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Parashat Ki Tetzei: Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
September 1, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
This week’s parasha mostly consists of issues between people, whether between neighbors, within a family, between the underprivileged and other members of society, or even between people and animals.
A theme running through many of these laws is that of dignity. Even if we need to take the only garment a person has as a pledge for a loan, we need to return it to that person every night so that her or she may sleep in it. We are not allowed to take someone’s upper millstone in pawn, because that is akin to taking their life (their means of grinding grain for bread or olives for oil.) We must leave the overlooked sheafs and grapes in our fields for the poor and the stranger. These and many other laws in the parasha emphasize people’s humanity and aim for a sense of equality and fair treatment within society.
In addition to these laws, issues pertaining to women are very prominent in this Torah portion. Here, it becomes more challenging to see the theme of dignity and humanity in the laws.
We read that if a woman is found not to be a virgin when she marries, she is stoned to death on her father’s doorstep; that a virgin who is raped is then forced to marry her rapist; that a wife who ceases to please her husband can be given a bill of divorce; and that a woman who is widowed before she has children must marry her husband’s brother.
Most of these laws seek to ensure that women get married and stay married. In the context of a traditional society, adult unmarried women are unprotected and do not have independent means to sustain themselves. And so these laws are meant to protect women. But it is challenging to know how to approach these laws as a modern person and a feminist. We can understand that they are meant to protect women in their context, but this is not satisfying. The text does not acknowledge the actual experience of women who are raped, for instance, and what it might mean for them to have to marry their rapists.
In her essay on this parasha in the Women’s Commentary, Judith Plaskow approaches these laws through a larger theme of the parasha, that of memory. In this parasha, we are told to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt, and this is why we are to observe certain commandments concerning how we treat the poor and the widow. We are told to remember what Amalek did to us as we escaped Egypt, attacking us behind, and therefore we are commanded to avenge Amalek and blot out their memory.
But then there are other things that the Torah portion alludes to which we don’t seem to remember very clearly, such as Miriam’s leadership and legacy and the reason for her being stricken with “tzara’at.” And there are yet other things that we aren’t told to remember at all. In Plaskow’s words, “The Torah in this section offers no store of memories of women’s perspectives and experiences that could provide the basis for an alternative ethic.” Meaning, we remember certain things (we were slaves) and those memories obligate us to act according to certain ethical standards. But we don’t remember other things, such as what it might be like to be a rape victim who is forced to marry her rapist.
This points to the ethics of memory itself and raises the question of what we choose to remember and act on and which memories we choose to suppress, and how does that choice affect us, our families, and our communities in the present?
I look forward to exploring this question further with you tomorrow.
Shabbat Shalom
Friday, August 31, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Scrollers Preview - Parashat Shoftim
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Parashat Shoftim
8/25/12
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
Shabbat Shalom everyone – I hope you had a good two weeks with your lay leaders!
This week’s Torah portion is called “Shoftim,” which means “judges,” and the main focus of the parasha is justice. In Deuteronomy 16: 20 we have the famous verse, “justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” According to our Etz Hayyim commentary, “The term ‘pursue’ carries strong connotations of effort, eagerness. This implies more than merely respecting or following justice”; we must actively pursue it.
Most of the parasha consists of legal material, laying out procedures and policies regarding the justice system the Israelites are to implement in the land. We receive instructions regarding placing judges and magistrates in all of our settlements and making sure that they judge justly. The parasha includes laws regarding witnesses, including false witnesses, outlawing bribes, and enforcing verdicts. We also have laws concerning the cities of refuge and how to deal with a corpse of a murder victim that is found in the open with no evidence of who the murderer was.
I recommend reading Elliot Dorff’s excellent essay at the back of our Etz Hayyim commentary entitled “Justice.” There, he lays out the Biblical and then later Rabbinic approach to the concept of justice. We see in Torah a message that in order for us to achieve the justice that God demands, we need to have just procedures in place, and the outcomes of the court and justice systems must be just, moral and good.
But justice goes beyond even procedure and substance. There is also a concept, introduced in Deuteronomy 6:18, that we are required to do “what is right and good in the sight of the Lord.” This has been interpreted by the rabbis as the basis for asserting that we are at times obliged to act “beyond the letter of the law.”
According to Torah, justice is “a divine imperative,” in Dorff’s words. God is the ultimate judge, and we are meant to imitate God. Justice is a foundation stone of holiness itself. The laws of justice are even seen as evidence of God’s love for Israel, and pursuing justice can be a way for humans to come closer to the Divine.
As we study together tomorrow, I look forward to exploring the Torah’s concept of justice, from the procedural to the more philosophical.
Parashat Shoftim
8/25/12
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
Shabbat Shalom everyone – I hope you had a good two weeks with your lay leaders!
This week’s Torah portion is called “Shoftim,” which means “judges,” and the main focus of the parasha is justice. In Deuteronomy 16: 20 we have the famous verse, “justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” According to our Etz Hayyim commentary, “The term ‘pursue’ carries strong connotations of effort, eagerness. This implies more than merely respecting or following justice”; we must actively pursue it.
Most of the parasha consists of legal material, laying out procedures and policies regarding the justice system the Israelites are to implement in the land. We receive instructions regarding placing judges and magistrates in all of our settlements and making sure that they judge justly. The parasha includes laws regarding witnesses, including false witnesses, outlawing bribes, and enforcing verdicts. We also have laws concerning the cities of refuge and how to deal with a corpse of a murder victim that is found in the open with no evidence of who the murderer was.
I recommend reading Elliot Dorff’s excellent essay at the back of our Etz Hayyim commentary entitled “Justice.” There, he lays out the Biblical and then later Rabbinic approach to the concept of justice. We see in Torah a message that in order for us to achieve the justice that God demands, we need to have just procedures in place, and the outcomes of the court and justice systems must be just, moral and good.
But justice goes beyond even procedure and substance. There is also a concept, introduced in Deuteronomy 6:18, that we are required to do “what is right and good in the sight of the Lord.” This has been interpreted by the rabbis as the basis for asserting that we are at times obliged to act “beyond the letter of the law.”
According to Torah, justice is “a divine imperative,” in Dorff’s words. God is the ultimate judge, and we are meant to imitate God. Justice is a foundation stone of holiness itself. The laws of justice are even seen as evidence of God’s love for Israel, and pursuing justice can be a way for humans to come closer to the Divine.
As we study together tomorrow, I look forward to exploring the Torah’s concept of justice, from the procedural to the more philosophical.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vaetchanan
Scrollers Preview
Parashat Va-etchanan
August 4, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
Parashat Va-etchanan is an amazingly rich Torah portion, and it is full of paradox. In it, Moses recalls pleading with God to let him go into the Land and getting the harsh response from God that he should just shut up and stop whining!
Moses also spends a lot of time reminding the people to follow the mitzvot that they are to observe in the land. He reminds them of the awesome experience of Sinai – that this experience should continue to echo in the People’s consciousness, calling them to continue to worship the One God whose voice they heard out of the fire. Moses is quite concerned that the people will be lured to worship other gods.
As part of the remembrance of Sinai, Moses repeats the 10 Commandments. And he frames his exhortation to adhere to the commandments with the powerful, enduring words of the Sh’ma. We are to love YHVH our God with all of ourselves – mind, spirit, and strength.
In the final chapter of this parasha Moses instructs the Israelites to wipe out the 7 nations living in Canaan and to destroy all of their religious places, idols and pillars. This section concludes with another beautiful passage about how God chose us from among the peoples out of love.
As I read the parasha this year I kept feeling like I was on a pendulum, swinging swiftly back and forth from messages of fear and punishment to messages of love and special treatment. We see these contrasts even in a single verse. For instance, the last few verses of the portion read, “Know, therefore, that only the LORD your God is God, the steadfast God who keeps His covenant faithfully to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments, but who instantly requites with destruction those who reject Him.”
This contrast echoes a much larger paradox – that of Moses’ experience of God throughout the Torah. We see again and again in the Torah, Moses appealing to God’s qualities of mercy and compassion and patience, asking God to forgive God’s people. This happens at key moments, for instance after the Golden Calf incident and the incident with the spies. Typically, God kills off some of the Israelites but forgives the People as a whole and allows them to move forward in relationship with God. But ultimately, at the end of the Torah, we have this story that opens our parasha this week – a story of Moses begging God to forgive him, and of God refusing to be moved to forgiveness.
What do we make of these sudden swings from compassion to destruction? What do we make of God’s treatment of Moses? What do we make of a tradition that tells us that God loves us - that asks us to love God with all of ourselves – and which depicts God as quick to punish a person the instant that person turns away?
Parashat Va-etchanan
August 4, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
Parashat Va-etchanan is an amazingly rich Torah portion, and it is full of paradox. In it, Moses recalls pleading with God to let him go into the Land and getting the harsh response from God that he should just shut up and stop whining!
Moses also spends a lot of time reminding the people to follow the mitzvot that they are to observe in the land. He reminds them of the awesome experience of Sinai – that this experience should continue to echo in the People’s consciousness, calling them to continue to worship the One God whose voice they heard out of the fire. Moses is quite concerned that the people will be lured to worship other gods.
As part of the remembrance of Sinai, Moses repeats the 10 Commandments. And he frames his exhortation to adhere to the commandments with the powerful, enduring words of the Sh’ma. We are to love YHVH our God with all of ourselves – mind, spirit, and strength.
In the final chapter of this parasha Moses instructs the Israelites to wipe out the 7 nations living in Canaan and to destroy all of their religious places, idols and pillars. This section concludes with another beautiful passage about how God chose us from among the peoples out of love.
As I read the parasha this year I kept feeling like I was on a pendulum, swinging swiftly back and forth from messages of fear and punishment to messages of love and special treatment. We see these contrasts even in a single verse. For instance, the last few verses of the portion read, “Know, therefore, that only the LORD your God is God, the steadfast God who keeps His covenant faithfully to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments, but who instantly requites with destruction those who reject Him.”
This contrast echoes a much larger paradox – that of Moses’ experience of God throughout the Torah. We see again and again in the Torah, Moses appealing to God’s qualities of mercy and compassion and patience, asking God to forgive God’s people. This happens at key moments, for instance after the Golden Calf incident and the incident with the spies. Typically, God kills off some of the Israelites but forgives the People as a whole and allows them to move forward in relationship with God. But ultimately, at the end of the Torah, we have this story that opens our parasha this week – a story of Moses begging God to forgive him, and of God refusing to be moved to forgiveness.
What do we make of these sudden swings from compassion to destruction? What do we make of God’s treatment of Moses? What do we make of a tradition that tells us that God loves us - that asks us to love God with all of ourselves – and which depicts God as quick to punish a person the instant that person turns away?
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