The name of the Parshah, "Ki Teitzei," means "when you go out," and it is found in Deuteronomy 21:10.
Seventy-four of the
Torah’s
613 commandments (
mitzvot) are in the Parshah of
Ki Teitzei. These include the laws of the beautiful captive, the
inheritance rights of the firstborn, the wayward and rebellious son,
burial and dignity of the dead,
returning a lost object,
sending away the mother bird before taking her young, the duty to erect a
safety fence around the roof of one’s home, and the various forms of
kilayim (forbidden plant and animal hybrids).
Also recounted are the judicial procedures and penalties for adultery, for the rape or seduction of an unmarried girl, and for a husband who falsely accuses his wife of infidelity. The following cannot marry a person of
Jewish lineage: a
mamzer (someone born from an adulterous or incestuous relationship); a male of Moabite or Ammonite descent; a first- or second-generation Edomite or Egyptian.
Our
Parshah also includes laws governing the purity of the military camp; the prohibition against turning in an escaped slave; the duty to
pay a worker on time, and to allow anyone working for you—man or animal—to “eat on the job”; the proper treatment of a debtor, and the prohibition against charging
interest on a loan; the laws of
divorce (from which are also derived many of the laws of
marriage); the penalty of thirty-nine lashes for transgression of a Torah prohibition; and the procedures for
yibbum (“levirate marriage”) of the wife of a deceased childless brother, or
chalitzah (“removing of the shoe”) in the case that the brother-in-law does not wish to marry her.
Ki Teitzei concludes with the obligation to remember “what
Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt.”
Learn:
Ki Teitzei in Depth
Browse:
Ki Teitzei Parshah Columnists
Prep:
Devar Torah Q&A for Ki Teitzei
Read:
Haftarah in a Nutshell
Play:
Ki Teitzei Parshah Quiz
