The idea of all this seems to be that if we leave something incomplete, we fall into the state of mind the rabbis called trafe da’at—a torn mind—a mind pulled in various directions. A person in such a state of mind would be of little use in an army. He would be unable to focus on the task at hand and might even present a danger to his fellow soldiers. During a brief stint as a prison chaplain, I once spoke to a gang member who described what it was like to go to war with his fellow gang members. He spoke glowingly of the sense of total trust you had to have in the person in front of you and
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