The Mitzvah to Build a Parapet 5784

From Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda, Parshat Ki Tetze- Parapets and the Safety of Others: ....freedom begins by being responsible not only for one's own personal safety but also for the safety of others, by building a parapet, or fence, around the roof of one's house. In the ancient world, a lot of individual, family, and community interaction took place on rooftops. The Mitzvah we read today about the safeguarding of a roof is directly parallel to safeguarding the inside of a synagogue.

From Ohr Somayach, "Talmud Tips:

• Bava Kama 9b

Rabbi Natan said, “From where do we learn that a person should not raise a ‘bad dog’ (i.e., dangerous) in his house, and that he should not put up an unsafe ladder in his house? The verse states “Don’t put blood in your house” (Deut. 23:8).
Although the verse specifically mentions only the mitzvah of building a ma’akeh (parapet) on the roof of one’s house to help prevent a person who goes there from falling and losing his life, Rabbi Natan teaches that this verse is also the source for not having dangerous objects around one’s house.

Torah Limericks, Rabbi Joe Black:
If when building a house you forget
To furnish a parapet
If some careless clown
Should climb and fall down
His bruises could put you in debt

From University of Chicago, Joyce and Jacob Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, a paper by Benjamin Levine: Recent graduate Benjamin Levine has shared with us the exciting news that he has been selected as one of two winners of the Sinai Scholars Academic Symposium for his paper “Judaism’s Emphasis on Preventing Loss of Life with a Parapet...My paper was dedicated to a close high school friend who tragically committed suicide by scaling a very short guardrail to jump off the Natchez Trace Parkway bridge in Williamson County, Tennessee. My paper examined how the Torah could be used to design an appropriate guardrail of the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge. It also discussed the societal benefits of implementing this important mitzvah of the Torah. Through writing the paper, I discovered secular research that confirmed the essential sagacious commandment of the Torah to build a proper parapet. Building a guardrail around a roof extends to both public and private domains emphasizing the individual and societal responsibilities to prevent bloodshed on both private and public property. This practical mitzvah of a building a parapet with the appropriate dimensions has the potential of saving lives by making it more difficult to commit suicide.

From Parapets, Biblical Laws, and Loving they Neighbor, by James B. Prothro: If the central command, after love for God, is to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Leviticus 19:18), this law offers one instance that should help shape our practice of love for others. And the logic of this law and what it teaches us to value, if we want to hear it, stretch beyond rooftop decor. Last week I scolded my toddler for climbing out of her high chair into thin air, and my five-year-old pointed out that the toddler’s baby-brain was not solely to blame, because I had neglected to strap her into her chair. Sassy? Yes. But she understood Deuteronomy 22:8.