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Candle lighting time for Friday, August 20, 7:36
Parashat Ki Tetzei, 11 Elul, 5770 / August 21, 2010
Triennial Cycle III: Deut. 24:14-25:19
Humash Etz Hayim, page 1130
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:1-10, page 1138
This Parashah contains more mitzvot than any other—72 according to Maimonides!
- (24:14-18) Laws concerning the treatment of workers, individual responsibility, and justice for the helpless.
- (24:19-22) The laws of gleaning, forgotten sheaf and the field corner.
- (25:1-3) Laws regulating and limiting the punishment of lashes.
- (25:4) Kindness to animals.
- (25:5-10) Yibum: the law of the childless deceased brother.
- (25:11-12) Laws regarding unfair fighting.
- (25:13-16) Laws of honest weights and measures.
- (25:17-19) Remember Amalek!
Our God and Our Children
Rabbi Philip Ohriner
Deuteronomy 24:16
Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime.
Exodus 20:5
You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me.
Ibn Ezra
How can the Torah say that “children [shall not] be put to death for parents” and in another place say “[God] visits the guilt of the parents upon the children”?
Rashi
Parents shall not be put to death because of sons: by the testimony of their sons. You might think that it means that fathers shall not be put to death because of the sins of their sons, but it has already been stated, “each man shall be put to death for his own transgression.” However, one who is not yet a man may die on account of his father’s transgressions. Therefore, children may die at the hands of Heaven on account of their parents’ sins.
Shadal
We can ourselves perceive how parents bequeath to their children both good and bad traits, the father’s conduct being a necessary cause of good or evil in his children. This process constitutes one of the secrets of hidden providence that God made that they should fear Him. For every father loves his children and his concern that his bad example might bring evil on his sons acts as a deterrent, to a lesser or greater extent, on the willfulness of his heart…That this influence of fathers on the lives of their children is a process perceivable by all of us is similar to what Ralbag stated, when he observed that the punishment of fathers continues automatically. I perceive that it is the Torah’s idiom to depict good and evil descending from above, in the shape of deliberate reward and punishment, even when they come about naturally according to the normal course of events For indeed there is nothing accidental in life, but everything has a cause, ultimately harking back to the First Cause. Just as God instituted the natural law that the iniquities of the father bring evil on his descendants in order to deter man from evil and guide him on the right path, so He stated that He visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children as if He does this through vengeance and anger, when really nothing happens except in the form of a natural process.
Rashbam
Our text is addressed to the court of justice…but the Holy One blessed be He visits iniquity of the fathers upon the children when they continue to emulate the deeds of their fathers…to destroy their inheritance, but not through the court.
BBQ & Bar’chu: Friday, August 27, 6:00 pm
USY Save the Date!
Sunday, August 22
Beach Day at Santa Cruz Boardwalk
The Raging Waters Event (SJ) has been CANCELLED!!
Jr. Kadima: Ice Cream Sundae’s in the Sukkah Spectacular!!
Sunday, September 26, more…