3 X 13: Its Simple Arithmetic!

Punishment for the sake of punishment is cruel and unusual from the Torah’s vantage point. Punishment is education and rehabilitation.

Prison: The Wrong Punishment

Our society has a belief that punishment cannot be cruel and unusual. Because of this constitutional demand we do not have corporal punishment in our legal system. Yet, ironically, we do incarcerate people for years and even decades in the most inhumane fashion. Any criminal will tell you that he would prefer a good beating to even a few months in prison, which, in some situations can amount to a death penalty.

I’m not suggesting that we empty out all the prisons and institute corporal punishment in its place, because in our day and age, prison serves more as a protection of society than it does rehabilitation for the criminal. But, what I am suggesting is that our society must reexamine the way it views punishment.

Whatever role there is in deterrence and protection—and they do play an important part of Judaism’s understanding of punishment—Judaism is concerned even more with the rehabilitation of the criminal, wherever possible. And because prison is rarely the environment where rehabilitation takes place, the Torah did not include prison as one of the different forms of punishment it prescribes for criminal behavior. Throughout Jewish history prison was only used as a last resort or as temporary holding center before the person was tried.

Thus, every punishment was in essence not really a punishment for the sake of punishment, but a way of cleansing the evil that caused the criminal behavior in the first place.

Ouch!

With this introduction in mind we can approach the reason why the Torah—in this week’s parsha—in discussing the use of corporal punishment—required the administering of 39 lashes for certain crimes.

In fact, the Torah calls for 40 lashes. The Oral Tradition— that was given to Moses at Sinai and transmitted generation by generation until it was ultimately recorded in the Talmud—explains that it means up to forty, but not really forty.

Whenever the Oral Tradition modifies the literal meaning of the text, there must be a reason why it was written in one way and interpreted the other. There must be a lesson in both versions. In other words, there is something we must learn from the association of corporal punishment with the numbers 39 and the number 40.

Reclaiming Thirteen

Kli Yakar, a sixteenth century Biblical commentary explains that the symbolism in the number 39 is that it comprises three sets of 13 (3x13). There are three items related to the number 13 that the criminal undermined in the commission of the crime.

Undermining G-d’s Unity

The Hebrew word echad/one that we say in the Shema proclaiming G-d’s unity, numerically adds up to 13. The criminal behaved in a way that belied his inner belief in G- d’s omnipresence and unity.

If the criminal was aware that there is no other force in the word other than G-d He would not have so brazenly defied G-d’s commandments. In the criminal’s mind, his schemes can succeed. This implies that G-d is not the only source of life and sustenance in this world. Even worse, it implies that G-d is not the sole authority. That is the first “13” that the criminal has undermined.

Distorting the Torah

Torah was given to us to be interpreted; and there are 13 methods of Torah interpretation that were given to us by G-d. (These rules of interpretation, recorded in the Midrashic work Sifra, are part of the daily morning liturgy.)

The criminal has taken the liberty to distort the Torah so that it fits into his own system of priorities and thereby shunned G-d’s system of interpreting the laws and substituted them with his own.

Un-Bar Mitzvah

The age of 13 is the age of Bar Mitzvah, the time, our Sages tell us, the Yetzer Tov, the good impulse is fully operative within the Jew.

We are born with but one natural impulse, which when left unchecked becomes the source of our evil behavior. This impulse, known as the yetzer hara/ the evil impulse is unopposed—except by the overbearing influence of his or her parents, teachers who, hopefully, smother the child with moral inspiration. A the age of 12 for a girl, when she enters her 13th year, and the age of thirteen for a boy, when he completes his thirteenth year, we acquire an opposing Divine force.

This does not mean that before Bat or Bar Mitzvah we have no Divine soul. Our Divine soul makes its entry into the body at circumcision for a boy or the naming for a girl. It does not fully manifest itself until the age of maturity.

By committing a crime, the criminal has demonstrated a lack of respect for his or her own innate goodness and G- dly nature that was acquired at the age associated with 13.

Thus, a crime is an act of rebellion directed against:

a) G-d;

b) The Torah and c) The person himself or herself.

Thus, for the criminal to be rehabilitated he must “lash” himself with these 3 multiples of 13, learning how to enhance his awareness of G-d; respect for G-d’s Torah; and self-respect.

The Elusive Forty

But the Torah speaks of forty lashes, because there is one level that we cannot administer ourselves. It is the level that G-d must give us.

In other words, for us to rehabilitate ourselves, we must ask G-d—after doing all that we are capable of doing—to lead us to the number forty and the spiritual heights it represents.

The number forty symbolizes the ultimate level of Divine purity and knowledge, as it corresponds to the forty days of the flood that cleansed the world and the forty days that Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Torah that was to transform the world and the forty years the Jews wandered in the desert until they were ready to enter the Promised Land.

Forty Days before Yom Kippur

We are presently in the month of Elul, on the threshold of the New Year, at which time we take stock of our past and prepare ourselves for a new year. This is the time of spiritual refinement. Indeed, these forty days—from the beginning of Elul through Yom Kippur—correspond to and represent the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai for the third time to receive the second set of Tablets.

We are also living on the threshold of a new era, the Era of Moshiach, when the world will be deluged with the knowledge of G-d. The Talmud and Zohar also speak of a forty year period at the commencement of the Messianic Age before the Resurrection of the Dead.

Our preparation for these two parallel periods—the New Year and the New Age—is to administer the “39 figurative lashes” to ourselves. This translates into an effort to enhance awareness of G-d’s unity; study of and respect for the Torah; and a more profound understanding of the spiritual treasures that we all possess.

And that should be followed with a humble request of G-d:

“Please help us so that we can reach the fortieth level; the level that represents complete purification and atonement. Give us a good and sweet year and may we see the immediate realization of Your promise to bring Moshiach and the final Redemption.”

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Ki Seitzei by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.