God's Boundaries
In this week’s Torah Portion, Ki Tetze כִּי־תֵצֵא (When You Go), based on Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19, we encounter many of the most controversial laws given to the Israelites by Adonai. These chapters are filled with what I would call "gotcha" verses—passages frequently used by atheists, skeptics, and critics of the Bible to attack the morality of God. I confess that even as a believer, some of these laws are difficult to understand and, at first glance, seem extreme, archaic, or out of time. These are some of the portions of Scripture that I read and have to wrestle with myself.
I believe, however, that if we want to understand these laws, we have to do more than simply read them through the lens of our twenty-first-century Western culture. We have to make an effort to understand the culture, circumstances, and social conditions in which these laws were given.
This does not mean that everything described in these laws was something God endorsed or desired. In many cases, these laws addressed things that were already happening within society and established boundaries, consequences, and protections around them. The Torah is not merely a list of idealistic instructions describing a perfect society. It also provides justice and order for a people living in a fallen world where people were already committing offenses against one another.
One example that is frequently contested is the law concerning the sexual violation of an unmarried virgin:
"If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28–29)
At first reading, this passage can be shocking.
How is marrying the woman you violated a just thing to do? How can this possibly be considered a good law? Those are legitimate questions. I don't think we should pretend that difficult passages aren't difficult. But before we pass judgment, we should consider the alternative that existed in the ancient world.
The woman who experienced sexual violation lived in a culture where her social and economic prospects could be severely damaged by what had happened to her. Marriage was not merely a romantic relationship in the way many of us understand it today. It was closely connected to family, economic security, inheritance, and a woman's place within society. A woman who had been sexually violated could be viewed as undesirable and could potentially be left without the protection or social standing necessary to build a stable life.
That does not make the violation acceptable. It makes the consequence of the violation even more devastating. So what does this law accomplish?
First, it places a significant financial consequence upon the man. Fifty shekels was not an insignificant amount (it was worth about 5 years of most people's wages in ancient times.) Second, it prevents the man from simply using the woman and then abandoning her. The text specifically says that he may not divorce her all his days. In other words, he cannot commit this offense and then walk away from the consequences while leaving the woman to bear the social and economic consequences alone.
Now, I recognize that someone today could still reasonably object: "Why should the victim have to marry the man who violated her?"
The consequence is directed toward the man, not the woman. This is an important distinction because it means that the woman still has a choice. If she does not want to marry the offender, she is not obligated to do so. A marriage proposal is just that—a proposal. The woman is not required to accept it.
This law does not force the woman to marry her offender. Instead, it places the obligation and consequences upon the man while leaving the woman with a choice about whether she wants to enter into the marriage. She may refuse the proposal, or she may choose to accept it if she believes that doing so provides her with a better future than the alternatives available to her within that society.
In that sense, the decision ultimately remains hers. The law does not punish the woman for what happened to her. It places the responsibility on the man who committed the offense and gives the woman control and all the power over the situation.
That differentiation is important because, when we read this passage through the lens of our modern culture, it is easy to assume that the woman is being forced into marriage as an additional punishment for something that was done to her. But that is not what the text explicitly says. The obligation is placed upon the criminal, while the victim is not commanded to accept him as her husband.
And this changes the way I understand the passage. The law is not saying, "You were violated, so now you must marry your violator." Rather, it is saying that the culprit who committed the offense now has a lifelong responsibility toward the woman he has harmed, while she retains the ability to decide whether she wants to enter that marriage.
Whatever the precise interpretation of the Hebrew terms and circumstances may be, the law is clearly concerned with holding the criminal accountable and preventing him from abandoning the victim after the act. It imposes a tangible consequence on the offender and provides the victim with a measure of protection and long-term provision within the social structure of that ancient world.
We might wish the law had simply said, "Do not rape." But since when has simply telling human beings not to do something guaranteed that they would not do it?
Human beings have been violating one another since the beginning of history. Laws are not only intended to tell us what is right and wrong; they are also intended to establish consequences when people choose to do what is wrong. This is something we see repeatedly throughout Ki Tetze.
The Torah establishes boundaries around behavior that was already occurring. It identifies offenses, establishes consequences for those offenses, protects vulnerable people, and seeks to prevent evil from becoming normalized within the community.
That is why one phrase appears repeatedly in these passages:
"…So you shall purge the evil from your midst." (Deuteronomy 24:7b)
Notice what the text does NOT say: "So that evil never enters your midst." Instead it says that evil must be purged from your midst.
There is an important and critical difference there. The Torah is dealing with the reality that evil already exists among human beings. People do evil things. People take advantage of one another. People steal, abuse, exploit, deceive, and violate. The question is not whether evil exists. The question is "what a society will do when evil occurs?"
Will it ignore it? Will it excuse it? Will it protect the perpetrator? Will it blame the victim? Or will it establish justice and consequences?
I believe this is one of the major themes running throughout these laws. The goals are clear: to discourage offenses by establishing real consequences, to provide victims with a measure of justice and protection when offenses occur, and to make the consequences serious enough to discourage others from committing the same offenses.
Some of these specific penalties no longer apply within the context of the modern justice system, and I am not suggesting that we should simply take ancient Israelite civil laws and impose them upon modern society. However, that does not mean the principles behind them have no relevance today. The spiritual implications remain.
These laws demonstrate that God takes human behavior seriously. He takes justice seriously. He takes the protection of the vulnerable seriously. He takes accountability seriously. And He does not appear to be interested in a society where people can continually harm others without consequence.
In many ways, these boundaries were established to keep Israel from descending into the same chaos, exploitation, and hedonism that surrounded them.
I admit that when I read these chapters on Friday, some of these laws still seemed extreme to me. I wrestled with them. Then, on Saturday, something changed in my perspective. While watching television shows and YouTube videos, I began to see the ancient laws through a very different lens. I watched two videos from ShoeOnHead addressing the sexual epidemic and the increasingly extreme sexual culture we are facing today. Some of the things discussed were so disturbing and so far removed from what I would consider normal human behavior that I found myself thinking about how far our society has fallen.
This hit me personally.
I recently wrote my second book, Become Kadosh—Kadosh קָדוֹשׁ meaning "holy" or "set apart"—where I finally found the courage to speak publicly about my past addiction to pornography. The book discusses addiction, its effects on the brain, and how I learned to overcome it through the lessons I learned during my 45 days in a rehabilitation center.
Writing about those experiences required a tremendous amount of courage. A courage I found from others who shared their past openly in rehab. I had to confront shame and embarrassment and finally put things into words that I had spent years keeping private.
Yet after watching two videos on Shoe's channel titled "Female Gooners Must Be Stopped" and "The Insane World of Child Dating Apps," I found myself looking at my own past differently. What I once considered to be an incredibly shameful part of my life suddenly seemed mild compared with some of the things being normalized, promoted, or encountered in the world today.
That does not excuse my own behavior. Sin does not become acceptable simply because someone else commits something worse. But it did force me to consider the larger question: "What happens to a society when there are no meaningful boundaries and no meaningful consequences?"
Then I watched four documentaries on HBO, "Heroin: Cape Cod, USA," "Dope Sick Love," "Addiction," and "Meth Storm", and saw another side of the same problem—the devastating reality of the drug epidemic affecting communities across the country. (NOTE: None of these documentaries presented solutions. They talked about the issue and showed consequences of those facing them, but offered no hope. None of them showed recovering addicts and talked about those who overcame it or how. My book, Become Kadosh, talks about it from an educational perspective and has practical solutions to deal with the problem from personal experience. If you are interested, contact me and I'll send you a free digital copy of the book or provide a link where you can purchase one on Amazon. DM me on Facebook or Instagram at @TeshuvahBibleStudies.)
Once again, I found myself thinking about the laws in Ki Tetze.
What happens when destructive behavior is allowed to continue without serious consequences? What happens when victims are left without justice? What happens when offenders have little reason to fear the consequences of their actions? What happens when society becomes so accustomed to evil that we stop being shocked by it?
My entire outlook on these harsh laws began to shift.
I couldn't help but wonder: "If laws with serious consequences existed today, and if those laws were actually enforced consistently, would our society be less chaotic?"
Scriptures declare that fear is the beginning of wisdom. When we fear consequences we ponder and reconsider our actions. Perhaps we need a bit more fear and real consequences to deter evil.
I am not saying that this is necessarily the direction we should take. Modern justice is complicated, and there are serious questions surrounding punishment, rehabilitation, proportionality, civil liberties, and the possibility of wrongful convictions. We cannot simply copy the legal system of ancient Israel and assume it would solve the problems of the modern world.
But those documentaries and videos made one thing very clear to me: "We do not currently have a solution." Despite all of our technology, education, institutions, laws, treatment programs, social programs, and criminal justice systems, we continue to struggle with addiction, sexual exploitation, abuse, violence, and the destruction of families and communities. What we are doing to prevent these things is, in many cases, barely making a dent.
Perhaps that is one reason Ki Tetze is so uncomfortable to read. It forces us to confront something we would rather avoid: human beings need boundaries. We need to be told what is right and what is wrong. We need consequences when those boundaries are violated. We need protection for those who are vulnerable. And we need a society that is willing to call evil what it is instead of simply redefining it until it becomes acceptable.
The Torah does not present humanity as inherently good and self-correcting. It presents humanity as deeply capable of both good and evil. Therefore, boundaries and consequences are necessary. That may be uncomfortable. It is certainly uncomfortable for me. But perhaps that is exactly why these chapters are worth wrestling with.
I pray you have a blessed week. A life filled with purpose and service to others. Perhaps the solution is what we have been avoiding all along. Using our past experiences to influence others and living a life worth emulating. That is my hope and prayer for you. Shalom!
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
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