Parashat Ki Tavo

Parashat Ki Tavo
Elul 18, 5771 ~ September 17, 2011
by Dan Cohen

A departure from Joy – making some sense of “The Rebuke”

Learning Torah and preparing these mini-drashes over the past few years has become a joy. Writing about it only adds to the true connectedness I feel to our Torah scholars and the long line of wisdom that I get to access while doing research.

Rarely, if ever, have I accentuated the negative in these writings because I am usually excited about what the parsha is revealing.

However, this week there is a giant list of curses smack dab in the midst of the sixth aliyah. They number ninety-eight and are often called the “Rebuke.”
Even while reading the torah out loud during this section, the reader is asked to lower his voice – that is how excruciating and vivid the descriptions are.

It begins at Chapter 28, Verse 15 saying, “And it will be, if you do not obey the Lord, your God, to observe to fulfill all His commandments and statutes which I am commanding you this day, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.”

It concludes fifty-five incredible verses later. And the curses range from the horrible to the horrific.

We are told that the crops in our fields will be rendered useless due to bugs, our children sold into slavery, that we will be sent back to Egypt as slaves, and most notably, Jerusalem will be sacked, our temple destroyed, and our people reduced to the worst acts imaginable.

How are we to understand why this is here - especially at a key moment during Moshe's enduring goodbye speech to the nation?

When offered the old "I've got good news & bad news" statement, some choose good news while others choose the bad news. Moshe is laying it out - all the bad news possible - and saying to us a few things.

First, the Good news...that Hashem is with us - in the good times and not so good times.

That no matter how badly we mess up (and Moshe predicts exactly how we will ...) that we are protected and chosen. Our job is to remember that and act upon it. The famous song said, "You don't know what you've got till its gone." So we are urged to remember before its too late.

I've been reminded of this often in the past few weeks. Here in Oakland, there was an attempt to display horrific and anti-Semitic art at a children's museum. The news from the Middle East is getting more troubling by the day. Sometimes it can be overwhelming.

And yet, here we are, in Elul, with an opportunity to hit control-alt-delete on our spiritual path and find the GOOD in the world starting with our relationship to Hashem.

We get the chance to look inward at ourselves and ask how we are serving G-d and each other. As horrific as the news around us can be, remembering and rebooting on the notion that Hashem is with us can be job #1 for all of us..and a piece of good news when all else seems funky.

Second, the bad news (kinda). Among the curses, we see the extent of how bad it can get. We will be sold back into slavery. Our children will be taken from us. Hashem might even turn his back.

This is a two-part dance. In Chapter 28, Verse 66 says, "And your life will hang in suspense before you. You will be in fear night and day, and you will not believe in your life."

In the language of this rebuke, we are told that we may be doomed to live in a constant state of limbo - not sure of the path ahead or our place in the world. That we will live in constant fear and anxiety. Commonly known back east as "agita."

However, we are provided an extensive list of how bad it will get - amazingly we get clarity among the uncertainty. Many people, like me, take solace in knowing the full extent of the difficulty they are about to face. Some find the strength in that moment of knowing, and summon the courage to act. These are the "Bad News First" folks in our lives.

I would guess that for many, having a benchmark of how bad it can get creates a window in which we can make an informed decision about our actions - do we stray from Torah? If so, what is the cost?

Finally, Ruth Sohn, writing in an on-line journal of Reform Judaism linked the Rebuke to personal responsibility to ourselves and each other. She said that as Elul approaches, we are required to ask..."Where have I missed the mark? How can I best seek forgiveness and forgive? How will I know if my actions have caused hurt?"

She continued saying "But even the most honest self-reflection has its limits. That is why sometimes we need others to hold a mirror up to us so we can see ourselves clearly. It takes courage to invite another to hold before us the mirror of truth. It also takes courage to be the one to hold up the mirror of truth so a friend or partner can see himself or herself more clearly. And Jewish tradition expects us to do no less every day of the year."

Here we are, thousands of years after Moshe has left the stage. I think the Rebuke can remind us that each of us is accountable to each other, not just to Hashem, in our covenant. Moshe has left us a very clear accounting of the good news & bad news equation of what can happen if/when we forget that notion. Our job is to make an informed choice and have each other's backs.

May you have a New Year full of health, blessing and general awesomeness.

Parashat Ki Teitzei

Parashat Ki Teitzei
Elul 11, 5771 ~ September, 2011
by Danielle Elkins 

         Writing about Parshat Ki Tetzei was determined by my calendar. My kids would be in school for a couple of weeks, and it was still far enough away from the holidays: Both allowing me the time to write.   To my surprise 68 of the 613 Mitzvot are in this Parsha, which is more than any other Parsha. It is all laws! I have truly loved studying the Parshiot with dialogue, poetry and plots, but the Parshiot with endless lists of seemingly obscure Mitzvot are a struggle.

          In thinking about this Parsha, while getting ready for another school year with my three children, I gained a newfound feeling of obligation to read them as well as awe of their creation. Every year about this time I make endless lists, rules, and charts for my family in hopes to make the year a little less chaotic. My goal is a more peaceful and productive home, but every year the list, rules, and charts are forgotten within a month. My planning is always too short sighted to make it through the unexpected. Who feeds the dog, if designated child is sick or not around? Soon enough we don't look at the list. The lists definitely don't work if we don't look at them. It is back to me delegating and organizing as we go.   Why do I even bother? As a mother, I make these lists because I love my family so much that I want us to have as little conflict as possible, so we can spend our time being together and helping others in a positive way. Suddenly, Parshat Ki Tetzei feels like a Parsha with the most love and concern from HaShem for us. The Torah provides us with Mitzvot for all time, not just for the first month of the school year.

          We need to go no further than the first law in this Parsha, The Woman of Beautiful Form, to wonder how this applies to our present day world. In summary, when a man goes to battle and desires a beautiful woman, who by the way may actually be ugly, he may take her for a wife but first he must bring her home where she will spend a month in mourning. The beautiful captive shaves her head, doesn't cut her nails, and mourns her lost family for one month. After the one month, the man can decide to marry her or not. If he still wants to marry her, the wedding will proceed after two more months. If he doesn't want to marry her, she is free. The woman actually converts to Judaism, if the marriage takes place and even if they do not marry she may still have a choice to convert (The Torah Anthology, pg-7-8).   In theory at least, I wonder why this procedure was never actually used in our battle against assimilation. In this situation the use of the word battle refers to battles other than battles pertaining to the Land of Israel (such as a moral battle). Assimilation due to inter-marriage after exile from Israel has hurt our people. The parents of sons who wanted to marry women outside the faith must have felt like they were loosing the "battle" to keep Judaism alive. "In the opinion of the Talmud, the Torah only allowed the taking of the beautiful captive because forbidding the action would have been ineffective..." (Aish.com, The Spiral Staircase, by Rabbi Noson Weisz) Sounds familiar.   The stories of forbidden love are endless.  

          The captive woman in this context could equate to the forbidden. This Parsha and the Talmud are trying to teach us about how to approach the forbidden. The soldier is given a way to elevate his seemingly superficial feelings in a way that will reveal truth or inner beauty. Just the mental process of this captive mourning her life and family and strip herself of all physical beauty was enough for the soldiers to use self-control, because even though there is extensive detail on how to marry a woman, you desire in battle, it was never actually done. By this law existing, it alludes to the idea that there could be a desire of the soldier toward the captive that is a true attraction of the soul.  "This says Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar (1696-1743) in his Ohr HaChaim commentary on Torah, is the deeper significance of the law of the "beautiful captive." A Jewish soldier is physically attracted to an enemy maiden. But beneath this corporeal "husk" a deeper attraction is at play; indeed, the physical attraction is but the external (and corrupted) expression of the inner spiritual craving. In truth, the soldier is being drawn toward a holy soul held captive in the depths of the kelipot(the "husks" which conceal G-dliness in our world). By following the regimen of prescribed by the Torah-designed to strip his desire of its mundane trappings and reveal its holy core---he can redeem this "beautiful captive." (The Cry of the Holy Sparks, by Zvi Yair, Chabad.org). Today, our people having lived through thousands of years of exile and persecution, I wonder if attractions outside the faith are expressions of true desire of lost Jewish souls.  

 

          If nothing else, we should learn from this seemingly dated law that as parents sometimes the way to battle the negative desires of our children is not by making it forbidden, but finding a path to making good choices. The laws and lessons of the Torah only help us, if we take the time to look. "Whatever the period or the circumstances in which you live, it is the Torah that must determine your course of life for you; you must unremittingly and continually seek to educate yourself up to it;" (Horeb, by Samson Raphael Hirsch, page 381-382)