The Outcast Trio

In Parashat Ki Tetzeh we are told of a ceremony of Yibum or levirate marriage, and if the man does not want to marry a widow of his brother, the ceremony that releases him of this obligation is called Chalitzah.

As always everything that is about to follow is strictly how I view the verses in the Torah, and is my opinion, and with that said - let's go!!

So, why is the chalitza performed? And why does the woman take off his shoe and spit on his face? I assume you know the laws and details of this ceremony, so I will get right to it.

It all may be related to the incident of The Brothers and Yosef. The Brothers sold the young Yosef and bought shoes with that money. Brothers denied Yosef the opportunity to have his own family, a bright future and to leave sons after himself, so they sold him in his young age to Egypt. Same is the brother who doesn’t want to take the wife of his passed brother - in the ceremony of Chalitzah, denies his dead brother an opportunity to continue his name and leave a descendant in his name, since the one that passed on, died childless. 

Why does the woman need to spit on his face? The Brothers didn’t do the selling with a smile, it was done through anger, screaming, and spit flying from their mouths. The same way a woman needs to spit on his face as it says in the Parashat Ki Tetzeh 25:9, and in my opinion, this would atone in some way the anger shown by The Brothers, for their spits that flew onto Yosef's face.

Since the whole nation comes from the Brothers, the whole nation needs to atone for this situation - shoes are not worn during the Tisha Be Av, since the money made from the sale were spent on the shoes. 

Problems between the people always lead to someone "getting sold" or shall I say nicely as thrown out from the community like it happened to Bar Kamzta, which eventually led to the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash. But in reality, on Tisha Be Av we atone for that same sin of The Brothers, which repeats itself centuries later - similar scenario, only it played out a bit differently - but still the same old plot where we have failed once again.

It feels like centuries come and go, but we have never graduated, or have never fixed that situation. 

But let’s take it a bit further:

Hashem has made a way for us to atone for The Brothers through the couples that have a hard time bringing children into this world, but why through them?

Since Yosef was denied by The Brothers to have a family and was sold to Egypt, Hashem puts the couples - the descendants of The Brothers, and denies them children for some time, thus atoning for what The Brothers did to Yosef HaTzaddik. They experience pain as if like Yosef who went through his hardships during the time when he was alone and childless - the time before he got married.

The wife in the chalitza process, spits at the brother, since the brother behaves as The Brothers did and causes her not to have a child and she is in pain. She went through this childless marriage, just buried her husband, and now even this brother denies her a child, and brazenly continues to deny her this last opportunity.

But you may say that Sarah and Rachel also didn’t have children, are they also atoning for Yosef? They are not. That’s why Hashem explicitly says - And Hashem remembered Sarah(Vayera 21:1) and Rachel(Vayetzei 30:22) and gave them children, after that Hashem didn’t remember no one, He either spoke via an angel to Shimshon’s mother(Judges 13), or Chana - via a prophet (Samuel 1). The rest of the people are atoning for Yosef HaTzaddik till our time.

Hashem hand-picks those couples, and awards them to do an atonement for The Brothers, and in the process Hashem draws them close to Himself. Besides the children, whether they get or not, their spiritual jump in the process is unbelievably huge and is their highest spiritual reward.

So, if you think about it, we have Yosef HaTzaddik that was thrown out from the family, then Bar Kamtza was thrown out from the community, and there’s a third personality in the End of Days, the Son of David with the similar plot. 

Everyday the Nation has problems, and will continue to have problems for as long the situation is not fixed with the Son of David. 

There were big mistakes that were made with Bar Kamtza and Yosef HaTzaddik.

It says in the Book of Midrash, after the family has united in Egypt, Yosef ate separately from the rest of The Brothers, since Yaakov Avinu didn't make peace between The Brothers, thus Hashem made them go through a hard and bitter Galut later, and on top of it had to punish the ten rabbis in order to atone for The Brothers.

Bar Kamtza had no one on his side - not a single rabbi, and did what he did, where Bet Hamikdash got destroyed, millions died, and millions were taken into captivity. 

Same way is Mashiach - "He is despised, and isolated from men, a man of pains, and accustomed to illness. As one who hid his face from us; he was despised, and we had no regard for him." as it says in Prophet Isaiah 53:3, an outsider, despised and isolated from men and will be so until he is reinstated into the community. And then, and only then the problems will stop, and the atonement of the Outcast Trio will be made - Yosef HaTzaddik, Bar Kamtza and Mashiach Tzidkenu - and then The Brothers will be set Free.

So, Gentlemen - Let's Find This Guy & Let’s Bring The Redemption!!



Shmuel Katanov