Feet First – Parshat Ki Teitzei 5776

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Feet First

As someone who has been in school or working in schools for much of my adult life, I know firsthand there is something simultaneously magical and infuriating about the first day of school. I’m so excited I usually can’t sleep the night before. I jump up awake at 4:00 a.m., ready to go face the day, the year, and the newness of it all. What a blessing to be so eager, so excited to jump feet first into everything that lies ahead. At the same time, when there’s something I’m dreading doing, I tend to sleep really well, confident that I’ll be able to successfully put off or avoid this dreaded task. And that’s typical of life. When we face something fun, exhilarating, or new, we’re often eager to jump in and get started.

This holds true for our Jewish life too. The Torah teaches us that we are expected to rush to do mitzvot as soon as we’re permitted to do them. This is why a bris most often takes place first thing in the morning, and why as soon as Yom Kippur is over we’re supposed to rush home to put up our sukkah. The thrill and excitement of these events propels us forward to eagerly complete our tasks.

This week parshat Ki Teitzei shares a number of laws to govern society. We receive laws about war and taking care of hostages, laws about our clothing, laws about family relationships, parents and children, taking care of the poor and so much more. Ki Teitzei is actually the Torah portion with the most number of mitzvot within it, but the recurring theme is the desire and ways in which we should execute the mitzvot prescribed to us.

Chapter 21, verse 23 teaches, “You must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury him the same day.” While this verse is talking about someone who is impaled for committing a crime, the sentiment remains true for all our dead. To avoid desecration of the dead, we bury them as soon after the death as possible. However, to honor the dead, burial can be postponed to enable relatives to attend the funeral, or even to allow their organs to be donated.

In the case of a burial, we rush to perform the mitzvah, but obviously we’re not necessarily glad or excited to do it. Here our religious world and our emotional world collide. The beauty of this verse is that we are commanded not only to rush to perform a mitzvah that might not be a happy one, we are also shown the importance of treating each person in our community, regardless of their social status, with the same dignity and respect.

Ours is a feet-first religion. We rush to bury so that we can begin mourning, and we rush to name so we can begin celebrating. The common theme is that Judaism demands that we dive in.

Guardians of the Soul – Parshat Shoftim 5776

Eve Posen2 Comments

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Baruch sh’amar v’hayah ha’olam, baruch Hu. Blessed is the one who spoke and the world was, blessed is He. These words open one of the central prayers of our morning liturgy. How fitting that each day begins with the reminder that the world was created as God’s mouth was opened, using words to bring into being the cycle of life that gives us life every day. I love this prayer for a number of reasons, but perhaps the greatest reason is that it reminds me daily of the power of words.

If God’s words have the power to create or destroy an entire universe, then surely our words too have the power to lift up or tear down each other’s worlds, since we all have a spark of the divine inside us. This is the lesson I try to hold with me as I open my mouth to speak or close my mouth to listen. We must be in tune with our words. How might they be interpreted by others? How might they lift up or destroy someone else’s world?

This week we read parshat Shoftim, in the middle of the book of D’varim, which outlines our legal system, the responsibilities of judges and prophets, punishments for witnesses, and more. It’s worth noting that the Torah recognizes that the legal system and those in charge of it must be hip to the times.

The text begins with chapter 16, verse 18: “You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.” In other words physically, at the gates of our cities, we are to set a guard for the type of person we think would be an asset to our community. Taken metaphorically, according to a 16th century commentator, we must set guardians at the gates of our souls. The gate at our mouths guards against lying or speaking malicious gossip, the gate at our ears guards against being eager to hear malicious gossip, and the gate at our eyes guards against forming the habit of seeing the worst in others.

Judgement comes not only in the form of legal rulings, but also as we use our own minds to understand how and what we should be doing and saying in the world around us. Parshat Shoftim reminds us that our world – the cities, towns, and communities we are a part of – are built upon good judgement and how we treat one another. It is our obligation to be aware of the gates to our soul, the gates to creating a world in which we can work together to create, uplift, and celebrate.

Still Cravy – Parshat Re’eh 5776

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When I was pregnant, all I wanted to eat was French fries, soft serve ice cream, pizza, and peanut butter. Literally, all the time. Of course the choice was mine. I could eat those amazingly craveable foods and satisfy the urge, but I would probably gain an obscene amount of weight during the pregnancy. Or I could really listen to what my body needed in those moments and continue to maintain my mostly healthy lifestyle, perhaps satisfying the cravings in moderation. Usually, I ended up compromising somewhere in the middle. It’s hard to win when it comes to cravings. Even now that I’m not pregnant anymore, I’m constantly trying to find the middle ground between what my body needs and what my brain tells me I want.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received on my journey in pursuit of daily health and fitness is to listen to your body, to know what your body needs. If you’re bruising a lot, you might need iron; if you’re chronically tired, try reducing the carbs. As you might presume, conscious eating isn’t a new medical theory. In fact, the idea of being conscious about our cravings and what we put into our bodies started as early as our Torah.

We read parshat Re’eh this week as the Torah races to the finish line of its lessons for us. In our parshah we learn about the blessings and curses that will come with observance (or lack thereof) of the mitzvot we’re given. We receive some final warnings about following the laws against idolatry, laws for keeping kosher, and the importance of treating each other as equals. Finally, we receive some more information on our three pilgrimage festivals.

Within the laws about kashrut (Jewish ethical and spiritual eating) we begin to engage in the conversation about how and what we’re supposed to eat. As the text details the laws of ethical slaughter, the Torah very clearly describes in chapter 12, verse 20 that when someone has the urge to eat meat, he may, as long as time and care are taken to obtain that meat. This is the difference, according to renowned Torah scholar Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, between human beings and animals. Rabbi Kook suggests that an animal does not have the mental capacity to weigh urges and instincts against careful thought. Human beings, on the other hand, take into account ethical, rational, and thoughtful behavior.

Of course in the past century, science has been able to uncover much more about the way animals act, respond, and communicate. However, the Torah still commands us to employ thoughtful consideration before eating and to obey rules like not eating the blood of animals, pausing to offer blessing, and choosing certain foods over others. Beyond kashrut, our parshah this week reminds us that eating right, like other aspects of our lives, is about balancing urges with intelligence to make decisions that are right for us.