Tonight, I am co-leading (via Zoom) the service at our temple. Preparing tonight's drash, I realized I've worked on this difficult portion before. Here is tonight's drash, and two previous sermons, written in 2019, and in 2017.
Ki Teitzei Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19
Friday night/ August 28-Saturday, August
29, 2020 /9 Elul, 5777
Tonight’s parsha is Ki Teitzei. Why
is it always Ki Teitzei? It is a horrible parsha. I have given a drash on this
parsha at least twice before, and then as now I have noted that the laws and
rules in this parsha are offensive to us today, to our morals and sense of
fairness. I noted the list of prohibitions, procedures, and punishments.
Admonitions and advice. How to take your bride by conquest. How to stone your
defiant son to death. Prohibition of cross dressing. Punishment for
falsely accusing your bride of not being a virgin (a fine). Punishment for not
being able to PROVE that you, the bride, were a virgin (death). People barred
from our tribe because of accident of birth – even to the ninth generation- or
because of disfigurement.
I asked then, what do we do with
sacred texts that are morally repugnant to us? I struggle with this, and I have
no easy answers.
There are no easy answers. I wish
there were.
I ask now, what do we do with our history
of racism, misogyny, and the Puritan legacy of hatred of human sexuality, in
all its complex and beautiful human expressions?
I’m a woman, and so I’ve carried the
misogyny of our society my whole life. To this day, I am still working at
finding my self-worth in a society that does not see me as an equal.
I have so many that I love, close
friends and family, who are LGBTQ+.
But today, today- how can we look
aside from the blatant racism and injustice playing out in real time on our
national stage?
There are those who oppose the
removal of Confederate flags- symbols as hateful to most African Americans as
the Nazi swastika is to most Jews- saying this is a part of our heritage, our
history. There are those who shrug off the legacy of slavery as past and gone,
instead of recognizing the pervasive racism, the true legacy of that shameful
past, racism embedded in our criminal justice system, our education system—our society.
Today, I am struggling- I think we
all are struggling- to reconcile our country’s stated ideals of justice and
equality for all with the stark contrast between an unarmed Black man shot 7
times in the back- in front of his children- by police; and a 17 year old white
man carrying an assault rifle to a protest to “defend” property- and shooting
and killing two people. A white man able to walk by those police officers,
carrying his assault rifle, going home- across state lines, unchallenged. Some
reports say the police handed him, and other militia style vigilantes, bottles
of water, thanking them for their “assistance”.
I am struggling, on this, the 57th
anniversary of the March on Washington and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s
I Have a Dream speech, to see the
continued repression of that dream of equality and justice for all.
I am struggling. What to do? What do
we do? There are no easy answers here, either. It is hard, hard work, and it
feels overwhelming.
It is overwhelming. I’m not going to
lie, I have been fighting despair.
There are the words of two different
sages that are helping me to cope.
From Pirke Avot 2:16: the sage Rabbi
Tarfon says: You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you
free to desist from it.
You are not obligated to complete
the work. What a relief to acknowledge that
you can’t do it all. It is the obligation of every Jew- I would even say, every
guten neshama, every good soul- to work on repairing the world. But you
can’t fix the world all by yourself. You can’t do all of it. You can’t do
everything. I try to acknowledge that, and release the guilt of not fixing it
all right now.
… but neither are you free to desist
from it. Knowing that you can’t do it all
doesn’t mean there is nothing for you to do. You still have a sacred obligation
to do your part. Do what you can, where you are, right now. You are called to
the mitzvah of repairing the world.
The other sage who is helping me
cope is Maya Angelou: Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you
know better, do better.
I’ve made mistakes, even in my fight
for social justice. I’ve not understood, sometimes, the history of words or
phrases. I have been unaware of my own complicity in the racist world- it’s all
around, it’s hard to see when you are the beneficiary of the inequity.
I’ve made mistakes. I’ve been
ignorant. But I’m working on it. I’m trying to do better, once I know better.
I’m not going to desist from the
work. I’m going to learn more, know better, do better.
Because we are called to pursue
justice. Justice for all. We are called to tikkun olam, the work of
repairing the world. To bring shalom, peace, we must first find sh’laymah,
healing.
We must heal the injustices, together,
for truly, if there is no justice, there is no peace.
13 September
2019 Ki Teitzay Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
We don’t
have time to lead the service. Really, we don’t. Ken is swamped at work- it’s
been a particularly stressful year, and he’s kicking off the cycle of the new
academic year hard on the heels of his own economic year.
I’m swamped
at work. I’m teaching four college courses, part time at two different universities.
It’s great: it’s like half time pay for full time work. It’s the start of the
semester, and I have SO many papers to grade already.
We just don’t
have time. While our daughter and family are traveling, we’re dog sitting our
daughter’s giant loveable-and-doesn’t-know-his-own-strength dog, along with our
own dog, so with both of our work, it’s hard to get those pups under control.
Our
daughter’s dog is a rescue dog, he has abandonment issues. He needs to see us.
Honestly, we don’t have time. My mom broke her hip, and she’s
out of residential rehab, but now she’s staying at my sister’s, and my sister
has to work, but my mom can’t be alone for too long at a time, and it’s half an
hour from our house, and I haven’t seen Ken for the last three nights running.
We don’t
have time.
Add to that
the Torah portion. Ki Teitze. If I’d checked and seen it was Ki Teitze, maybe I
would have thought twice. I mean, we don’t have TIME, and Ki Teitze is a
TERRIBLE portion.
I wrote a
drash on it two years ago. It’s still awful. How to stone your defiant son to
death. Prohibition of cross dressing.
People barred from our tribe because of accident of birth – even to the ninth
generation- or because of disfigurement. Here’s one that hit me hard this time:
22:13 If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate
her, 14 and lay wanton charges against her, and bring up an evil name upon her,
and say: 'I took this woman, and when I came nigh to her, I found not in her
the tokens of virginity'; 15 then shall the father of the damsel, and her
mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the
elders of the city in the gate. 16 And the damsel's father shall say unto the
elders: 'I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; 17 and,
lo, he hath laid wanton charges, saying: I found not in thy daughter the tokens
of virginity; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity.' And
they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18 And the elders
of that city shall take the man and chastise him. 19 And they shall fine him a
hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because
he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel; and she shall be his
wife; he may not put her away all his days. {S} 20 But if this thing be true,
that the tokens of virginity were not found in the damsel; 21 then they shall bring out the damsel to
the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with
stones that she die; because she hath wrought a wanton deed in Israel, to play
the harlot in her father's house; so shalt thou put away the evil from the
midst of thee. {S}
So, if a guy
doesn’t like his bride, and he lies about her “purity”, and he’s proved a liar,
he gets fined.
But if the
guy doesn’t like his bride, and claims she wasn’t a virgin, and her family
can’t PROVE she was a virgin, they kill her.
So that
sounds fair. Not.
When I wrote
the drash on Ki Teitze before, I acknowledged that it’s a terrible portion, and
that it’s mostly offensive, certainly by modern standards. I noted that for us, as Reform Jews, ours is
an evolving tradition. We acknowledge our past, even if it is now repugnant to
us, and we take the heart of justice where we find it, and we change, we adapt,
we grow as a people and hopefully, we have an impact on our world by
acknowledging our flaws and working to do better, and thus to be better.
As Maya
Angelou wrote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know
better, do better.”
We know
better, I hope. We’re doing better, I hope.
Still. I
said that already, two years ago.
And we
really don’t have time.
AND it’s
Friday the 13th. I’ve got nothing against Friday the 13th,
but you know.
AND it’s
full moon. Not that I believe that we turn into lunatics or anything. Although
friends that I have that work in hospitals and ERs swear that there is
something to it.
So.
In spite of
all that, here we are. Ken and I, and you.
Why?
First of
all, because Rhina asked me. She asked us, actually, she asked several people,
and at other times when there’s been the call, others have answered, but this
time I checked in with Ken, and we said, OK, we’ll do it.
That first
reason is part of the next reason. We’re community. We’re family. We’re here
for each other. That’s the best of what a congregation is for one another.
Finally, the
reason that we’re here is because we really don’t have time. But we need to
make time. For each other. For you.
For
ourselves.
For Shabbat.
I don’t have
time, I am exhausted, I am tired of fighting the good fight against hate with
love, against ignorance with what knowledge I have found, against indifference
with what passion I have.
I’m tired,
and I have NO TIME.
Except this
moment. Except now. If I stop, just stop, and breathe and remember that I am
here, and as bad as so many things are today, from politics to climate change
to this terrible Torah portion of Ki Teitze, still there is good, and I am
working so hard to make the world better.
And it’s
okay to stop, and to breathe, and be with you all.
To make time for peace and friendship and Shabb
Ki Teitzei Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19
Saturday, September 2, 2017 /11
Elul, 5777
This week’s portion is a grab bag of
prohibitions, procedures, and punishments. Admonitions and advice. How to take
your bride by conquest. How to stone your defiant son to death.
Prohibition of cross dressing. People barred from our tribe because of
accident of birth – even to the ninth generation- or because of disfigurement.
There are also admonitions to help
out your neighbor if his sheep goes astray. And give honest weights and
measures. There is that.
And advice on digging latrines when
you go to war.
Sometimes, you just can’t get into
the Torah portion. This is one of those times. Of course, as always, you can
cherry pick a verse here or there. But overall, this portion is offensive, by
today’s standards.
Today’s standards. Are there eternal
standards? Or is morality fluid, depending on the time- taking as our guide Pilgrim’s
Progress in one generation, and Machiavelli’s The Prince in the
next?
I believe that there are some
absolutes. Do not murder. There’s one. Strive to be honest and fair-
there’s another, inherent in some of the passages in this week’s parsha, buried
in harsh punishments of another time. Yet those punishments, and some of the
prohibitions of those ancient days, are unacceptable to me, here and now.
What do we do with sacred texts that
are morally repugnant to us? I struggle with this, and I have no easy answers.
I remind myself that this was
another time, and, in my understanding, these texts are created through the
lens of fallible humans. Humans living in the context of their own brutal
society. I search- sometimes it is cherry picking- for the
underlying morality and social justice in our tradition.
I also remind myself that it is
Jewish tradition to take these harsh laws, and through rabbinic discourse,
modify and soften them. For instance, our passage tonight describes the steps
for parents to take to have a defiant child stoned to death. The procedure
requires the parents to take the child to the town’s elders. It is up to the
elders to make the decision, and to carry out the sentence. According to the
Talmud, "There never has been a case of a 'stubborn and rebellious son'
brought to trial and never will be" (b.Sanhedrin 71a). According to the rabbis, it may be written, but
there are limitations put in place so this is not to be done.
And, to have even the limitation of
taking the child to elders in the first place, provides more protections than
many other societies of the time, where the head of the household held the
power of life and death for all under his- HIS- authority.
Society changes, over time. Not
always in a straight-forward linear progress toward the Good with a capital G,
either. We must be aware of the laws, customs, and mores of our own society.
And, as we are a people commanded to pursue justice, we must not be slaves to
our society’s rules, but instead be a force in changing the unjust practices-
whether of custom or law- so that ours becomes a more just society. Honest
weights and measures for all.
We can’t change Torah. We can’t
ignore history. But, like the rabbis of old, we can modify its application. We
can work to create better laws, kinder customs, more human and humane mores.
Much of this summer I have spent
with my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, accompanying them on work
trips for my daughter (Mississippi in August, now there’s a treat!), and acting
as the Nanny-Bubbe in their home in Chicago.
Last weekend we were in Chicago. On
the evening of Friday, August 25, I joined my daughter and her family with a
handful of families for a children’s peace march. We were helping to reclaim
some of the local parks in the Lincoln Square area- or reaffirm our claim- from
attempted gang resurgence. There weren’t many of us, but neighbors met
neighbors and for many of us the evening was ended with gelato in the square.
Lovely.
Sometime in the darkness of the next
night, cowards struck with hateful graffiti scrawled on garage doors and
sidewalks just two blocks from my daughter’s home. Swastikas. Hailing of Nazis.
Anti-Semitic slogans.
Neighbors awoke to this hate – took
pictures and reported to the police- and then scrubbed the vileness away. Word
spread on social media, and the neighborhood responded. That Sunday evening,
well over five hundred people gathered for ‘positive chalking’ of neighborhood
sidewalks. Men, women, children, babies- so many children- gathered. We
showed up. We responded to hate, not with fear, but with love, and
solidarity.
One of the chalk stencils read in
English and in Hebrew: Love. Ahavah.
This is the challenge for us as
Reform Jews. We know the lessons of the past. We know that responding to hate
with fear will not save us. We cannot deny the past- whether it is offensive,
outmoded prohibitions in Torah, or the genocide of more recent years- but we
can bear witness that society can change, that we can be part of that change.
When we show up.
