Ki Teitzei
Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
Isaiah 54:1-54:10
This week’s parshah, Ki Teitzei, is an interesting portion with many small paragraphs about different social issues. The underlying theme in most of them is fairness to others. Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation that is out of our control: We are a woman captured in war, an unloved wife, the son of an unloved wife, a person who has lost their sheep, a person in need of a loan or a person who has no fields and must glean to eat.
The rules in our portion specifically address the person in power: the husband, father, neighbor, landowner or benefactor, to remind them of their requirement to hold gently and fairly the other person’s interest.
This being an ancient document, some of these injunctions seem ludicrous and even abhorrent to us — such as the requirement that a man who rapes a young, unbetrothed woman must both pay her father a price (not so unreasonable, although there is no price that redeems violence) and then marry her, and never has the right to divorce her. I can only pray that in ancient Israel this law was seldom enacted, or that only couples in love took advantage of it to sway a reluctant family!
Some of them are just bizarre, like the law that allows a man to marry a woman taken from an enemy who has been conquered without so much as consulting her. While laws like this seem archaic today, it is important to remember that they were very progressive for the time, and the protection extended to the weaker parties is really innovative.
The portion ends with the remembrance of what Amalek did in sneaking up behind Israel and taking the weaker travelers unaware. We are enjoined to treat others fairly, and to carry with us the righteous intent to deal in a straightforward manner with everyone.
This portion is so important for us at this time of year, as we begin our return in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The awareness of our own positions of power can help us to be in fair and appropriate relationships with others in our lives.
Our marriages are often places where the stress of daily life creates shifts in the balance of power: A person whose work becomes more demanding drops the routine household chores, potentially creating resentment in the partner who has to pick up the slack. The passage of time shifts away from romance, and we need to work to rediscover the joy and delight that brought us together. What does it mean in our modern context not to enslave a loved one?
As my colleague Rabbi Rami Shapiro says in his fabulous book “Minyan,” “Putting others first puts you in the midst of life without the illusion of being the center of life.” Especially when we are in a position of potential power or control over someone else, keeping their needs in mind helps us to use that role wisely.
It is also excellent practice for the golden rule of Leviticus 18: If we behave toward our most beloved, our friends, our acquaintances and strangers as we wish to be treated, we raise the level of communal holiness. By treating others fairly, we generate for them an opportunity to be fair to us, and to others we perhaps do not even know. In diminishing our power, more light shines through our actions, and we get pleasure in being helpful, cooperative, and supportive.
It is up to us to first do the teshuvah (repentance) that we need to do to free our relationships from fear, hurt and misunderstanding, to clear the meta
phorical glass so that we may mingle the light of our souls with that of all those who are close to us. Then we can turn to the Center of All and ask forgiveness in the joy of having forgiven, having reconnected, and having made the world more whole and more beautiful.
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo is the spiritual leader of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto.