Then the officials shall address the troops, as follows: “Is there anyone who has built a new house but has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another dedicate it. Is there anyone who has planted a vineyard but has never harvested it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another harvest it. Is there anyone who has paid the bride-price for a wife, but who has not yet married her? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another marry her.”
The officials shall go on addressing the troops and say, “Is there anyone afraid and disheartened? Let him go back to his home, lest the courage of his comrades flag like his.”
--Deuteronomy 20:5-8
Why are the soldiers in the first three verses singled out for honorable discharge? Doesn’t the real possibility of death on the battlefield weigh equally on the minds of every combatant? Of all the innumerable tragedies, actual and potential, that may afflict fallen soldiers and their families, there must be something unique about these. No doubt, it’s especially heart-wrenching to imagine the death of a young man or woman which robs them of a new home, the fruits of a major investment, or a marriage, just before consummation. The occasional obituary for a young bride or groom killed accidentally, only days before their wedding, evokes deep sorrow, if not shock and horror.
But aren’t all these things -- more precisely, the fear of these things -- implicit in the last verse’s catchall category of the “afraid and disheartened” who are dismissed from the battlefield? Are these simply examples, admittedly extreme examples, of distractions that can make a soldier ineffective (see Ibn Ezra and Nahmanides)?
The answer seems to lie in the fact that the Torah is less worried here about the soldier’s fear of death, or even about his death per se, than with its outcome. We send him home out of concern for the secondary impact of his death. Our fear is that if he doesn’t leave now, אִישׁ אַחֵר (“another”) -- the phrase is repeated in each of the three verses -- might reap what he has sown. And, in Rashi’s words, וְדָבָר שֶׁל עָגְמַת נֶפֶשׁ הוּא זֶה -- this is an unusually cruel circumstance, resulting in profound mental anguish.
But whose anguish? If he is killed, the soldier won’t feel the anguish of his loss.
As it happens, the Torah reintroduces this house-vineyard-wife triptych later in Deuteronomy within the "Tokheha," the dire warnings by Moses of severe punishments Israel will suffer if it disobeys God’s laws. Among the seemingly endless list of curses, we find identical images, down to the very same wording:
Note the repetition of “looking” and “seeing with your own eyes” in the latter verses. The soldier killed in battle, in the earlier passage, is spared the sight of his loss; here, the victim sees his life unravel right in front of him. The loss itself is tragic, but even more cruel is having to helplessly watch the untimely death of loved ones, to experience it in real time and to suffer its aftermath; to grapple daily -- morally, philosophically, and psychologically -- with the injustice of young lives cut short, their dreams remaining unrealized.
As tragic as these events are for the victims, the brunt of the punishment strikes those surrounding them. The dead don’t feel any pain -- if we are to believe Kohelet, at least, they feel and know nothing. Instead, they may leave a legacy of suffering to their survivors, who must endure the idea of an untimely and unjust death.
The answer seems to lie in the fact that the Torah is less worried here about the soldier’s fear of death, or even about his death per se, than with its outcome. We send him home out of concern for the secondary impact of his death. Our fear is that if he doesn’t leave now, אִישׁ אַחֵר (“another”) -- the phrase is repeated in each of the three verses -- might reap what he has sown. And, in Rashi’s words, וְדָבָר שֶׁל עָגְמַת נֶפֶשׁ הוּא זֶה -- this is an unusually cruel circumstance, resulting in profound mental anguish.
But whose anguish? If he is killed, the soldier won’t feel the anguish of his loss.
As it happens, the Torah reintroduces this house-vineyard-wife triptych later in Deuteronomy within the "Tokheha," the dire warnings by Moses of severe punishments Israel will suffer if it disobeys God’s laws. Among the seemingly endless list of curses, we find identical images, down to the very same wording:
If you pay the bride-price for a wife, another man shall enjoy her. If you build a house, you shall not live in it. If you plant a vineyard, you shall not harvest it. Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it . . . Your sons and daughters shall be delivered to another people, while you look on; and your eyes shall strain for them constantly, but you shall be helpless. A people you do not know shall eat up the produce of your soil and all your gains; you shall be abused and downtrodden continually, until you are driven mad by what your eyes behold.
--Deuteronomy 28:30-34
Note the repetition of “looking” and “seeing with your own eyes” in the latter verses. The soldier killed in battle, in the earlier passage, is spared the sight of his loss; here, the victim sees his life unravel right in front of him. The loss itself is tragic, but even more cruel is having to helplessly watch the untimely death of loved ones, to experience it in real time and to suffer its aftermath; to grapple daily -- morally, philosophically, and psychologically -- with the injustice of young lives cut short, their dreams remaining unrealized.
As tragic as these events are for the victims, the brunt of the punishment strikes those surrounding them. The dead don’t feel any pain -- if we are to believe Kohelet, at least, they feel and know nothing. Instead, they may leave a legacy of suffering to their survivors, who must endure the idea of an untimely and unjust death.
The Talmud (Mo'ed Katan 25b) expresses this idea in a beautiful one-line elegy:
בְּכוּ לָאֲבֵלִים וְלֹא לָאֲבֵידָה, שֶׁהִיא לִמְנוּחָה וְאָנוּ לַאֲנָחָה.Cry for the mourners and not for the loss, for the loss goes to rest, while we go to our sighs.
In allowing these special exemptions, the Torah, to the extent that it can, seeks to minimize the most morally offensive consequences of war, beyond those on the battlefield. Not that any combat death or, for that matter, any death at all, is less tragic than what Deuteronomy describes. Whether the victim is nineteen or ninety-nine, every human death is tragic, every life taken is wasted potential.
In a category apart, however, are circumstances of such immeasurable cruelty, that death is not only tragic, but obscene; the mourners feel not only bereft, but cursed; where death makes a mockery of justice, undermines our confidence in a basically decent existence, and shatters the belief that "God’s kindness permeates the world.”
For such evils, the Torah has no tolerance. Given the opportunity, we are obligated to deny death, at its most sinister, a needless victory.
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