Mitzvah d'var

Just a week ago, I was in Acadia National Park in Maine for a two-week-long marine biology sleepaway camp. On the very last day, one of my friends and I had a conversation that I’ve been thinking about.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked. 
“I’m not really sure what I want to do,” she said. “All I know is that I won’t be in the US.” 
“Well, why don’t you want to be in the US?” I said.
“I just- well, with the way our country is headed, I want no part in it.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve given up. The poverty, racism, sexism, climate change, idiots being in charge- the whole system’s messed up. And also if I moved out of the country I could go to college for much cheaper than if I stayed. ”
“But how are the problems going to be fixed if you leave?” I said.
“You’ll be president!” she joked.

What I’ve been thinking is that she chose to give up, and yet she made the assumption that I would not. What is it about us that decides the different directions that we take in life? Little did she know quite how relevant what she’d said is to my Torah portion and what I’m going to be talking about in more detail today. 
Each week in the Jewish calendar a new section of Torah is read and studied, from beginning to end, until the whole Torah is read in one year. My Torah portion is called Ki Teitzei, which means “when you go out.” It contains 74 of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah, the highest number in any individual Parsha. Mitzvot is plural for mitzvah, which means “commandment,” “law,” or as I like to think of it, “connection,” or “good deed.” 

At the time Ki Teitzei is believed to have been written, Moses and the soon-to-be-Israelites stood outside of the promised land after wandering the desert for 40 years, upon being liberated from slavery at the hands of the Egyptian pharaoh. After going up Mount Sinai and receiving the mitzvot from God, Moses comes down to teach the Israelites the core values and principles that should guide them, and by extension, us, through a righteous path of life. In Ki Teitzei, Moses recites a long list of mitzvot to be performed in everyday life. There are laws about marriage and divorce, having honesty, being stewards to the land, lost animals, charity and mercy, parental authority, how men and women are allowed to dress, and fair weights and measures. 

The way this Parsha is written is simply just a list of commandments. No elaboration, no storyline, no clear order. They’re rules for everyday living, but not necessarily 21st century living. They’re mostly meant for everyday life, thousands of years ago. For example, there are heinous penalties for misbehaving children like stoning them to death, restrictions on what animals are okay to share a yoke while plowing a field together, and the types of fibers allowed to be used in a garment.        
 I had lots of questions about this portion, like why is it wrong for men to wear women’s clothing and women to wear men’s clothing, or why is it okay to take the baby birds or eggs out of the birds’ nest, but not the mother? I was challenged to find relevant meaning in them that can be applied to our own lives today, to lock down just one thing to talk about. Just ask the Rabbi how many drafts of d’vars I produced.

But the one thought I kept coming back to were these words from Deuteronomy 22:4 and 22:3, that I just chanted from the Torah. “If you see your fellow Israelite’s [donkey] or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it; you must raise it together.” 
“And so too shall you do with anything that your fellow Israelite loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.”
For those who are more literal, we could take this and apply it to me strolling down the road on the way to the market, and seeing my friend, family member, or neighbor’s ox in the ditch because it twisted its ankle, and so feeling obliged, I go over to help her out. Which is actually possible in today’s rural VT.

Earlier in the Torah, Exodus 23:5, has a similar, but even more radical version of this same law. 
“When you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless help raise it with him.”
Here we learn that we must help not only our family, friends, and neighbors, but even our enemies!
Take these words in from all of these passages:
“You must raise it together.”
“You must not remain indifferent.”
“You must nevertheless help raise it with him.”

Like the rest of the Torah, the specificity in these words leaves room for discussion. It provides an opportunity for rabbis, scholars, and students to ponder what the words themselves mean, and how they can be applied to our lives, just like I’ve been doing all year to prepare for today. Instead of simply handing us the greater meaning behind the words, the Torah encourages us to consider what the words themselves mean, and to look at them with a zoomed-out lens. In that consideration, we can learn so much more than if we had just sat down and read the deeper meaning point-blank.

So look past the literality- consider the kavana, or the intention, of these words.
Consider the famous medieval French rabbi and Jewish scholar Rashi’s words: “You MAY NOT HIDE Yourself — i.e. You must not cover your eyes, pretending not to see the ox.” I take this as meaning you simply cannot turn away from the problem, and deny it. You have to act for the betterment of the world. 
Nachmanides, a medieval Jewish scholar, philosopher and rabbi from Spain, has this to say: “Assist others. Remember the bond of humanity between you, and forget the hatred.” To me, this means that through the act of doing, we are able to put aside our differences and work together to get to a better place, forgetting our hatred.
Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild of London agrees, saying: “It is an in-your-face moral and ethical requirement… the doing is based on our shared humanity.” Meaning, you have to try to help, and remember that we are all just people.
“You must raise it together.”
“You must not remain indifferent.”
“You must nevertheless help raise it with him.”

Beyond the literal understanding of raising your fellow’s ox, these words from the Torah can easily be applied to even bigger things, like racism and hate. We know from history that by turning a blind eye on major problems, only more pain and oppression will ensue. The segregation through Jim Crow laws directed towards fellow human beings was only stopped because so many voices came together in protest during the civil rights movement that the government was forced to open its eyes, and change the laws. The suffering, dehumanization, and extermination of millions of human beings during the Holocaust was a result of widespread indifference on the part of those who felt they couldn’t change the course of history. And yet there were so many righteous individuals who, by not being indifferent, saved thousands of Jewish lives while risking their own. Before the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S., there were so many individuals who, by not being indifferent, helped guide enslaved people to safety through the underground railroad. These righteous people embody the spirit of Deuteronomy 22:3 and 4. 

People can work really well together in times of situational crisis. Many of you were here during the catastrophic flooding and torrential rainstorm that decimated homes, businesses, and crops. You know how scary it was. Right near where I live, the little baked goods and antique store down in Glover Village, Red Sky Trading Post, was hit particularly hard. They’re right on the river, and when the river rose to the store , it swept in several feet of mud and silt. The community came together as one to help them. It didn’t matter their differences; people came together to help Cheri and Doug muck out their store barn.

Deuteronomy 22:3 and 4 imply that we would encounter a problem while walking down the street, and therefore be unable to be indifferent to it. But can they verses be interpreted more broadly, to require us to care about things, even if they don’t literally or figuratively pass us on the street? We should not wait for the problem to come to us, we should try to do something about it when we hear or learn. We should learn enough by actively seeking out the problems and possibly solutions.  We cannot not ignore climate change because it doesn’t directly impact us today, even though we hear about it on the news, tearing through people’s lives in the form of drought, flooding, extreme heat, and fires. We should act now. Racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, we cannot be indifferent to them either. 

Built upon the inspiration of Ki Teitzei, in an ideal world I see society not as a place where politics is our defining feature, but as an opportunity to express the route we want to take to somewhere better. In an ideal world I see us not harming the planet further because we refuse to listen to each other, but as a chance to be the stewards of the land that we are meant to be. In an ideal world I see myself talking with my classmates about current events, racism, climate change, sexuality, and cultural identity, each of us taking in and considering what the other has to say, and tearing down the institutionalized taboo against meaningful conversation. In the ideal world there is no indifference. 

I also believe that these ideas hold another truth: by working together, we are able to remember that we are fellow people, united by one another. Again, through the act of doing, we can put aside our differences and work together to get to a better place. We don’t have to agree on everything to do something. Consider it this way: In this room, right now, we all have our different beliefs. Politics, religions, ways of looking at the world. We’re individuals, so of course we do! But we’re all here, aren’t we? That is an act of its own. I think of the words “you must raise it together,” when I look out at all of your faces, because that’s what we’re doing now. 

I have hope that if we work together the world can be a better place. We just need initiative. And you can be that initiative. I’m not saying “Run for president!” Just get active in your community, make something you believe in happen, or help out, just like my community did for Red Sky Trading after the flood. 

The underlying theme to what I’ve been talking about and what I think this part of Ki Teitzei might be is called Tikkum Olam. That’s Hebrew for “repairing and healing the world.” Many Jewish people consider Tikkun Olam to be a cornerstone of their Jewish identity. 

Remember that it’s possible; don’t lose hope. It can be done if we work together. We must not be indifferent. Help raise it with me. 
Shabbat Shalom.