasty marriages to individuals of improper character. Ecclesiasticus declared: "Marry they daughter, and so shalt thou have performed a weighty matter, but give her to a man of understanding" (7:25).

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DEUT329 Do not marry gentiles. Among the masses, there is much foolishness, and men allow their wives to hold sway over them. Thus, if a man marries a woman who worships idols, she will draw him, too, into idol worship. In addition, if they have children, she will raise them to worship idols-- and woe to anyone who brings such ruin upon his own offspring.

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DEUT331 See [[DEUT363]] Deuteronomy 7:26 abomination TZADIK 31

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