Rabbi Philip Weintraub
Congregation Agudas Israel
8/15/2013
Shabbat Shalom. I will open as I have recently in the reminder that Rosh Hashanah is coming. For many Jews (not you), this is one of the few times a year when they come to synagogue. If you know anyone like this, please invite them to join us--whether anytime or for the holidays. Here at CAI, we welcome everyone, and pray they will discover the holiness of our community.
This week’s parsha, Ki Tetzei, continues the legal lecture from Moses and Gd to the people Israel. A diverse selection of seemingly unrelated laws, but I believe there is a uniting thread. Together they are teaching that we must be an am kadosh, a holy people. To be such a people, we must act justly AND compassionately. This week I taught about Jewish mysticism. I spoke of the Divine aspects of Justice (Din) and Compassion (Rachamim). We pray that Gd will balance the two, but lean towards compassion. Blind justice can be harsh and can even seem unfair--as we see in mandatory minimum sentences in this country. Yet, there are also limits of compassion. If Gd (or we) forgive every trespass, we become doormats, lacking identity or any backbone.
I would like to show a few brief examples of the laws and show how they relate to the idea of being a holy people.
Chapter 23
4 No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of their descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall ever be admitted into the congregation of the Lord, 5 because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt, and because they hired Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor of Aram- naharaim, to curse you. — 6 But the Lord your God refused to heed Balaam; instead, the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, for the Lord your God loves you. — 7You shall never concern yourself with their welfare or benefit as long as you live.
8 You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your kinsman. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land. 9 Children born to them may be admitted into the congregation of the Lord in the third generation.
In this selection we find harsh justice. Those who have been particularly violent against us cannot become a part of the Jewish people FOREVER. They showed no compassion for us and our ancestors and so they cannot become a part of our holy people. Yet the Egyptians, those who literally enslaved us, CAN eventually become Jews. They must learn our ways, and it takes time, but they may eventually join us. Eventhough they were harsh masters, before that they were welcoming hosts. They showed compassion and demonstrated their own holiness.
16 You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. 17 He shall live with you in any place he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him.
The Bible assumes slavery. As part of the economic system of the time, indentured servants or slaves were simply part of the landscape. Yet, the Torah offers numerous restrictions and regulations, making slavery very difficult, if not impossible. Here, we discover that if a master is harsh and the slave runs away, we are obligated to provide shelter. Is it any wonder that Jews were involved in the Underground Railroad, when we have been commanded since the Torah to help those that needed it? Again, we see compassion for those in need.
Chapter 24
1 A man takes a wife and possesses her. She fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her, and he writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house;
Here we discover one source of the commandment to write a get. In the Jewish tradition, a divorce is not simply a legal act, but a recognition that lives are changing. As such, there is a religious aspect, a reminder that each party must acknowledge the promises they made in the Ketubah and resolve them.
6 A handmill or an upper millstone shall not be taken in pawn, for that would be taking someone's life in pawn.
If you are offering a loan to someone, you cannot take away their ability to pay you back. You cannot take as collateral something that is literally life or death for them. This act of compassion shows the moral foundation of the Torah. It also shows the aspect of justice, if you take away a person’s ability to pay you back, you are basically ensuring that they will always remain in your debt--an unacceptable situation according to the Torah.
10 When you make a loan of any sort to your countryman, you must not enter his house to seize his pledge. 11 You must remain outside, while the man to whom you made the loan brings the pledge out to you. 12 If he is a needy man, you shall not go to sleep in his pledge; 13 you must return the pledge to him at sundown, that he may sleep in his cloth and bless you; and it will be to your merit before the Lord your God.
Our lesson lending and compassion continues. Even if someone owes you money, you must respect them and treat them decently. You cannot take away their clothing or otherwise embarrass them as a form of collateral.
14 You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. 15 You must pay him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets, for he is needy and urgently depends on it; else he will cry to the Lord against you and you will incur guilt.
Fair wages and fair labor practices are seen here. We are commanded to take care of those who work for us, not to abuse them. Again, this is not just compassion, but justice.
16 Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime.
Here we find the ultimate expression of justice and compassion. Unlike other nations and laws of the time, we cannot exact justice or punishment upon anyone unless they themselves sinned. In a society where the man was the master and all children and spouses were his property, our ancient neighbors would regularly exact their punishment upon other members of the family. The Torah says this is NOT true justice.
17 You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow's garment in pawn. 18 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.
This is the central principle that I am trying to make. We must be a holy people. To be so, we must think of justice, but act compassionately. We have personal experience as slaves in Egypt, as persecuted minorities, as abused laborers, and have had violence committed against us. We must remember this and not replicate it.
19 When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow — in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings.
This verse continues with another reminder that we were slaves in Egypt and we must remember that experience. We are commanded to recognize that there are those that need our help. There are those who are hungry, those who lack shelter. As we look towards Rosh Hashanah, what are we doing to help those in need?
Chapter 25
13 You shall not have in your pouch alternate weights, larger and smaller. 14 You shall not have in your house alternate measures, a larger and a smaller. 15 You must have completely honest weights and completely honest measures, if you are to endure long on the soil that the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For everyone who does those things, everyone who deals dishonestly, is abhorrent to the Lord your God.
Just as our dealings in law must be ethical, our business dealings also need justice and compassion. If we are dishonest in business, we are not acting as the am Kadosh we strive to be.
Over and over in this parsha we are reminded where we came from. As the entire portion is set as they prepare to go into the Promised Land, it is a lesson that for us to go where we need to go, we must remember where we have been. If we wish to be a just people, we must be a compassionate people. While the laws seem diverse, they reinforce this lesson. If we want to be good Jews, we must be good people. Shabbat Shalom.
All Torah texts are from the NJPS, taken from: http://learn.jtsa.edu/content/translations/ki-tetzei/torah-portion/ki-tetzei
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