TT #33 · Parashas Vayeishev · Passuk 38:12
Parashas Vayeishev · Passuk 38:12
And the days were many, and Bas-Shua, Yehudah’s wife, died; and Yehudah was comforted, and went up to his sheep-shearers, he and his friend Chirah the Adullamite, to Timnah.
Torah Temimah points to Sotah 13b / R’ Shmuel bar Nachmani.
Sefaria — Sotah 13b / R’ Shmuel bar Nachmani
R’ Shmuel bar Nachmani said: Whoever begins a mitzvah and does not complete it, and another comes and completes it — he buries his wife and his children.
Derash on the verse (Bavli sugya) — not a formal named middah of the 13. Narrative consequence is tied to an incomplete mitzvah.
Leaving a mitzvah unfinished, so that another must finish it, is associated with grave domestic loss.