Torah Dialogue

QUESTIONS FOR PARSHAT KI TEITZEI 5780
by Rabbi Edward Davis

From the Text
1. Which are optional wars? And which are obligatory wars?
2. Why does the Torah command us to erect a fence around a flat roof? (22:8)
3. How does a man divorce his wife? (24:2)
4. What are the six Daily Mitzvot of Zachor — Remembering? (two are in this Parshah) Devarim 16, Devarim 4, Devarim 25, Devarim 9, and Shemot 20.
5. Who in TaNaCH performed the Mitzvah of Yibum — the Levirate marriage?

From Rashi
6. Why is it prohibited for a man to wear a woman’s clothing? (22:5)
7. Why is it necessary to send away the mother bird before taking the eggs or chicks? (22:6, and see the Ramban.)
8. By when do you have to pay on a vow? (23:22)
9. The Torah prohibits the delaying of timely payment to workers. How about payment to a non-Jewish worker? Or rental fees for usage of utensils (cars), animals? (24:14)
10. In a Yibum (Levirate) marriage, the widow is married to her deceased husband’s brother. She has a son. Is she required to name the baby after her deceased husband? (25:6)

From the Rabbis
11. If there are three sons to inherit their father’s estate, how do they divide the estate according to the Torah? (Ibn Ezra, 21:17)
12. What Berachah do you make when you erect a parapet for your roof?
13. The Torah prescribes forty lashes for a sinner who violates a Torah prohibition. Why forty? (Ramban)

Haftorah.   Isaiah
14. Who is the barren one that the prophet is talking to?

Relationships
a) Yaakov - Yimnah
b) Moshe - Yocheved
c) Yissachar - Yashuv
d) Rachel - Lavan
e) Leah - Rivkah (2 answers)           

ANSWERS FOR PARSHAT KI TEITZEI 5780

1. Optional: To expand the territory of Eretz Israel.  Obligatory: To conquer Eretz Yisrael; a war of self defense; To fight Amalek.
2. It is dangerous; someone might fall. (Same is true for a swimming pool or a tall stairway.)
3. He must write a Get (a Bill of Divorce) and place it into her hands.
4. Remember the Exodus; Remember the  Revelation at Sinai; Remember Amalek; Remember the Tests of the Travels in the Desert; Remember Miriam; Remember Shabbat.
5. Onan (son of Yehudah); and maybe Boaz.
6. Interchanging of dress between the sexes will lead to promiscuity.
7. Rashi: It is cruel to take the chicks from the mother bird.
    Ramban: The Torah wants to implant in man the virtue of mercy.
8. By the end of Three Pilgrimage Festivals.
9. The law extends to all these examples.
10. No. The verse means that the son inherited the property of the deceased.
11. The firstborn son gets two-fourths, and the other two sons receive one-fourth each.
12. ...Asher Kidshanu B’Mitzvotav V’Tzivanu La’asot Ma’akeh.
13. Forty corresponds to the forty days in which the Torah was communicated to Moshe.
14. To Yerushalayim.
Relationships
a) Grandfather Yaakov (Yimnah was Asher’s son)
b) Mother Yocheved
c) Father Yissachar
d) Father Lavan
e) Mother-in-Law Rivkah and Aunt Rivkah