Parashat Ki Teitzei - Our Season of Consolidation, Week 5 – Rebirth

רפואה מן התורה

Healing from the Torah

Parashat Ki Teitzei

Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     No, rebirth is not the same as being born again, it’s about rising up to our better selves.  The word, rebirth is תְקוּמָה (t’kumah), which comes from the root קוּם (kum), a word that means to wake up, to get up, to arise, to stand up, to be established, to be built, to come into being, to be realized or to persevere.  In Perkei Avot 1, Mishnah 18 we read, “on three things does the world endure (kayaym, קַיֵּם),” enduring suggests this is an ongoing process that is another form of the root for rebirth  Rebirth is about being what we were not in the past, which is why we read here is Ki Teitzei “But you will remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the LORD your God rescues you; therefore I command you to do the same” (Dt. 24:18).  Here in this parsha there are 72 commandants, 72 acts of right behavior, all stemming from that one sentence, Moses saying to those he is instructing, you have been rebirthed as a free people, now embrace it.
     Change is a big thing, learning to undo band habits and redo better ones is not easy. Spiritually such change itself is based on a personal faith, Moses is always bringing his readers back to their encounter with God as the basis of such newness, remembering that freedom from slavery (and whatever else keeps them bound) came at a price.  Regarding faith, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “authentic faith is more than an echo of tradition, it is a creative situation, an event,” going on to say that “each of us has once in our life experienced the momentous reality of God,” something that for Heschel becomes a memory that we carry with us regardless of life’s changes. For 40 years this new generation has garnished their own memories and Moses is rekindling those flames as he continues to define the community that will enter the land.  So he writes, “for when you go out,” כִּי-תֵצֵא (Ki Teitzei), writing about deed after deed, situation after situation and outcome after outcome.  Whether proper treatment of prisoners of war, treatment of children, compassion for both people and animals, protection of neighbors from danger, feeding the less fortunate, empathy to mental weakness, social justice, relational decency, fair treatment of foreigners or sheltering the persecuted, Israel is being called to a different standard of being as opposed to those who persecuted them in their past that began in Egypt, being rebirthed from their wanderings in the wilderness.
     In Deuteronomy 22:8 we therefore read, “When you build a new house, then you will make a parapet for your roof  so that you do not bring blood upon your house if a person falls from there.”  For Sfrono he teaches, “if it were to happen that someone falls off that roof you could not have been the indirect cause, seeing you had put up a protective railing. Had you not done so; your family might bear part of the guilt for such a mishap.”  This is the direct opposite of what we read in Genesis about Cain and Able. When Cain kills his brother he takes no responsibility for what happened, yet in a Midrash we read, “Cain did not know that the secrets are revealed before the Holy One” (Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 21:9), meaning that although the murder of his brother was not seen in the end he would be found out, even if his own internal life sentence was rooted in guilt and a life of regret.  In the Sefer HaChinuch, this is the 547 Commandment, “the Prohibition against a Hazard,” an obligation that applies in all places at all times for both men and women.  We learn that this is considered to be physical, hence we are “not to leave stumbling blocks and hazards in our lands and in our homes so that people should not die or be harmed from them.”  Interestingly Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch regarding the passage from Deuteronomy comments on where it says,  כִּי-יִפֹּל הַנֹּפֵל מִמֶּנּוּ (ki yifol hanopayl mimehnu), for “if any person fall from there” it is a matter of fate.  The one who falls, הַנֹּפֵל (hanopayl), literally “the falling one,” has their fate determined not only by their own actions but also by the one who caused it to happen.  What do we know about Abel that would suggest what happened was a matter of a dictated fate?  The Ohr HaChaim writes that “the Torah alluded to the lack of brotherliness with which Cain related to Abel,” meaning that they had an ongoing sibling rivalry that was not necessarily healthy, perhaps because in part as Sfrono suggests that Abel “chose this vocation as it required more intelligence and involved one’s mental activities more than farming,” something that Cain would have known.   We have nothing to suggest that Abel was a person who was rotten in anyway, one who lived a life of unworthiness or depravity.  There is nothing to suggest that Cain had any reason to take his brothers life even if they were at brotherly odds or that Cain felt that Abel lacked scruples deserving of punishment.  What can this teach us?
     While R’Hirsch says that there is a certain amount of providence involved, i.e. perhaps they got what was coming to them for both the bad and the good, I do not quite see it that way.  In other words, was it Cain’s right to be judge, jury and executioner of his brother just like does the owner of the house have the right to not build a parapet around his roof with the intent to cause harm,  to the deserving “falling one,” or simply was their neglect responsible for an undue death regardless of the persons preexisting lacks?  Judgment for wrong is spelled out in Torah, which is why we also read about the cities of refuge in this parsha, although that does not mean the guilty are not properly dealt with by the leaders.  Fact, we have the obligation to protect each other regardless of any proclivity to judge them or to cause harm, leaders and citizens alike.  If you watched this newest shooting online, was it necessary to shoot Jacob Blake 7 times in the back instead of using a taser or even tackling him as he walked away, bad guy or not?  Are not the judges and officers (שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים, shoftim v’shotrim) called to protect everyone?  Kabbalah teaches that Korach is a reincarnation of Cain, generational hate is passed on just as is loving others.  We say daily, “do not put a stumbling block before the blind,” and people can be blind for many reasons, it’s just not physical.  We have responsibility to take good care of one another, family or stranger, hence the reminder about Egypt.  We have to scream out for justice around us and not just turn our heads and say oh well, or they deserved that, or it’s not my problem. Moses was attempting to cement that type of humanity into the generation that was about to enter the land, he wanted to “rebirth” that within them as a community.  As we enter the High Holidays we too must seek what needs to be rebirthed and let it mature, with God’s help may we always endure to become our absolute best.  We deserve more than we are seeing.

Shabbat Shalom!

Parashat Softom - Our Season of Consolidation, Week 4 – Reunion

רפואה מן התורה

Healing from the Torah

Parashat Shoftim

Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     

     This week as we walk toward Rosh Hashanah we reflect on the idea of echud (אִחוּד), or reunion.  As we journey to the Holidays we are supposed to self-prepare and reevaluate, recognizing that our inner spiritual being is often broken from our outer humanity so we seek refuah, a healing of self, our connection to God and of course our relationships with others.  As such, in the Haftorah for this week’s parsha we read, אָנֹכִי אָנֹכִי הוּא, מְנַחֶמְכֶם; , “I, even I, am God that comforts you."  The Jewish commentator Ibn Ezra writes of this verse, “It is generally believed that Israel is here addressed; but I think, that the prophet speaks to his own soul, in a prophetical spirit; That is, the prophet is addressed by God.”  The prophetic words the prophet takes unto himself that come from God “will be made as grass,” words that are like “a consuming fire” according to Ibn Ezra.  Along those lines Rabbi Simon Jacobson writes, “A new Divine power enters into your life, this power is not a mortal one; it is Divine, and it gives you the ability to experience a deep calm – being at peace with your center.”  The grass that was like “a consuming fire” is like the Divine that speaks to the inner being, bringing echud.  Entering Canaan for Israel asked that they seek echud with their better selves for the sake of their unity in new land, just like the High Holiday season asks us to listen to and consider what we might what normally not hear.
     Our spiritual self is connected to the fourth chakra, called Tiferet, which means splendor and has divine attributes with corresponding emotional attributes in the human soul.  That attribute is tied into how we conduct ourselves, which is why in the morning we pray,הרינ מקבל עלי מצות הברא והאבת לרעך כמוך, “I hereby accept upon myself the command of my Creator, love your neighbor as yourself,” speaking to our intent to be and do.  Off all the commands that a person is to adhere to it is how to treat others. When looking at this week’s parsha Moses clearly envisioned a community that would hold to certain spiritual foundational truths going into the land that in particular would dictate how they would act toward each other.  We see this right form the get go about the judges and officers (שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים, shoftim v’shotrim), leaders who were to be for the people.  This is followed by the words,  צֶדֶק צֶדֶק, תִּרְדֹּף (Tezdek, Tezdek, tirdof), “Justice, justice you will follow, that you may live, and inherit the land which the LORD your God gives you.” Outward behavior must seek echud with the inner person, the action of Israel’s leaders were held to a higher standard.  While Rashi teaches that these leaders are to reflect “a reliable court” that is made up of “honest judges” who would be for “sufficient merit to keep Israel in life and to settle them in security in their land,” Ibn Ezra seems more concerned about the men themselves.  In this case justice is mentioned twice because “whether it be to one’s gain, or to one’s loss,” it’s about how a person relates to justice “time after time” throughout their entire life, it’s about character.
     Regarding the King who would be chosen from his own people to rule, it says about him, “write for himself two copies of this Torah (אֶת-מִשְׁנֵה הַתּוֹרָה, lit. a “repeating of Torah”), which is before the priests who are Levites.”  Talk about the mixing of church and state, not in America.  I guess when you are a Theocracy with one religious belief as opposed to a Democracy with many views you can get away with that!  But for Torah, it was about the Kings inner convictions and outer behavior, so we learn from Rashi “that one (scroll) is placed in his (i.e. the King) treasury and the other (scroll) goes out and comes in with him (i.e. a small scroll which he carries everywhere with him).”  But this is supposed to be from the start, so when it says in Deuteronomy 17:18, “and when he sits upon his throne,” Ibn Ezra comments by saying that is “at the beginning of his reign.”  For Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch this was exactly the case with the king, so by writing his own scrolls from the beginning he proclaimed that he was not above the law, the law being “the unalterable rule of conduct for his life.”
     As Israel was about to enter the land Moses wanted to remind them that their future king would need to balance the relationship of freedom and authority, but not a freedom to do what is wished because of some misplaced sense of authority, but an authority to make sure people lived in the freedom from Egypt that was also theirs.  In fact, for Moses, the way the people were treated by their leaders, by the King, Prophets, and Priests, had everything to do with their freedom to be and give their very best.  When Moses taught in Deuteronomy 18:1, “The Priests, the Levites, even all the tribe of Levi, will have no portion nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire …” he must have known the nature of people in general.  In the same way that the people were to be led by Priests and Levites of the highest ethical standards the Priests and Levites were dependent on the good will of the people in order to eat. So let’s entertain this question; if the Priests and Levites were not good to the people were the people absolved from needing to bring their sacrifices so those same Priests and Levites could eat?  Well no, because their sacrifices were much more than food for their leaders, but it illuminates the human condition that Moses met more than once as he traveled with the wilderness generation, that condition that speaks to the problem of a broken community.
     I just cannot see not saying the following although I really seek to avoid being political when I write. Still, as I have watched the current climate of our country I am grieved over the fact that our government repeatedly calls the opposing partly a problem who seeks to undermine our way of life, a real us and them mentality  In my view, and I believe this is also based on the values of Torah, the government has the express responsibility to unite (echud) the people despite our diversity instead of having the intent to conquer.  I am not going to comment on this policy or that one, you decide that for yourself, but our leaders have failed to unite our diversity regardless of big or small differences, and that is not good for any of us.  But that also does not give us as people license to sacrifice our better-selves either on the altar of anger or revenge.  It is important that we symbolically each carry  two Torah scrolls, one that we keep at home (hearts and minds) and the other that we take on the road each day to guide us.  Echud is an ongoing and purposely sought after reunion of body and spirit that is part of our ascent toward Rosh Hashanah, even more so as we enter the month of Elul.  

Shabbat Shalom    

Parashat R'eih - Our Season of Consolidation, Week 3 – Recognition

רפואה מן התורה

Healing from the Torah

Parashat R'eih

Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     

     As our journey to Rosh Hashanah continues, this week is about recognition, or hac’carah.  Rabbi Elie Munk taught that “to clearly understand the problem of free will, one must be able to see into their own conscience,” meaning that one must have recognition and not just awareness, which we spoke about last week.  Awareness is a conscious knowing whereas recognition is an acquaintance with, or relationship to.  It is kind of like the difference betweenלָדַעַת  (la’daat) andלְהַכִּיר  (l’hacir), two variations of “to know,” withלָדַעַת  meaning to be conscious of something andלְהַכִּיר  meaning to personally encounter it.  The word this parsha gets its name from, R’eih (רְאֵה), meaning “to see,” is also connected with the third Chakra, hod (הוֹד), which means beauty.  Hod may also be related to the word hodayah (הוֹדָיָה), which means thanksgiving, meaning that we give thanks to the beauty we see, or hac’carah, or r’eih.  Without hac’carah it is hard to move forward.
     Parashat R’eih represents a change from recalling the past to foretelling the future. Moses has been recounting the wanderings of the wilderness generation in order to remind the people who are about to enter the land that their success, just as it was with their ancestors, is also rooted in their faithfulness to God.  Here, Moses taught, “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse,” not yesterday, but today going forward (see Dt. 11:26).  Israel often brought curses upon themselves by reaping what they sowed.  It goes on to say, יְבִיאֲךָ כִּי וְהָיָה, (v’hayah ki y’viacha) “it will be that [when God] brings you into the land,”  Moses teaching them that how they conduct themselves upon their arrival will have a great deal to do with what they will also experience, both for the good and the bad.  Therefore in the context of Torah Israel is taught to not follow other gods, keep the kosher laws, proper employee-employer relationships, do not forget the value of offerings and do not be led astray even by a voice from your own people if against the values of Torah.  Israel was being asked to recognize various things when they enter the land to prosper in the future.
     Jews today are also asked to recognize the value of Torah, but how we resonate with that often depends on a person’s view of God.  Rabbi Ruth Shon makes that point about moderns and the kosher laws since in Torah the keeping of kosher laws are really about community and personal devotion.  R’Shon also notes that this could have not been strictly for health reasons, or why would food banned for Jews be okay for gentiles (See Dt. 14:21).  In the Talmud (BT Avodah Zarah 20a) the Rabbi’s ask about sacrifices that can be sold to or given to gentiles but not eaten by a Jew, the reason being “for you are a sacred people to the Lord your God.”  Here kosher laws are primarily about the values of the people more so than the healthiness of the meal, although there is that too (another conversation).  For R’Shon that has not changed, meaning that for those who have hac’carah regarding kosher laws often times they will be approached as ethical, speaking to the environment and conditions of the place of preparation, living wages for the workers and the treatment of animals.  Do the values of Torah speak to the deepest human convictions of right and more right?  That is the question that is being asked, that is what is getting the recognition to keep or not keep Torah, but also that is what Torah has always been, a book about human ethics on a profound spiritual and/or spiritual level.
     On such a profound level we further read in this parsha, וְאָכַלְתָּ לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר-יִבְחַר לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם, “And you will eat before the LORD your God in the place which God will dwell ” (see Dt. 14:23).  In context, as noted by Rashi, this place is where the sacrifice was to be consumed, the Sfrono adding that this chosen place in the Temple also “houses the Supreme Court, Sanhedrin, from where knowledge and understanding is dispensed.”  But the Jewish mystics believed that what made that place chosen was the Wonder behind the place, not the place itself (see Zohar 2:168a), perhaps reflecting an early midrash that teaches the place is where “God will choose to make the Shekinah to dwell” (Targum Yonatan on Dt. 14:23).  An early Mussar commentary teaches; “‘You shall eat it in front of the Lord your God;’ this is a reference to the ‘Table’, i.e. a reference to the sacred element of the act of eating” (Shenei Luchot HaBerit).  In Jewish thought the table is sacred just like an altar, which is the reason why our Shabbat tables are set to be different than the rest of the week, or why we say the kiddush as opposed to just a prayer over wine.  The place where God has chosen is just not a physical location, but it is also a place we choose ourselves, because we recognize the holiness of it.
     16 times just in this parsha we read “which has chosen,” יִבְחַר  (yivchar), referring to a place that God has chosen, teaching us that the location where we experience our sense of God means something.  Calling on the words of Zohar this is not just the place itself more than it is the presence of God that exists in each and every place.  Rabbi Harold Kushner teaches that Jewish prayer is about entering into the words to connect with God as opposed to the words connect God to us.  In the same way, recognizing the holiness of the moment connects us with the spiritual more so than the moments create the spiritual.  This has been and continues to be a difficult time, but are there spiritual moments that surround it?   Yes, we are waiting for a vaccine so life can go back to normal, missing the gathering of family and friends, feeling the pain of not seeing grandchildren, not being able to attend the funeral of family because of restrictions, or not being at another one for a friend who’s mom was like your own.  We are angry with those who will not follow the rules so we suffered another shutdown, can’t get our hair cut or our nails done once again, having to stay put in our homes until who knows when.  It has been 6 months of this and you know, it’s hard, it can weigh heavy on a person.  But we have also found other ways to connect and get out, maybe not the best way that is most ideal to our liking, but we can and should be grateful for what we have.  We make it what it is because we have hac’carah, a recognition that although things are not the way we want them we still have the opportunity to give thanks for what they are, just like hod and hodayah from above.
     In five weeks we will enter a new place, a New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and our hac’carah of the past year will shape our hopes for the new one.  Our response to how we want to handle life will be based on our deepest values, which we chose to act upon, because as the words of R’Munk said, people will “be able to see into their own conscience” in order to recognize the best way to respond.  As we enter this new year let our hac’carah, our recognition be more mindful of the world around us, the needs of others both known and stranger, and of course ourselves, recognizing that we are able to aspire for more out of next year than the one we are about to leave.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Eikev - Our Season of Consolidation, Week 2 – Awareness

רפואה מן התורה

Healing from the Torah

Parashat Eikev

Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     Last Shabbat was Shabbat Nachamu, the first of 7 weeks of consolation that connect the lowest day of the Jewish calendar – Tisha B’Av – to the beginning of the New Year – Rosh Hashanah.  The first week was about comfort, Nachamu, the Shabbat immediately after the mourning of Tisha B’av. The second week of consolation is about moo’da’oot (מוּדָעוּת) or awareness.  In this parsha, as with the others in Deuteronomy, Moses is recounting the history of Israel’s wilderness journey to those who are about to enter the land so they will be aware of the past in order to secure their future.  But these two weeks of consolation also correspond with the sefirot connected to the seven chakras.  The foundational chakra is Malchut, meaning kingship, representing the lower world of Israel’s wanderings.  The second chakra is Yesod, or foundation.  Yesod is the place of spiritual emotions according to the Jewish mystics, so while yes we are a part of the physical world, our awareness is tied into spiritual realms.  Moses throughout has been imploring Israel to see the “hand of God” in their wonderings, encouraging them to be aware of the relationship between heaven and earth (cf. Dt. 7:8).
     This idea of moo’da’oot runs rampant is the writing of Moses.  Here in Parashat Eikev, Moses is reminding the children of the wilderness generation that although their ancestors saw the defeat of Pharaoh they also engaged in acts of idolatry, which led to the destruction of the Torah made of stone from Sinai.  Moses used the word “you,” although many who stood there were babies or not yet even born, saying “You shall cut away (וּמַלְתֶּם, oo’mal’tem) the barrier from your heart and no longer stiffen your neck” (cf. Dt. 10;16).   Yes, they were not there, but they had the potential to commit the same offences as their parents and grandparents. Moses therefore instructs them in Deuteronomy 8:2-3; “And you will remember all the ways which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that God might afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would or would not keep the commandments. And God afflicted you, and you suffered hunger although you were fed manna, which you did not know, neither did your ancestors; that God might make you know that people do not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”  What can this teach us about moo’da’oot, or awareness?
     The Sforno taught that what was remembered, the manna, itself was supernatural, and that Israel was afflicted in order to test their willingness to follow the mitzvot in union with that manna they freely received in the wilderness.  Israel received the food of angels (the manna; see Psalm 78:24-25) for 40 years that was freely given and happily taken (well kind of), and the test was about their willingness to follow Torah, which took more effort.  Viewing this as a God who dishes out reward and punishment to the faithful and unfaithful misses the subtlety of this moment.  Testing comes when you hold yourself to a higher value that becomes a bar of personal ethics, which can lead to affliction if missed and/or perceived as out of reach.  Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch writes that affliction was not just physical but psychological (see Hirsch on Dt. 7:15).  The affection came from God insofar as the standard the people sought to obtain was the higher value of Torah that represented the ways of God, and today it is not different.
     The middah of Mussar attributed to this parsha is n’divut (נְדִיבוּת) or generosity.  There is another word that generosity is related to that is harakat tovah (הַכָּרַת טוֹבָה), which means gratitude, and is the flip side of n’divut.  Also from Eikev we read words that are apart of the Birkat Hamazon, וְאָכַלְתָּ, וְשָׂבָעְתָּ--וּבֵרַכְתָּ אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, עַל-הָאָרֶץ הַטֹּבָה אֲשֶׁר נָתַן-לָךְ; “And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the LORD your God for the good land which [God] has given you” (cf. Dt. 8:10).  Israel received manna in the wilderness and is about to enter a good land and Moses is reminding them to be aware of their blessings then, now, and tomorrow, but also that their awareness include Yesod, a foundation that makes room for God.  The Aramaic Targum sums it up by saying, “Be mindful, therefore, in the time when you will have eaten and are satisfied, that you render thanksgiving and blessing before the Lord your God for all the fruit of the goodly land which God has given you.”  In response to the provision of nourishment, which was the manna,  the peoples harakat tovah was made manifest by their n’divut.  Rabbi Yair Robinson notes that our harakat tovah comes from our gratitude that we attribute to God’s generosity (recognizing the source of the food we eat) whereas n’divut is the generosity that we show to others, and reveal by our own practices (giving thanks for the food we eat), because we cannot repay God directly.  For Moses, the generosity of God to feed the people with manna for 40 years was repaid by the gratitude of the people when they followed Torah.  Moses taught the new generation that by not doing the same they would also experience what their ancestors failed to achieve. 
     In Perkei Avot we read that the world stands and endures on the pillars of peace, truth, and justice, three pillars that stem from Torah, service of heart, and loving kindness (Cf. Avot 1:2 and 18).  The Yesod that Moses attempted to impart was so the people would have future success in the land, but their moo'da'oot was more than just about their history, it was also about the spiritual awareness of God in the community.  We all know that saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and remembering the past is not about canceling it out or ignoring it.  The last thing that Moses wanted for the children of the wilderness generation was for them to forget the failings of their parents and grandparents, but also to forget the good, the provision and the many blessings.  Even with a new canvas, we cannot erase human history and/or short fallings, but we can create new ones that are improved.  We are 6 weeks away from Rosh Hashanah and as we ascend to that day we are to be aware that a new year means we can do it again, better than last year, renewed and restored.  This has been a tough year, and I am sure we all seek a sense of newness right now, but that must begin with moo’da’oot, awareness, not only of what is around us but also with ourselves.

Shabbat Shalom