Aishet Yafat Toar

This is a question I had while learning the parsha on thursday. The first Rashi says that this rule only applied during a optional war, but not during a Mitzvah war. The second Rashi says that the Torah only teaches this because a man otherwise wouldn’t resist. Leaving aside whether this is true or not the question logically follows what do you expect the soldiers to do in a Mitzvah war acoording to Rashi’s explanation. Later on I’ll give a couple answers in the comments.

One Response to “Aishet Yafat Toar”

  1. Tobie Says:

    In a mitzva war- at least some of them- aren’t they supposed to be killing everyone? It’s probably a lot easier to resist raping a woman when you kill her immediately than when you let her live and keep her in captivity. Similarly, optional wars are carried out mainly for the money and land, so you’re much more likely to be taking home a lot of slaves- note that the law is about a beautiful woman that you see among your captives

Leave a Reply