אל נחל איתן, “to a harsh valley.” Our translation is based on Rashi, who translates the word איתן as קשה, hard, tough, unyielding. Nachmanides writes that our sages say that the word signifies that this piece of earth may henceforth never be sown or ploughed to grow anything thereon. If so, the Torah here reveals a new negative commandment that a person using such earth agriculturally would have transgressed by doing so. (Sotah 46)

ונגשו הכהנים, “The priests will draw near, etc.” they do so in order to intone the prayer asking for atonement, written down in verse 8. The meaning of the whole verse is as follows: the priests, and all the elders of the nation, as well as all the people residing within a narrow radius from where this murder had occurred, will wash their hands and intone the prescribed formula, i.e. some of the assembled will wash the hands of the others. Concerning the procedure of killing that heifer, Ibn Ezra writes that G’d imposed the duty to perform these rites on the city closest to where the murdered person had been found, for if people in that city had been free from all other sins as well, G’d would not have embarrassed them by a murder having been committed in their vicinity. Maimonides writes in his Moreh Nevuchim 3,40 that the reason for the procedure is to assist in apprehending the killer, who most likely resides in that vicinity. The publicity that the killing of the heifer in such circumstances attracts, as well as the fact that the reputation of the city near which it occurs suffers a decline of its good image, is hoped to involve more people in the active search for the perpetrator of this crime. Anyone who can make a contribution to finding out who the guilty party was will be liable to do so. Once the guilty party has been found out and located and convicted of whatever penalty is appropriate, exile or death, this will serve as a deterrent to others who had planned to commit a similar crime. The event will long be remembered as the piece of earth on which the heifer has been killed is no longer allowed to be farmed and people will want to know the reason why this is so. Nachmanides writes that while it is true that the procedure prescribed by the Torah will help to find this murderer and will possibly frighten off future murderers, but what did it do to reconcile G’d with the fact that innocent blood was spilled in the Holy Land? In order to achieve maximum effect this procedure should have been performed on a field that is under cultivation, not one that had never been under cultivation, and therefore is not often visited by people. Nachmanides therefore feels that this procedure has more in common with that of the scapegoat and the burning of the red heifer for the sake of getting its ash, which when mixed with spring water, purifies people who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body or being under the same roof with such a body. These three procedures have one thing in common; neither one of them is performed on sacred ground. They therefore fall under the heading of חוק, decree, legislation the reason for which G’d has not seen fit to share with us.

אשר פדית, “whom You have redeemed.” This is a reference to the Exodus from Egypt. The reminder of this event may be in place, Moses reassuring the people that just as G’d had redeemed them from Egypt, although they had been burdened with many sins, so He will, in His loving kindness, forgive them for any negligence on their part which might have facilitated this foul deed by a person unknown.

ואתה תבער הדם הנקי, “You are to remove innocent blood;” Ibn Ezra adds the word עונש, “guilt,” which Moses did nor spell out here. Such guilt existed as in the Holy Land, especially, innocent blood is not to be shed, G’d does not tolerate this for long. By participating in the procedure of eglah arufah one fulfils a positive commandment wiping out the guilt of murder.

כי תצא למלחמה, “When you will go out to war;” according to the plain meaning of the text, Moses advises the people that instead of waiting till the enemy invades their land that they should pre-empt him and meet him beyond their borders to avoid part of their land becoming destroyed.

אשת יפת תואר, “a woman of beautiful form;” the Torah mentions an example that is likely, but an ugly woman is subject to the same legislation. Ibn Ezra understands the term יפת תואר as a subjective term, i.e. she looks attractive in that particular soldier’s eyes. The term יפת תואר, accordingly, refers to וראית i.e. what this particular soldier saw.

וחשקת בה, “and you desire her;” the reason why the Torah adds these words is that the Torah’s concession for this soldier to marry such a woman is premised on the fact that he is unable to withstand the urge to marry her. If he only wants to indulge his libido and does not want to marry her, the following rules do not apply, and he must control himself.

וגלחה את ראשה, “he shall shave her head.” This may cool his ardor if he had been especially attracted by her hair. Other commentators consider this a ritual similar to the purification rites performed by someone purifying himself from the tzoraat disease when all body hair must be removed as part of the process. (Leviticus 14,8)

ובכתה, “she shall weep, etc.;” all this is designed to cool her suitor’s ardor and make her look physically unattractive. Nachmanides writes that all the regulations listed in our paragraph stem from the fact that she undergoes a reluctant conversion on her part. It is quite possible that the local religious authorities forced her to undergo ritual immersion, and that the period of thirty days before the marriage and true conversion can be performed give her time to become reconciled to her new situation. Ibn Ezra writes that the Torah granted her all this time to mourn properly for her parents, who may be presumed to have died during the war. Alternatively, she weeps in mourning for her parents who because they did not convert are no longer considered her kin. Maimonides writes in his Moreh Nevuchim section 3, chapter 41 that the Torah decrees the weeping as an emotional outlet for her enforced situation. It is a psychologically recognized fact that an extended period of weeping brings about a catharsis enabling her to come to terms with unwelcome new facts of life. During that month she is not required to address the duties that her marriage now imposes on her vis a vis her husband. Personally, (Nachmanides writing) the weeping has nothing to do with the Torah expressing compassion for this woman, but it provides a period during which she shall be weaned form the idolatrous practices and convictions that she grew up with. She must learn to refrain from using the names of her deities in her daily conversation, etc., as our sages have said in connection with mamzerim, bastards, as it is most unseemly for even a “husband” to engage in sexual relations with his wife when she is forced to submit to this, or when she is in a state of mourning That time is set aside for her to come to terms with the loss she has experienced. This period of thirty days enables her to make the emotional transition, to adjust to her new husband, who has presumably saved her life by taking her under his protection during that war that preceded these various rites. This is why the Torah describes what follows as her new husband sleeping with her as an act of marrying her, and bringing her into his house. If she wanted to convert sooner and dissociate herself from her past completely, she is at liberty to do so.

ואחר כן תבא אליה ובעלתה, “and after this period has elapsed you may come to her and sleep with her.” Nachmanides writes that the plain meaning of this verse is that her “husband, captor,” had been forbidden to have marital relations with her until all the procedures listed have been completed. Although with natural born Jewish women a binding marriage ceremony can be by means of a written contract or by the woman excepting some money or equivalent, according to Sifri these methods do not apply in the case of a prisoner of war of pagan background. Even sexual intercourse for a purpose other than to seal a marriage contract would not achieve this, as she was a gentile, and there is no such thing as marriage to gentiles, seeing the wedding includes a sacred, holy element, something that as long as she is not Jewish, this woman could not be capable of. The Torah had consented to the soldier sleeping with a prisoner with whom he was infatuated, but that does not make her his wife, not even to the exclusion of other suitors. Once she has converted, however, she is subject to Jewish law in all respects, and marital infidelity, for instance would be punishable by strangulation.

ושלחתה לנפשה, “you will send her away on her own, etc.” Nachmanides views this instruction as indicating that the husband does not have to give that woman a formal decree of divorce. This is why the Torah has to warn him not to sell her as a slave, nor treat her as one treats a maidservant. As long as she is his wife she enjoys all the privileges a wife is entitled to. If he has started to hate her, he must release her to fend on her own as if he had raped her, [the victim of a rape cannot be forced to live with her rapist unless she consents as his wife, who is then protected by her husband not being allowed to divorce her, ever. Deut. 22. 28-29 Ed.] It is possible that the message of this verse is that if, when this captor sleeps with this woman as an expression of his wanting to marry her, all well and good. However, if he sleeps with her without commitment and she is no longer desirable for him, he must release her unconditionally. Her future relationship to her captor depends entirely on the nature of his sleeping with her once this had been permitted according to Torah law. If the relationship turns sour after she had become his wife, she is entitled to a decree of divorce just like any married woman.

לא תתעמר בה, “you must not enslave her;” Nachmanides writes, referring to Onkelos on 24,7 where he understands the letter ו in the word ומכרו as ”and,” not ”or,” that the term תתעמר does not mean that the former husband now keeps her in his household as a slave, but that he sells her in the slave market for money, treats her as chattel. Our sages (Sifri on 24*,7*) state that selling is not culpable until the new owner has made personal use of the newly acquired slave. They see in the word התעמר a reference to ingathering of a harvest, for instance, converting a potential into an actual. Nachmanides, personally, feels that the word corres-ponds to its plain meaning, as if it had been written with the letter א instead of ע, as it appears in Psalms 94,4 where it portrays arrogant, haughty conduct that characterizes those that not only sin but boast about it. Nachmanides quotes instances when the letters א and ע are used interchangeably.

כי תהיין לאיש שתי נשים, האחת אהובה, “When a man has two wives, one of whom he loves, etc.” This does not mean that he actually hates one of his wives, but it is inevitable that when one has two wives that one must love one better that the other, and the other is described as the one that “he hates.” Each of the two wives (in any marriage) employs devious means including sorcery to become her husband’s favourite.

לא יוכל לבכר, “he is not legally able to declare as firstborn, etc.” if the father of the preferred wife declares her son as the firstborn with the privileges the Torah accords the firstborn, although he is in fact not the firstborn, then he has also violated a negative commandment.

על פני בן השנואה, הבכור, “ahead of the son of the hated one, the firstborn, etc.” Nachmanides, paying attention to minute grammatical nuances in our verse, concludes from the apparently superfluous words על פני in “the presence of,” that if the true firstborn has already died before his father, i.e. before the question of distributing an estate even became imminent, the father’s dispositions are legally effective, in spite of the general rule that a firstborn is entitled to his share of the inheritance even if he died before his father, if he left behind natural heirs. In every instance where the expression על פני occurs as referring to people, it means “during the lifetime of, etc.” (Compare Genesis 11,28, Numbers 3,4)

סורר ומורה, “wayward and rebellious;” Nachmanides points out that there are two culpable deeds here for which punishment is called for. !) Treating one’s parents with disdain, disrespect. 2) He drinks alcohol to excess and he is a glutton, something forbidden to Jews who have been commanded to be a holy nation, not one guilty of debauchery. Even so, neither one of these sins is one that carries a death penalty. This penalty can be justified only because it heads off the likelihood that the son in question when fully adult will become guilty of the death penalty after committing sins which may cost other people’s lives before he is brought to justice. Naturally, many people ask how someone can be convicted of the death penalty, or of any penalty for that matter, at a time when is not guilty of an indictable offence. We have a rule that no one is convicted except on the basis of the sins he has carried out, not for the ones he contemplated committing in the future. (Compare Sanhedrin 72) This rule was based on the words באשר הוא שם, which the Torah writes in connection with Ishmael who was about to perish from thirst just out of earshot of his mother Hagar, (Genesis 21,16-21). Ishmael’s survival at the time does not necessarily contradict the principle we quoted, as we do not know of any crime committed by Ishmael afterwards that would have made him guilty of the death penalty. [Who knows if his miraculous survival did not inspire him to observe a lifestyle more in accordance with what he had seen in his father Avraham’s house. Ed.] Although we have a rule that all is under the control of heaven except whether man will be G’d-fearing and observe a lifestyle which reflects this, i.e. he is not interfered with in his decisions by G’d, the wayward son raised under ideal circumstances by parents who both were models of piety, is judged by the Torah, by superhuman psychology, as growing up to be thoroughly depraved. The Torah, [i.e. also his parents who bring him to court, Ed.] are therefore doing him a favour by enabling the court which decrees his execution to preserve such a son’s share in the hereafter for him through his execution at this stage of his life

וכל ישראל ישמעו וייראו, “and the whole people of Israel will hear about this execution, and they will become more G’d-fearing.” According to Nachmanides this is the Torah’s way of making clear to the people that G’d’s objective with this legislation is even more aimed at the people on the whole than at the victim, as it is hoped to make the carrying out of this legislation totally unnecessary in the future. Execution of the recalcitrant Torah scholar, זקן ממרא, who may even have been objectively correct in his interpretation of Torah law, is also based on the fact that the authority of legally appointed judges must be respected, even if until the final handing down of the judgment there is freedom to argue the merits of the verdict. Public interest as interpreted by the lawgiver, the Torah, sometimes overrides what we in our limited vision consider the infringement of the right of the individual. Stamping out the roots of religious disputes by nipping such dissent involving civil disobedience in the bud, prevents the forming of schisms and different groups ultimately each upholding a version of the Torah of their own. [Some of the wording is my own, though not the thrust of the message. Ed.]

כי קללת אלוקים תלוי. ”for a hanging person is a curse of G’d.” Some sages learn from this verse that all people who were executed by stoning are to have their bodies hung publicly during the balance of the day of their execution. The expression קללת אלוקים does not refer to the act of hanging and displaying the body of the sinner in question, but it refers only to the person who was executed for blaspheming. In practice, this hanging is applied only to the body of the blasphemer who, more than anyone else, had cheapened the whole concept of a human being, whom G’d had created in His image, and he had the unforgivable nerve to curse his Creator. His body, by his own admission then, is not worth treating with the dignity accorded to other dead bodies. Nachmanides writes that when viewing the text at its face value, the meaning is that whenever a person commits a sin deserving of the death penalty by public hanging, his corpse will not be hung from a tree as there is no greater curse that can be applied to a human being than to publicly hang him. It is therefore not appropriate that such a stain on human dignity, akin to ritual contamination, should ever be seen in the Holy Land. Our sages interpret the words קללת אלוקים as referring to the person executed, saying that the message is that although this person deserves the debasement of being hung, but that seeing that this would reflect negatively on his Creator, the Torah spared him this indignity. They also say that we learn from the words קללת אלוקים that anyone hanging a dead corpse thereby inflicting an indignity on that body, is guilty of transgressing a negative commandment (compare Sanhedrin 15)

ולא תטמא את אדמתך, “so that you do not contaminate your land.” Nachmanides writes that this cannot be the only consideration for having to bring the corpse of the judicially executed sinner to burial before nightfall, as if it were, it would be permissible to let such a corpse remain unburied overnight in the Diaspora. The true interpretation is that it is forbidden to leave a corpse unburied [or untended Ed.] overnight, whereas when this happens in the Holy Land one transgresses an additional commandment by doing so.