Ki Tetse (כי תצא — “when you go out”)
Devarim / Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19 • Yeshayahu / Isaiah 54:1–10
Moshe sets out laws governing communal life: the conduct of war, respect for others, protection of the vulnerable, and justice and honesty in human relationships. The haftara is a message of consolation addressed to Zion: after rupture come return, rebuilding, and renewal.
Deuteronomy 23:10
כִּי־תֵצֵא מַחֲנֶה עַל־אֹיְבֶיךָ וְנִשְׁמַרְתָּ מִכֹּל דָּבָר רָע
“When you go out as a camp against your enemies, guard yourself from every evil thing.”
The idea of founding a new talmudic academy in Yavneh [1] dates back to 1913, when Rav Avraham Yitzḥak HaCohen Kook proposed purchasing the historical lands [2] of Yavneh to establish an agricultural settlement and a yeshiva. The project was carried by the Mizraḥi movement, but construction of the building was only completed in the late 1940s. Yeshivat Kerem BeYavneh [3] finally opened in 1953 under the leadership of Rav Ḥayim Yaakov Goldvicht [4].
In its early years, the institution functioned as a classic yeshiva, without any particular military framework [5]. It was only in 1965 that the Hesder program [6] (הֶסְדֵּר — arrangement) was established, combining intensive Torah study with military service.
A military camp is not a space where rules cease to apply. In Israeli military ethics, this requirement is expressed in the notion of Tohar HaNesheq [7] (טֹהַר־הַנֶּשֶׁק — purity of arms), which states that the use of force must remain subject to moral limits.
The Kerem BeYavneh campus is a collection of study and residential buildings surrounded by a wide green area. The Beit Midrash forms its core. Construction of the main building, designed by architect Meir Ben‑Uri [8], began in 1946. The buildings are set within a landscape of gardens, trees, and agricultural land.
[1] Yavneh — According to talmudic tradition, Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai established a center of study there after the destruction of the Second Temple.
[2] Purchase of the Yavneh lands — The lands were acquired in 1940 through the joint initiative of Rav Meir Berlin (Bar‑Ilan), president of the Mizraḥi movement, and Menaḥem Ussishkin, head of the Jewish National Fund.
[3] Kerem BeYavneh — The name “Kerem BeYavneh” predates the modern yeshiva: it already appears in the Mishnah (Eduyot 2:4; Ketubbot 4:6). The Jerusalem Talmud (Ketubbot 4:1) explains that it was not a vineyard in the literal sense, but sages seated in rows “like a vineyard.”
[4] Rav Ḥayim Yaakov Goldvicht — Born in 1925, trained at Yeshivat Etz Ḥayim in Jerusalem, close to the Ḥazon Ish and the Brisker Rav, he led Kerem BeYavneh for nearly forty years. In 1991, he received the Israel Prize on behalf of the Hesder yeshivot movement.
[5] Gahalat nucleus — The yeshiva was founded by a group from the Gahalat nucleus (גח״לת, Garin Ḥalutzi Loḥem Torani), composed of highly committed religious youth with strong discipline, including alumni of the Bnei Akiva yeshiva of Kfar HaRo’e. Rav Goldvicht became the first Rosh Yeshiva after consulting the Ḥazon Ish.
[6] Hesder program — Hesder combines intensive Torah study with military service. The Nahal Torani framework was formalized in 1965, two years before the Six-Day War — Kerem BeYavneh thus becoming the first yeshiva of this type, later nicknamed “the mother of the Hesder yeshivot.”
[7] Tohar HaNesheq — A central concept of Israeli military ethics, later integrated into the formal ethical code of the IDF, Ru’aḥ Tzahal (רוח צה״ל — “spirit of the IDF”). Maimonides links the requirement of sanctity in the military camp (Deuteronomy 23:15) to moral limits in the conduct of war (Guide of the Perplexed III:41). Issues of distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality, and limits of violence are debated in military, legal, and halakhic contexts.
[8] Meir Ben‑Uri — An Israeli architect trained during the British Mandate period, part of the generation that shaped the educational and religious institutions of the Yishuv. His work is characterized by functional, sober architecture attentive to communal needs and integration into the rural landscape. He contributed to several public and institutional projects in the 1940s–1960s.