Parashat Ki Tetze
Parashat Ki Tetze can be quite overwhelming to study! Why? Well, it contains an incredible amount of Mitzvot. A simple reading of this Sidra will leave you puzzled at first. How do you connect some of the different commandments that it contains? Is there a logic in the way in which all of these different Mitzvot are laid out through out this week’s Torah Portion? Hardly!
Instead of trying to put the puzzle of Ki Tetze together, I would much rather bring your attention to Judaism as a whole. One of the most important and absolute truths (I don’t use this term often or lightly) about Judaism is that it is not merely a religion. Judaism is a way of life, and that is what makes us so different from all other different religions in the world.
The number and nature of Mitzvot contained in Parashat Ki Tetze has to remind us that as Jews that we have a unique way of seeing the world and understanding how we interact with it. For us, life is Holy. We regard life as a God given gift and in trying to make the most out of that gift, in trying to bring meaning to our existence, we use the Mitzvot as tools to turn our lives into instruments of spirituality, kindness, service, justice and peace!
Have you ever asked yourself why Judaism is not a religion that proselytizes others? Many if not the majority of other faiths spend a great amount of time and energy trying to bring their own version of truth and holiness to others. We as Jews have a unique mission — we have to make ourselves whole through the Mitzvot so that we can become indeed a light unto the nations.
We spend our energy trying to decipher the ultimate meaning of the commandments. We strive to observe the commandments not out of fear of God but out of a profound sense of responsibility. Many look at Jewish Law as a system that enhances prohibitions and restrains behavior. Jewish Law as a system with its rules and nuances has a twofold purpose — to elevate our lives from the realm of instinct and impulse into the realm of purpose and meaning, and of course to preserve our People as such through the passage of time.
We live in a day and age in which many Jews have little or no regard for The Mitzvot. We can’t understand the observance of The Mitzvot as something optional, something left to the choice of the individual rather than as a force that keeps the community as a whole and holy community.
The term “Kehila Kedosha,” was used to designate a community that lived and thrived through its service to God by the observance of The Mitzvot and their understanding of how God manifested God’s self in the life of the community through these holy precepts can’t apply to a community where people act based on instinct and good will rather than through a sense of being commanded.
One of the most incredible statements ever pronounced by our sages is contained in The Talmud — “Greater is a person who is commanded to do something and does it than the one who is not commanded and does it!” This is extremely counter culture.
In today’s world, we regard someone who acts out of simple good will as better than someone who is obligated and then acts because he or she is obligated to do so. To explain this Rabbinic concept, let’s take one of the Mitzvot contained in Parashat Ki Tetze — “Do not stand idly by!” Imagine we, as Jews have no choice we have to cry out for injustice regardless of who the victim is! We can’t afford the luxury of judging whether we like a person or not or whether he or she is deserving of our help!
Because not standing idly by is a Mitzvah, we are obligated to act; we are compelled to help even if we don’t want to. Others can first judge each case on its merit before helping. Remember the Tsunami? Remember the Indonesian government refusing to allow the Israeli planes to land with humanitarian help? The Indonesian government is perhaps, next to the government of Iran, one of the most anti-Semitic regimes in the world, yet we went and helped. Why? Because we are commanded by The Torah and by God!
This Shabbat, when we read Parashat Ki Tetze we must remember that the Mitzvot are not simply concepts that we learned as children in religious school. The Mitzvot are and must always be a major driving force in our personal and communal lives as Jews.