Or HaChaim on Deuteronomy 22:13/אור החיים על דברים כ״ב:י״ג

1 כי יקח איש אשה, "when a man takes a wife, etc." The Torah addresses average people even those who have forsaken the path of Torah because they claim that their time is too short and they are so preoccupied with earning a subsistence that they cannot observe all the Torah's restrictions. The words כי יקח איש אשה may be translated as "when a man decides to betroth himself to Torah (which is supposed to be his life's companion)," ובא אליה, "and he consummates this relationship," i.e. a relationship which had been initiated at the time all the Jewish souls stood at Mount Sinai when G'd revealed Himself and they received the Ten Commandments, and now ושנאה, he hates the path of Torah, and he does not want to grant her the things which are due to his "wife" as a matter of right as spelled out in Exodus chapter 21. When his "wife" remonstrates with him asking why she does not receive her due, her "husband" claims that she has not provided him with what he considers the obligation of any wife to her husband, i.e. food and drink. He also claims that he does not observe that his devotion to Torah has paid any dividends such as his economic situation improving. In fact he claims that when he looks around at all his friends who have not adopted the path of Torah they all seem to be better off than he. This is what the Torah alludes to by the sentence ושם לה עלילת דברים והוציא עליה שם רע ואמר את האשה הזאת לקחתי, "and he accuses her and gives her a bad name saying I have married this woman, etc." He does not deny having "married" the woman, i.e. having made a commitment to Torah. The "husband" claims "when I came near to her I did not find her hymen," i.e. a symbol of strength. He claims that people who relied on Torah were compelled to look elsewhere to find sustenance.

2The Torah replies that the wife's father, i.e. G'd, and the community of Israel, will defend her virtue before the Supreme Court. ולקח אבי הנערה ואמה, "the father and mother will display the בתולים, of the "maiden" (wife), i.e. proof that loyalty to Torah results in spectacular achievements by its adherents. The Torah adds that this defence of the Torah's reputation will be public, i.e. השערה, "in the town square." This is an allusion to what the Zohar volume 3 page 80 writes that in the future G'd will demand that the Torah will be compensated for all the insults it had endured for so long. This is also mentioned indirectly in Avot 6,2 where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that day after day a heavenly voice goes forth from Mount Chorev proclaiming: "Woe to mankind for their disregard of Torah." In our paragraph G'd is described as demanding the compensation for the insults endured by the Torah throughout the ages at the hands of those who have rejected it and sold it short, something the author in Avot spoke about.

3G'd is described as the father of the virgin-bride who has been subjected to unjust accusations, her groom denying her virginity at the time of marriage. The father of the bride, i.e. G'd, says: "I have given My daughter to this man." This means that "I have not given her to him in order that he should abuse her in some out of the way corner of the house, but in order for him to bestow upon her all the rights a wife is entitled to, including her entitlement to physical sustenance, clothing and intimacy." According to Tikkuney Zohar section 6 the Torah is entitled to the same considerations as the physical wife of a husband. The Torah is in need of the same three rights by her partner the Israelite as those the husband has to bestow on his physical wife. וישנאה, "and he hates her." Here the Torah explains that the immediate reason for the estrangement between Israel and Torah, i.e. husband and wife, is an emotion called hatred. The Torah also hints at the underlying reason, i. e. the apparent failure of the Torah to live up to the Israelite's expectations. והנה הוא שם עלילת דברים, "Now, behold, he made a wanton accusation against her;" the reason the Torah underlines the (apparently superfluous ) words והנה הוא, "and behold he," is to alert us that the accusation is unwarranted, is false. It is only due to his hatred of her that the husband made such an accusation. ואלה בתולי בתי, "and here are the signs of my daughter's virginity." This is hyperbole for describing something as clear as daylight. Just as one can prove that a bride was a virgin at her wedding by looking at the sheet on which the marriage was consummated, so the fact that Torah did not disappoint in what one could expect of her can be demonstrated beyond doubt. It had been created prior to the universe, which itself was only created for its sake and which continues to exist only on its account. Any good which is available and which is dispensed in this universe is only acquired through Torah either directly or indirectly.

4The Torah continues that the judgment for the Israelite who accused Torah unjustly of having failed him will be pronounced by the court. In the first instance he will receive 39 lashes. The Talmud in Berachot 5 stated that when a man has been subjected to afflictions he should examine his life-style in order to discover which sins he is guilty of. If he cannot find a specific sin that he was guilty of he should attribute his afflictions to his having neglected Torah study. Most commentators find this difficult to understand, claiming that inasmuch as neglect of Torah study is a grave sin, how can the Talmud consider this as a "sin of last resort," i.e. something to fall back on only if one cannot find onself guilty of any other sin? The answer is that the commandment of Torah study and its fulfilment is not one of the commandments that can be measured. Even a person who has studied a relatively great amount of Torah and has devoted many hours to it on a daily basis cannot be sure that he has fulfilled this commandment adequately. If one is stricken with afflictions and knows of no other sin one is guilty of, it is in order therefore to examine how much time one has wasted, time which could have been put to better use studying Torah.

5 וענשו אתו מאה כסף, "And they shall fine him one hundred shekalim." This is an allusion to the one hundred benedictions each one of us is meant to recite every day as explained in Menachot 43, based on Deut. 10,12: "and now what, מה, does the Lord G'd ask of you, etc." The Talmud interpreted the word מה as equivalent to מאה, i.e. G'd asks that we recite one hundred benedictions. That verse spoke about a penitent as we know from Bereshit Rabbah 21 that the word ועתה or עתה always refers to a penitent sinner.

6ונתנו לאבי הנערה, "and the elders shall give (these 100 benedictions) to the Father of the virgin-bride, i.e. to G'd, etc., because he (the Israelite) has slandered the virgin-bride of Israel." This is a reference to the שכינה, the Divine Presence, which includes all of Israel, the tenth emanation [popularly known as כתר. Ed.] or virtue, called the oral Torah, a concept familiar to students of the Kabbalah.

7ולו תהיה לאשה, "and she shall be his wife, and he must not divorce her as long as he lives." Although the commandment to study Torah is normally understood to involve setting aside certain parts of the day and night for study, a person who has rejected Torah study previously and who has thereby slighted the Torah must henceforth occupy himself with honouring the Torah all day and all night, i.e. "he cannot send her away as long as he lives." Vayikra Rabbah 25,1 states that if a person was in the habit of studying Torah for an hour daily before committing a sin, then part of his rehabilitation is to study two hours daily. This is applicable to people whose sins did not consist of insulting the Torah. In order to make up for the insult to Torah which the person in our paragraph is guilty of he has to henceforth devote himself exclusively to Torah.

8ואם אמת הדבר, "But if the matter was true, etc." If it turns out that the Torah which this person studied and which he examined and found defective, was taught by heretics, such as the Torah taught by Tzadok and Bayssus, such Torah does not give man strength but exerts a negative influence on him. G'd commands to stone such a "Torah" to death until it is completely dead, as per our verse. Whereas the teachers of this kind of Torah employed words spoken by G'd, i.e. the text of the Torah, the intention of the teacher teaching it disqualifies it. We have been taught in Gittin 48 that if a heretic painstakingly writes an entire Torah scroll it must be burned forthwith, as he did something despicable, etc. When the Torah concludes our paragraph with the words: "you shall wipe out evil from your midst," it refers to someone who deliberately distorts the meaning of the Torah.