Rabbi Marianne Novak, Class of 2019
It’s that time of year again: back to school. Whether it’s to first grade, high school, yeshiva, or college, this is a time that is loaded for students as well as their parents. My social media has been overflowing with pictures of departures and arrivals: children at the airport, in their childhood rooms for the last time, and then in their new dorm rooms. The pictures are almost always accompanied by a parent or loved one marking this milestone in the child’s life with words of wisdom or a groan-worthy joke. All the while, the parent is trying to wipe away tears of joy for the child’s growth and tears of loss in the concomitant separation. It is, after all, the end of an era. These older children might come back home, but they will now be visitors not residents, guest stars not series regulars.
We have now come to the part of Devarim wherein Moshe offers a series of speeches—full of instruction, encouragement (some discouragement), worry, and history—to Am Yisrael as they finally prepare to enter the Land of Israel. They will be embarking on the journey without Moshe Rabbeinu. In a sense, this is Moshe’s long, at times rambling, going-away-to-yeshiva/college speech. Knowing he won’t be there to save the day when Bnei Yisrael might—and, at least in Moshe’s eyes, will—stray, he does his very best to forecast all that the Jewish people will encounter in the new land.
While our Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, seems to move randomly from topic to topic, I would like to suggest that it contains unifying themes that spoke to Bnei Yisrael then and continue to resonate for us, especially during this season of Elul. Ki Teitzei contains more commandments than any other parsha in the Torah. While we cannot go through every single mitzvah here, I’d like to highlight a few that particularly echo during this time of teshuvah (return).
Devarim 23:19 states: “You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the pay of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow, for both are abhorrent to the Lord your God.”
On the face of it, it seems reasonable that those who engage in prohibited sexual behavior for profit should not bring sacrifices purchased from proceeds of their actions into God’s holy sanctuary. But the Ramban sees this admonition going beyond just prostitution. He explains that the women and men performing these illicit acts thought that they could atone for their sins if they donated their profits to God for sacrifices. They thought they could launder their money from a criminal act, be absolved, and then continue doing evil. This self-deception is what is prohibited by the Torah. Unfortunately, our community knows all too well the many instances of wealthy benefactors giving needed funds to Jewish institutions while simultaneously engaging in illicit behaviors. Perhaps they reasoned that these donations would expiate them from all their sins. But, as our tradition understands, no amount of money can cleanse you of sin. Only the hard work of behavioral change can do that.
Another mitzvah in this parsha on its face also alludes to prohibitions on improper sexual behavior, but can also be seen through the lens of repentance and self-improvement. The Torah states: “A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear women’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord your God” (Deut. 22:5). Traditional commentators understand this admonition to mean that women and men should not wear each other’s clothing, as there is a concern that such a disguise would allow for illicit sexual behavior. But implicit in that explanation is the idea of not trying to trick people into thinking you are someone you are not. Rabbi David Silverberg of Yeshivat Gush Etzion cites the Chasidic work Toldot Yaacov Yosef, arguing that, more broadly, we should not dress up in the clothes of other people. We should not try to pass as something we are not. We should recognize who we really are, and only then can we make small, incremental changes to improve. The hard work of teshuvah cannot be done just by changing your outfit. Our sages understood that for teshuvah to really work, we must labor deliberately and consistently toward lasting transformation.
Our parsha ends with the complicated directive to both remember and not forget what Amalek did to the Jewish on their way out from Egypt: “Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Deut. 25:19).
Right as Bnei Yisrael were leaving Egypt, as described in the book of Shemot, Amalek cruelly attacked us. We are enjoined there to remember the attack for all time. So what does this verse add now? And how does it help us with our Elul to-do list of teshuvah, improving ourselves, and getting closer to HaShem?
I’d like to go back to the verse right before the end of the parsha: “How, undeterred by fear of God, he [Amalek] surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear” (Deut. 25:18).
Amalek attacked all the stragglers who were traveling in the back. While many commentators highlight this detail to show the raw savagery of Amalek who attacked the weak, I would like to focus on the place of the stragglers themselves. Why were they at the rear? Why didn’t Bnei Yisrael include everyone properly on the journey? How could we have left so many people in such a vulnerable position? Perhaps those who “did not fear God” were not Amalek, but Jews who insufficiently protected their own and left them open and vulnerable. Perhaps then the Elul lesson for us regarding Amalek is to keep our eyes on those that might fall behind. In our endeavor to improve ourselves, we must also look beyond ourselves, to make sure that we leave no stragglers out of our circles of compassion and responsibility.
This parsha’s seemingly disparate list of mitzvot is a blueprint for us to do the teshuvah that we, as individuals, need to do right now. This year, we might feel that improving ourselves is something too selfish to even attempt because of the overwhelming needs of Klal Yisrael. But the Torah implies that the best way we can live as a just and moral society is to focus on self-improvement first. Being true to ourselves will then allow us to be authentic for others, thereby enabling our hard work of teshuvah to radiate out to the world around us.
