Ki teisei

1. Ki Teitsei
Introduction - this portion is essentially one that requires us students to go
through “basic training.” It’s hot outside. The exercises will be demanding. I
hope you’re in reasonably good shape. I didn’t tell you more last week; nor
will I tell you much now - for fear that you would wimp out and sneak out
the back door. But, actually, you’re more than up for what we’re about to
do. Take deep breaths; call upon the inner strength you have. As my
property professor in law school told us one day, “no one has ever perished
here.” Nor will anyone today! But do tie your bootstrings tight before we
begin. It’s going to be rapid fire and fast. Here we go.
I. Read 21:10. What does this mean?
(On the surface, it clearly means when you go out into physical battle to
take the land, God will make you victorious. I want to explore its deeper
levels. What are the possibilities?

2. This is a metaphor for living as God expects. The enemies we will fight and
defeat with God’s help are at one level the forces, the urges, the bad
habits, the weaknesses, the proneness to the narrow straits we’ve
encountered since and before Egyptthat lead us to stray, lead us away
from our covenant with God, that are incompatible with living in the land of
promise.
The battle is the fight against these biases, desires, forces that keep us
from living as God expects, as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Today’s portion includes the greatest number of mitzvoth in any, 72, and
they are, I believe, here to serve as an exercise of preparedness, “military
in a spiritual sense,“ if you will, to get us ready to prevail in this battle. The
“captives” we take will be those of these enemies we have grappled with on
the journey, and continue to grapple with in our lives. This training will help
us to be spiritually and ethically, as well as physically, fit to overcome and
achieve the conquest God has in mind for us.)

3. II. Now we will begin the basic training against the temptations and urges
that are the enemy we must take captive. Ready?
A. Read 11-14.What’s the urge we take captive here, and what does our
“victory” mean?
(The urge in this situation is to ravish a beautiful captive weaker woman
we’ve taken captive in war. We must curb that instinct and limit the power
we have. We’re not an animal, and she’s not an object.God expects us to
live through a process that shows honor, respect, consideration, and
decision. Although the interest in assuring that the man and woman live in
God’s way and that the woman’s presumably previous pagan ways are
shed is curiously not explicitly addressed, the required processmay give
time for this to play out.
We’ve learned about righteousness, fairness, mercy, and lovingkindness.
Here we live out those principles in a very real setting, where our power
and desire could easily permit our following our instinct. God says the
enemy is given unto our power to control and take captive. What a
wonderful place to begin our training!)

4. B. Read 15-17.What’s the urge here that must be defeated?
(The principle of duty to the first born is strongly affirmed here, though we
know how complexthe broader text is on this matter. Yet, the idea here is
clear: the principle must outweigh our native desire to preferthe one who is
the child of the preferred orfavored wife. (The text does not yet show the
commitment that later attaches to monogamy, but it does insist that our
preferences go to the values we have about passing on legacy and living
as God expects, not our biases related to our other interests.))
C. Read 18-21.This is hard! Put a blinder on your modern eyes, and don’t
read this as physical killing, but rather some killing of a deeplydestructive
and evil force in the child. Now what’s the urge or force that must be
defeated?

5. (Know, first, that there’s language in the Talmud that suggests at least
explicitly there never actually was such a punishment.
But, we pay attention to the text and wonder if there’s something deeperat
work here, irrespective of whether this exact literal punishment was applied
or not. Is there some behavior that is so outrageously bad and dangerous
that we should be gravely concerned? If so,could we or should we just “let
it go?” Or just be soft and merely hope things will get better? That would be
easier, but the evil festers, no? It’s destructive of the child and endangers
the community. Must parents not join together and seek outside help and
do something to rid the dangerous force?)
D. Read 22:1-4.What’s the curbed urge here and the duty we owe?
(The instinct is to keep found property and be enriched by it. One can
easily think, “no one will know.” God knows! It’s not ours. We must make
every effort to find the true owner, hold the property in trust and preserve it
in good condition, and restore it. We are in training to re-develop our
instinct, literally to come to feel ill about keeping the property without a full
and devoted effort to restore it.)

6. E. 1. Read 6-7. What is the urge we need to confront and defeat here?
(Our appetitive desire is to take the mother bird and the young to eat to
maximize our catch and take - the more, the better! But we must respect
the mother’s feelings, as we would a person’s,as a fellow living creature of
God’s,by showing mercy, here by letting her go before taking what
remains, perhaps even foregoing both. This also shows an appreciation of
unity in God’s world. Maimonides says this teaches us to anticipate the
anxiety and despairof the mother bird, another living being, and to avoid
acting in a cruel way that is incompatible with living in God’s way in the
world.
Other possibilities: there could be an aversion to destroying the creator of
this life. Or, there could be an ecological sense that destroying both the
producergeneration and its offspring could endanger the species.)

7. 2. Let’s take a brief break to consider this question: Can you see the
emerging theme and purpose of our “basic training?”
(Surely, we’re beginning to see in these early “skirmishes” that this is a fight
against our passions, our greed,our self-interest, gluttony, power,
dominion, that part of us that is pure animal, to live within the constraints
and limits that God has established for a people whose destiny is to
become anation of priests living within the Divine covenant. We
understand and respect the effect that our actions have on others and the
world, and to begin in all of its dimensions to live true to the principles of
love of neighbor. This is a fundamental battle in our lives, one in which God
can make us victorious.)
F. Read 8. What’s the lessonhere?

8. (The instinct may be to cut corners, assume all will be well, and the money
it would take to go the extra mile could be saved. On the contrary, one
must be vigilant and anticipate all reasonable risks to guests and guard
against them. Guarding against risk of harm in our house is a metaphor for
how we must show care in our lives.)
G Read 10. What’s the instinct here that concerns us?
(The instinct is to use all the animals in the field to maximum effect, even if
it means yoking different animals together for short term gain. This is not
respectful to the animals in that they work at different paces and in different
ways. It ends up being unproductive as well in the long term. This principle
obviously applies to the treatment of human beings as well.)
H. Read 23:16-17.What’s the urge that must be fought against here?

9. (First, it’s possible this a continuing erosionof the institution of servitude in
the Bible. Our instinct is probably to close the door, avoid the trouble, or
simply return the slave and rid ourselves of the bother. But, no, we should
not acquiesce to the power of the owner or the system. Our duty is to the
weak in need.
But, second, and more likely, this is a slave who is fleeing a master in the
town that the Israelites have taken in the land. In this situation, it would be
the prevention of the slave’s returning to a pagan life that would be the
driving motive. The Hebrew servant is freed, after all, after six years.
Yet, there is enough uncertainty in the text to make us take notice of
several possibilities.)
I. Read 19. What’s the problem that must be addressed here?

10. (It certainly would be advantageous to take the value and benefit from “the
wage of a prostitute.” It’s money that could be “used for the good,”
whatever its source. But the means matter. The source matters. An offering
that is tainted is tainted, and not suitable, worse in may ways than merely a
blemished offering. This is incompatible with the holiness to which we
aspire.)
J. Read 22. What is the instinct that worries us here?
(It’s easy to make vows. It feels good and right. But, once made, a vow is
often hard to fulfill. It has costs and is nicer conceived and made than
delivered. At the very least, we’re tempted to delay our fulfillment of it to a
later time. We should overcome and defeatthese instincts.
First, we should be careful and soberin making vows. But, once a vow is
made, we should rush to fulfill it. It’s a commitment to God. If we see it that

11. way and we value our relationship with, and duty to, God, we are anxious
to proceedand turn our promise (and any value we have committed)into
immediate service of God.)
K. Read 25-26.What are the urges that concern us here?
(The owner of the land would naturally preferto lose no value, and the
worker or sojourner would naturally want to take as much as possible for
himself/herself. We’re taught here to come to a fair and caring result, one in
which the personis supported in sustenance while working or traveling,
and yet the owner is protected against excess in which more than what is
needed is taken. Indeed, as the population grew, later laws limited the
extent to which wanderers can come on to one’s land and take food.This
balancing of interests, this curbing of the instinct to grab and take more
than what is fair and appropriate, surely guides us in so many related
episodes in life.)
L. Read 24:6,10-13.What’s the “enemy” here? How do we defeat it?

12. (The lender wants maximum security for a loan. The instinct is to dominate
the borrower, with maximum controls, partly to assure re-payment but also
perhaps to exhibit and deploypower. But the mitzvoth curb us. We can’t go
anywhere near that far, by, for instance, taking collateral that prevents the
debtorfrom doing his work.
We must respectthose who are weaker. We must love our neighbor. We
do so by seeing and honoring the dignity of the debtor. Our instinct is to
have total dominion over and be able at any time to assure the strength of
our debt or the security. It’s ours after all. But we’re limited. If the security is
in the debtor’s house, which is his/hers, we can’t cross that boundary, in
effect,violating his/her property interest and indeed the special space of
home. If the security is a garment that keeps him/her warm at night or gives
bedding, we must return it each night. This is righteousness in action. It
leads to a fellow’s blessing, or at least, God’s.)

13. M. Read 14-15.We’ve discussedthis before. What enemy do we defeat
here?
(It.s tempting to hold on to our money for as long as possible. We must
defeat that urge. The worker earned payment during the day, and the sun
should not set without our doing our part of the deal in making payment.)
N. Read 17-22.Again, we’ve covered this before. Why does Moses
emphasize it here?
(It’s tempting to want it all for ourselves, to maximize production, and fully
“exploitour land.” This is especially so, as it relates to the weak who live in
the shadows of our lives. God says, no! Pay attention to the weak, respect
them, reserve resources (for which we’re only stewards of God)for them.
We were strangers once ourselves, needing such help. Love your neighbor
as you love yourself.)

14. O. Read 25:1-4.What do we learn here?
(Punishment is in order when wrong has been done. But “over-punishment”
is a wrong in itself and unjustified, whether it reflects anger, zealousness,
other emotions or passions, or an excess dose of “justice.” Only sufficient
punishment is allowed.)
P. Read 25:13-16.What’s the urge we fight here?
(It’s so tempting to cheat when we know the chance of being caught is
close to non-existent. That’s the theme here. How would a customerknow
if a weight is slightly off to his/her disadvantage? But God knows. This is
unjust, and the injustice is compoundedby the stealth nature of it. Living in
covenant with others and God cannot abide this behavior; thus, the
concern and prohibition are expressed in such a prominent place.

15. Indeed this is so serious one is not allowed even to own an inaccurate
weight.)
Conclusion - We’ve now come virtually to the end of our exercise in basic
training. What effect did it have on you? What spiritual and ethical muscle
strengthening have you experienced? Whatlessons will you carry out with
you?
(It is said that that this portion is fundamentally about the irreducible dignity
and worth of the human being. The most marginal members of human
societyare created in the image of God and should be treated accordingly.
In addition, there are limits on all of us, in believing and acting as if we
stand so substantially above and beyond others or indeed our own
appropriate selves that we can forget these truths and our duties to God
and others.

16. There are lots of areas in which we learn this today: limits on the self
(acquisition, greed, passion, control, power, dominion), concernfor the
other, awareness of ever-present sense of duty to God, a growing feeling of
being bound to God’s expectations, a sense that God watches me and
wants me to live as instructed, an appreciation of life and the need to show
it respect and regard, an abhorrence of dishonesty and bad faith dealing,
regard and care and right treatment for the weak and those in need,
balance, discipline, value of tradition over current sentiment.
“Light is sown for the righteous.” Psalms 97:11.Last week we learned all
about pursuing righteousness. Today we learn about what the path of the
righteous looks like and how and why we walk it.
As tradition teaches, in each person’s mundane tasks, God has implanted
a kernel of sacred light so that when that personperforms adeed in accord
with God’s hopes, one that works God’s will in the world, this releases a
light that dispels the concealing darkness, and in his heart flowers a vision
of the Holy One. In that moment, we are reminded of our purpose in life - to
serve God. The ways we’ve studied today represent Divine counsel that
attach us to God and set us on a straight path.)