Misc Commands - Deuteronomy 22: 1-12

Chapter 22 covers a lot of different topics, the first 4 verses have to do with finding your “brother’s” animal outside of where they are meant to be kept. The word “brother” here is probably meant as “kinsman” which would make sense because Israel was usually grouped together by tribes and clans. If the animal was to be found outside of the pen or enclosure, the person who found it couldn’t pretend they didn’t see it, they were obligated to take the animal back to the person it belonged to and if they didn’t know, they were supposed to keep the animal and take care of it until the owner came around looking for it. I would imagine that after a certain amount of time, that animal could just be counted as theirs but that’s not expressly written. Finally, if an animal is injured or hurt, whoever finds it is supposed to help it.

There was a significant discussion about the next topic in both the IM and by TB but it only is one verse, verse 5 which says, “the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.” I was surprised to see that it was only 1 verse and yet much time was dedicated to the discussion. The IM comments, “The way one clothes oneself is important to the Lord. A special prohibition in the law of Moses forbade men and women to wear each other’s clothing. When his practice is tolerated by society, it produces great confusion. The Lord expressly forbade a unisex society. Any attempt to erase the obvious distinctions between men and women is unnatural and an abomination to the Lord.” I’m not exactly sure who writes these things but I have a few issues with the way that this was worded. Society experiencing “great confusion” is too general a term to use it to justify a dress code that we clearly violate today. I wear pants every single day, many cultures the men wear “skirts” or “dresses” every day, so this begs the question, who’s culture will we be using for reference on gender norms and why? What’s interesting to me is that I’m not even like a super staunch pro-transgender advocate, I think it’s a complicated issue that has serious consequences and has been historically handled with carelessness and contempt. The sentence “the Lord expressly forbade a unisex society” might be true somewhere else in scripture but I don’t think that it’s an accurate summary of verse 5 here.

I think this is a sensitive topic for me because I’m a “tomboy” and I always have been, I’m not beautiful, I don’t wear make up or dresses, I’m not “feminine” and if other people are, then that’s great, but I’m not and at many points in my life I’ve been made to feel like a failure because I don’t live up to the “beauty” standards for women. At my age, I honestly don’t care how other people think that I look, but it was hurtful when I was younger. Additionally, not being the stereotypical beautiful Mormon girl was used many times to manipulate me and I think that’s my biggest concern with making statements advocating for strict gender norms is that those same statements will be used to manipulate people, usually young ones who don’t know better or who are already hurting. I personally think that people should be able to wear whatever they want and everyone else should just chill out about it, if I’m doctrinally wrong, then I’m open to being educated about it, but right now, that’s my opinion.

TB is very conservative and traditional and I was expecting an attitude similar to that of the IM but he made some interesting points. First he said that at this same in in this same area, it was usual practice for the pagan priests who worshiped goddesses to dress up as women, wear women’s clothes, wear the make up, jewelry, and adornments of women and adopt female mannerisms, etc. TB suggests that this was one of the ways Moses was forbidding the people from acting, not just wearing the other genders clothes, but adopting the other genders mannerisms and places in society, trying to trick other people into thinking they were the other gender, trying to assume the other gender’s societal roles. So it wasn’t just about clothes, but more features, deception, trickery, etc. But TB also noted that this was about maintaining traditional gender roles in ancient Israelite society.

I was thinking recently about how do we reasonably adapt a 3,500 year old book to our modern day society as a way to connect to God and one of my conclusions was that the Book of Mormon is so important in making that connection, because if I just had the Bible to serve as a guide to belief in God, it could be used to justify all types of beliefs. The Book of Mormon is so helpful in anchoring beliefs using multiple reference points. Add into that modern day prophets and I think it’s the only way that I could do religion. I’m not going to go into transgender issues here, I’m just going to say that it’s a very complicated issue and it needs to be approached with Christ-like love and compassion. I don’t know the answers.

There’s a think about a bird’s nest and eggs that I didn’t quite understand, there’s a command to put a barrier around the roof of your house so that people don’t fall off because in the east the houses are usually flat roofed and people go up there at night to hang out and socialize and if there’s no barrier then someone will probably fall off at some point. There’s a command to not sow different plant’s seeds together, not to plow a field with an ox and a donkey yoked together, and to not wear clothes made of wool and linen mixed together. The IM makes no comment on this part but TB has some interesting ideas. He asks why would Moses specify these commands when it doesn’t make any sense. For instance, growing multiple kinds of seeds together is a good agricultural practice that produces good harvests. Linen and wool mixtures make very good cloth, sturdy and beautiful. In fact, this cloth mixture was included in the priest’s temple clothes, so why forbid it? The donkey and ox work very well together in the field. He has some interesting points that I forgot but the main key point that I came away with was that this was about illicit mixtures, which was an allusion to adultery.

TB says, “In Deuteronomy 22 I asked the question: does weaving together linen and wool supernaturally create a cloth that is evil Does planting corn and cucumbers next to one another make bot inedible? My conclusion on the matter is that while these law and commands most certainly are meant to be taken seriously, as is, the much larger issue that these are illustrations of God’s divine principles. He has created things in certain order, and each for a certain purpose, and to adulterate this order and His purposes is wrong. It is sin. It should be avoided. And while the search for ‘why?’ is certainly an understandable endeavor, it is completely secondary to our actually observing (if not) the literal law the clear principle it demonstrates. As great Hebrew sage Rashi said: we don’t have to know why the command is as it is in order to obey it.” When he said this I thought about the Word of Wisdom and how I don’t understand why tea and coffee are on there, and we can speculate all day long but maybe this is the same principle, it’s about obedience, not understanding. My brother said something profound to me the other day, “not knowing is the worst. But it’s also the prerequisite for faith. Can’t have both faith and knowledge at the same time. And the commandment isn’t to have more knowledge.” This was so profound for me, there was a switch that flipped at this moment and I was like “ok I don’t understand why, but I do trust that it is necessary and that there is no other way, and that’s enough for me to move on.” This might be a similar situation. I don’t know why for most things, but He didn’t say “I’ll explain it to you then you do it,” He just said to do it. I learned a lot time ago that faith comes first, then the lesson. That’s what’s important now.