[Picture: A woman of comely features”, desired by an Israelite warrior when in battle with her enemy people.... The original image is a free image for use at CC BY 2.0 level, uploaded by Marc Veraart to flickr]

[For articles on the “Sabbath of Ki Tetse" in Hebrew, click here]

Rabbi Dr. Yossi Feintuch was born in Afula and holds a Ph.D. in American history from Emory University in Atlanta. He taught American history at Ben-Gurion University.

Author of the book US Policy on Jerusalem (JCCO).

He now serves as rabbi at the Jewish Center in central Oregon. (JCCO).

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What is the connection between this week’s Torah portion's permission to Israelites, soldiers in a war zone to abduct an enemy female woman and God’s permission to Noah (following the end of the flood) to kill animals for food?

Up until that juncture, i.e., from the creation of the human species to Noah's disembarkation from the Ark, humans were forbidden to eat meat.  But now, ten generations later animal flesh was permitted for food “as the green herb have I given you all'' (Genesis 9:3). Though God cited no reason whatsoever for this dramatic reversal, it is evident that man’s penchant for slaying his fellow men was terribly upsetting to God - kind of ''What went wrong?''...

Since humans killed other humans before the flood but did not kill animals, if humans, by continuing their proclivity to do evil, could turn now their unabated bloodthirstiness unto animals, they might kill, perchance, less people if not avoid manslaughter altogether. Rabbi Yosef Albo (15^th C in Sefer Ha-Ikkarim 3:16)  explained that the original prohibition to eating meat led indirectly to the murder of humans. Hence, God permitted, albeit not demanded, the consumption of meat in order to highlight the difference between the proscribed killing of a human being (Genesis: 9:5-6) and okaying the killing of an animal for food.

Was this permission to kill animals a divine attempt to “flatten the curve” of homicide, even if by “lowering the bar” for humans it turned them from mere enslavers of animals to their slayers as well?  Did God, then, change His mind on prohibiting meat after realizing that man’s rapport with animals resulted in bloodshed among humans? Thus, this abrupt backtracking might have been a mere concession; indeed, a less-than-an-ideal attempt for a new deal.

The legislation pertaining to Deuteronomy 21:1-14 in regard to a war booty “woman of comely features”, desired by an Israelite warrior when in battle with her enemy people, might explain God’s about-face on eating animal meat.  Hence, though the capturing Israelite warrior might bring his captive to his home he must stay totally platonic with her for “a month of days” before marrying her (pending her consent), or, rather, send “her away on her own”.

[Picture: A woman of comely features”, desired by an Israelite warrior when in battle with her enemy people.... Free Image - CC0 Creative Commons - Designed and Uploaded by stux to Pixabay]

Why did God permit an Israelite not only to abduct an innocent captive woman from her parents but even to marry her though (presumably) a pagan? The Rabbinic commentaries admit that what God was up against here was man’s evil impulse.  Namely, without this lesser of two evils compromise, the Israelite warrior would sadly do what other victorious warriors continue to do in contemporary war zones, namely, having free rein to abuse and torment at will – see under the Mongol armies, who perpetrated the greatest orgy of pillage, rape, and slaughter known to history in the 13th century. Genghis Khan, for instance, must have fathered hundreds, if not thousands, of children after seizing for himself the most beautiful women captured in the course of his merciless conquests. The ''lesser'' beautiful women were sent to the tents of his officers. Or only less than a decade ago when thousands of captured Yazidi young girls were beaten, raped, abducted, and sold off by ISIS goons.

With such significant restrictions imposed on an Israelite warrior, he could still abduct such a desired woman but he also had to grapple with a slew of rituals and a set of limits on his actions that would impart a measure of self-respect to the woman captive. And it is on the basis of this set of rules that one may conceivably speculate that God’s permission for humans to kill animals for food – through a major deviation from God’s authentic plan for meatless human diet -- constituted a precedent for the similar moral dilemma as in this week's Torah portion, Ki Tetse, Deuteronomy 21.

But while seeking to lessen the rate of homicide by availing animals as food the postdiluvian humans might also begin to kill animals rampantly and wantonly, indeed, by any method that they saw fit. However, in permitting animals to be put to death only for food, yet, sans gratuitous cruel means, such killing would be reined in, though ideally, it shouldn’t happen at all.

[The original image is a free image for use at CC BY 2.0 level, uploaded by Snapshots of The Past to flickr]

Indeed, in recognizing that the postdiluvian human species did not turn out to become perfect, or even ethical to say the least, God had come to realize that the lofty ideal ought to be sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism.  Or as Rabbi Yossef Albo posits (in sefer ha-ikarim) both meat-eating and abduction of a beautiful woman from the battle zone occur because of man’s evil impulse that can’t be restrained, but only regulated as the Torah tries to do in both of these instances.

[For articles on the “Sabbath of Ki Tetse" in Hebrew, click here]