Parshah Summary – P’shat
Parshat Ki Tetzei contains seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 mitzvot. Included among them are the inheritance rights of the firstborn, the law of the rebellious son, burial and dignity of the dead, returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird before taking her eggs, the duty to erect a safety fence around the roof of one’s home, and the various forms of kilayim (forbidden plant and animal hybrids). Also recounted are the laws of having a special place outside the camp for going to the bathroom and covering up one’s waste with earth, the prohibition against turning in an escaped slave, the duty to pay a worker on time and to allow anyone working for you—human or animal— time to eat, the prohibition against charging interest on a loan, the laws of adultery and divorce, and the procedures for yibum (levirate marriage), which is the practice of a man marrying the wife of his deceased childless brother in order to give her children on his brother’s behalf, and halitzah – the ritual of “removing of the shoe” – in the case that the brother-in-law does not wish to marry her. The parshah concludes with the obligation to remember “what Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt.”
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ וּנְתָנ֞וֹ יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ בְּיָדֶ֖ךָ וְשָׁבִ֥יתָ שִׁבְיֽוֹ׃ When you out to battle against your enemies, and Hashem your God puts them in your hand, and you capture their captivity… - Devarim (Deuteronomy) 21:10, Parshat Ki Tetzei
There’s a story of Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sasov, that once he travelled through many villages trying to collect funds so that he could liberate the poor Jews who were incarcerated in the Ukrainian debtor’s prison. Day after day, he went from door to door pleading the case of those poor souls rotting away in the dungeon, but no one would contribute anything. After weeks of failure, feeling dejected and frustrated, he gave up and set out to return home, regretting having wasted all that time he could have spent learning and praying. But just as he approached his house, a woman ran up to him in a panic: “Rabbi, my husband was caught stealing a piece of clothing and was viciously beaten by the police and thrown in jail!”
Without hesitation, the rabbi turned around and went to intercede with the judge. After much effort, he was able to get the prisoner released. When he went to fetch the prisoner from jail, he sternly warned him: “Remember that beating they gave you and don’t you ever do anything like that ever again!” “Why not?” replied the thief, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” Upon hearing his words, the rabbi resolved to return to his task of raising money to ransom prisoners, and eventually was highly successful in liberating many. There is a debt to be paid for our spiritual freedom as well. We too must not give up “raising the funds” as we move from one situation to the next, bringing our consciousness fully to each moment, to each situation, to each feeling, to each reaction, to each thought. What is this moment like? What does this situation feel like? Is there an emotional quality right now? What thoughts are arising? Again and again, we might get caught; we might get absorbed and coopted by whatever is arising in our experience, but don’t give up! The real danger is never failure. The real danger is allowing our failures to develop into the belief that inner freedom is impossible. The Torah describes going out into battle: כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה... וְשָׁבִ֥יתָ שִׁבְיֽוֹ׃ – When you go out to battle…and you capture their captivity... It’s a strange construction – capture their captivity – but this is how it is: the phenomena of our experience have a certain gravity; they tend to draw us in, to “capture” us. But if you don’t give up, if you keep at it, you will eventually “capture” their captivating power. After all, you are far more vast than any impulse, than any experience. You are the open space within which this experience, now, unfolds. But isn’t this too difficult? Is it not superhuman to access this Truth? כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹֽיְבֶ֑יךָ – When you go out to battle against your enemies… Life is, in a sense, like a battle ground. If you want spiritual freedom, you have to be one pointed and relentless, like a warrior. And yet: אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ בְּיָדֶ֖ךָ וּנְתָנ֞וֹ יְהֹוָ֧ה – Hashem your Divinity gives them into your hand… In other words, we don’t accomplish our victory by ourselves; the victory is a gift placed in our hands by the Divine; it is not something we win through effort, but through Grace. And this is the paradox – on one hand, you’ve got to have unshakable will and effort, and on the other, relaxed surrender. But in truth, this is not a contradiction, because the unconscious impulse is to struggle, to fight with Reality. If we want to conquer that “enemy” of unconscious struggle, we must surrender to the Truth of this moment, and that requires intention and will. We must remember that more important than whatever it is we’re doing, is this One Thing: אַחַ֤ת שָׁאַ֣לְתִּי מֵֽאֵת־יְה–וָה֮ אֹותָ֪הּ אֲבַ֫קֵּ֥שׁ... Only One Thing I ask of the Divine, this is what I seek… שִׁבְתִּ֣י בְּבֵית־יְ֭ה–וָה... – to dwell in the House of the Divine… That is, to dwell in the heart of this moment, surrendering to the Truth of what is, as the freedom and openness of the awareness that we are. כָּל־יְמֵ֣י חַיַּ֑י – All the days of my life… Meaning: every moment of life, being rooted in our Essential Life – not our thoughts, which come and go; not our feelings, which come and go; not our bodies, which are constantly changing, but in our Awake-ness, the field within which all of these are received and embraced. What happens if we embrace all of this, right now? If we say Yes to the fullness of this moment, right now, who are we then? What are we then? Don’t try to answer with your mind; instead, feel the answer as the Awake-ness that hears these words, day by day, moment by moment.
Read past teachings on Ki Tetzei HERE
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