רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah
Parashat Ki Teitzei
Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky
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!
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!
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