Mitzvah d'var

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This morning, I am a bar mitzvah or a Jewish adult and have read from the Torah.  This means I, Asher, am now ready to be your host of the webseries: Torah Alive.  Folks, get ready for this week’s update on our Torah portion.

My Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, is from the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of the five books of Moses. In this book, the Jewish people travel and arrive at the holy land of Israel learning the rules of the land as they go. My specific portion is a general rule book with no less than 72 commandments! That's even more rules than there are at school. And since there are so many commandments, this part of the Torah has no story. So instead of me talking about the story of my portion, I will talk about some pretty vague rules.

One of these interesting passages is the commandment: “If along the road you chance upon a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground with fledglings or eggs with the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.” 

Let's say you were walking along and you spot a nest but there are no fledgling baby birds in it and it is only the mother, then, according to this rule, you are allowed to take her right? Or let's say you find the mother when she is out getting food for her children. You can take her then right? This makes no sense. The commandment is very vague on what is trying to be said. Rashi, a medieval commentator on the Torah, has a unique viewpoint on this. He says “thou shalt not take the mother so long as she is sitting upon the young ones.” But isn’t she still performing her role as a mother when she's getting food away from the nest? Doesn’t it have the same issues and moral flaws? Rashi is basically saying that when she is away from the nest, she doesn’t count as a mother and can be treated as any other bird you find. The mother we don’t treat as a mother if she’s not in the nest. We treat her as just a bird. But if we see her on the nest, we see her differently—we feel empathy toward her and her family. This empathy is felt because of logic. If we take the mother, it’s cruel to the nestlings, and if we take the nestlings, it’s cruel to the mother. But if you can’t see the mother or nestlings, you won’t know if the mother has nestlings or the nestlings have a mother. 

It’s like the modern-day situation at the border. Mothers separated from children. We treat refugees as refugees, not as people. We see refugee women as a refugee woman, not as a mother. We see a refugee as a refugee, not a child. If you take the nestlings, it will break the mother’s heart. And if you take the mother, it will break the nestlings’ hearts. As we value the lives of the mother and fledgling birds, we ought to also value the lives of refugee mothers and children.  In this sense I have learned a lot about in the past year during my mitzvah project and from this Torah portion. 

The NCAL shelter is a place where animals can have a chance at a second life, a better life. In my portion, two more of the commandments might explain a bit more about giving animals a second chance.  The first commandment says: “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow” (Deuteronomy 21:17-18). The next commandment clearly states that: “If your fellow does not live near you or you do not know who your fellow is, you shall bring (the animal) home and it shall remain with you until your fellow claims it; then you shall give it back to your fellow.” These two commandments are basically saying that you must take care of lost animals, which is very similar to how a shelter preserves the lives of animals.

But the medieval commentator Rashi has a different opinion. He says that “thou shalt not restore,” meaning you shall not restore the animal’s well being inside of your home or your fellow will have to pay you back. But then how would the animal survive if you don’t feed it? Wouldn’t it be worse if it died in your house? There is a very fuzzy line between keeping it for your fellow and a shelter and it seems like the Torah can’t give us the answer we are looking for so we must speculate for ourselves for what we think the commandment means, not what somebody else does. I wish that the commandment had been a little bit clearer on what you are allowed to do to the animal while waiting for the fellow to pick the animal up.

Both of these commandments are very vague and are left up for interpretation. But why aren’t they just simple rules? Because we must wrestle with their meanings ourselves and find an understanding that is unique to us and for our day, teaching us to be kind to all life and care for it.

And with that, this concludes this week’s daily update on the Torah. I’m your host, Asher, and I’ll catch you tomorrow where we talk about Cain and Abel. Thanks for tuning in to the Tanakh show and that’ll be all folks.

Shabbat Shalom.