Ki Teitze: Where We Put Our Shit

When you [men] go out as a troop against your enemies, be on your guard against anything untoward. If anyone among you has been rendered impure by a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp, and he must not reenter the camp. Toward evening he shall bathe in water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp. Further, there shall be an area for you outside the camp, where you may relieve yourself. With your gear you shall have a spike, and when you have squatted you shall dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement. Since your God יהוה moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you, let your camp be holy; let [God] not find anything unseemly among you and turn away from you.

WHEN THOU GOEST FORTH IN CAMP AGAINST THINE ENEMIES, THEN THOU SHALT KEEP THEE FROM EVERY EVIL — “because Satan indicts [people] in the hour of danger.” This is Rashi’s language.
The correct interpretation regarding this commandment appears to me that Scripture is warning of a time when sin is rampant. The well-known custom of forces going to war is that they eat all abominable things, rob and plunder, and are not ashamed even of lewdness and all vileness. The fairest of man by nature comes to be possessed of cruelty and fury when the army advances against the enemy. Therefore, Scripture warned, then thou shalt keep thee from every evil. And by way of the simple meaning of Scripture this is an admonition against doing anything forbidden. And in the Sifre it is stated: “I might think that Scripture is speaking of the laws of defilements and purities and tithes. It therefore says ‘ervah’ [an unseemly thing, which refers to unchastity]. Whence do I know to include idolatry, lewdness, bloodshed, and blasphemy? Scripture therefore says, then thou shalt keep thee from every evil. Or perhaps the verse is speaking of defilements and purities, and tithes? It says ervah (an unseemly thing): just as ervah uniquely represents a deed for which the Canaanites were driven from the Land and which removes the Divine Presence [from Israel], so all deeds for which the Canaanites were driven from the Land and which remove the Divine Presence [from Israel] are included in the admonition of this verse. When Scripture states davar [thing, but literally ‘word’ — then thou shalt keep thee from every evil ‘davar’] it includes also ‘evil talk.’” This also is included in the purport of the verse we have explained, that besides the [specific] admonitions which are stated concerning these stringent sins, he added yet a [special] prohibition to an army that we guard against any of these sins so that the Divine Presence withdraw not from the Israelites who are there, just as he said, For the Eternal thy G-d walketh in the midst of thy camp Thus he who commits any of the great sins while in the army, those about which it is written, they have set their detestable things in the house whereon My Name is called to defile it, [he causes the Divine Presence to withdraw from Israel]. Moreover, [we are to avoid these sins] in order that the enemy should not overpower us because of our committing the very deeds that cause them to be driven from before us, this being the sense of the expression, and to give up thine enemies before thee. The Sages [in the Sifre] added evil talk [as derived from this admonition] in order that contention should not increase among them and smite them with a very great plague, [even] more than the enemy [will inflict upon them].

ויתד תהיה לך על אזנך, “you shall have a paddle amongst your weapons;” seeing that only men were going out to fight a war, and seeing that they had the Holy Ark with them when they went to war but were not able to build separating walls, which would have insulated the Ark from exposure to the ritually impure, the people who had nocturnal seminal emissions were required to leave the camp. But when the Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert, there were men, women and children in the camp. Therefore, separating walls were built to separate the Ark and the Tent of meeting from the camp. In the desert those who were ritually impure did not have to leave the camp of the Israelites (but only the camp of the Levites) because of the ever-present danger. In the army everyone had to dig his own hole outside the camp to bury his excrement and cover it, but during the forty years in the desert, everyone dug his own hole in his backyard within the camp of the Israelites.

ויתד תהיה לך על אזנך, “you are to have a shovel in addition to your gear (weapons).” The letter א at the beginning of the word אזנך is an addition, not part of the root. The basic word is זין, weaponry. The shovel is supposed to be an integral part of your equipment in war, no less important than your weapons. This commandment reflects he spiritually high level of a Jewish camp. It reflects the awareness by the Jewish soldiers that the Shechinah is in their midst. At the same time, the need for the shovel indicates that the Torah speaks of a period when the people had already become guilty of sins seeing that during the years when they did not sin there was no need for a shovel as the manna was completely absorbed by their bodies so that there was no excrement which had to be covered up. Not only that, but it also absorbed the taste of other foods. After the Israelites had begun to sin, they did need shovels to clean up after themselves. I have already discussed this matter in Numbers 11,5.
Our sages in Yuma 75 explain that when the Israelites defecated they did not do so sideways or forwards but behind themselves so as not to expose their excrement to the clouds of glory which accompanied the Israelites on both their flanks and in front of them.

Exile comes into the world because of idolatry, sexual transgression, murder, and not letting the land rest during the sabbatical year. Idolatry, as it says (Leviticus 26:30), “I will destroy your altars.” The Holy Blessed One said: Since you want to worship idols, I will exile you to a place where they worship idols. That is why it says, “I will destroy your altars.” Not letting the land rest during the sabbatical year, as it says (Leviticus 26:34), “Then shall the land make up for its sabbatical years [throughout all the time that it is desolate and you are in the land of your enemies].” The Holy Blessed One said to them: Since you do not let the land rest, it will rest by itself, and the number of months that you did not let it rest, it will rest by itself. That is why it says, “Then shall the land make up…all the time.” (Sexual transgression: How so? Rabbi Yishmael son of Rabbi Yosei said: As long as Israel commits sexual transgressions, the Divine Presence removes Itself from them, as it says (Deuteronomy 23:15), “Let no unseemly [lit., naked] thing be seen among you, so that [God] will turn away from you.”)