Kietzei, does love conquer all? Our parasha contains more laws than any other. Some of them have generated

much study and debate, especially two at the beginning, the law of the captive woman and that of the

stubborn and rebellious son. There is, however, one law that deserves much more attention than it has generally received,

namely the one place between these two. It concerns the laws of inheritance. It says,

if a man has two wives and he loves one but not the other and both bear him sons, but the first

born is the son of the wife he doesn't love. When he wills his property

to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves,

in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he doesn't love. He must acknowledge

the son of his unloved wife as he firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has.

That son is the first sign of his father's strength, the right of the firstborn belongs to him.

Note that the Hebrew word here translated as does not love or unloved is Sunua, which normally means hated. We'll see later why this

strong word is used. Now on the face of it, this is straightforward. It's a logical law. It tells us

that love must not override justice. The firstborn in ancient Israel and elsewhere have special

rights, especially in connection with inheritance.

In most societies, they tended to succeed to their father's position.

That was the case in Israel in relation to kingship and priesthood.

They didn't inherit all the father's property, but they did inherit twice as much as the other children. It was important to have

rules like the above to avoid damaging family splits every time a death occurred or was imminent.

The Torah gives us a graphic example of the court intrigue that went on as David lay dying

as to which of his children should be his heir. More recently,

Lahavdil, there have been several examples of Hasidic dynasties irreparably torn apart

because different groups wanted different individuals to inherit the leadership. There is a tension

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