How is this Relevant Today, Rabbi?: Sermon for Ki Teitsei 9-14-24

     Last week, I had the privilege of celebrating our son Jacob’s bar mitzvah at our old synagogue in Riverdale. In addition to what it meant for our family personally, even the people who didn’t know us well were clearly enthusiastic. There was a feeling of palpable relief. It allowed us to pause from the devastating news of murdered hostages and ongoing conflict, and to take refuge in community.

    When my son spoke about his parsha, he spoke about judges and how they need to be careful about accepting gifts, something that has been in the news. He found a message in the Torah that is as relevant today as it has ever been.

Jacob was following in the footsteps of his ancestors for generations before him, who read the Torah weekly, seeking inspiration and guidance from God. And today, when we come to synagogue for tefillah (prayer) and Torah reading, we seek that same inspiration. Although those of us gathered here may have different understandings of what the words “sacred” or “holy” mean, right here and now, we treat this space and this Torah as sacred. The role of a Torah teacher, including the rabbi speaking from the bimah, is to ignite that spark of inspiration from our holiest texts.

Of course, most of us also recognize that these texts were written thousands of years ago. As our sages say, “the Torah speaks in human language” (הַתּוֹרָה דִּבְּרָה כִּלְשׁוֹן בְּנֵי אָדָם). This means that although the Torah is sacred and holds eternal truths, it also speaks to audiences from a far-removed time and place, with very different concerns and points of view than today. Some of these viewpoints seriously challenge our sensibilities, and at times, they openly conflict with our ideas about morality and holiness.

Now, I can understand if some of you are thinking, “Rabbi, I don’t come to services for cynicism. Why not focus on uplifting texts? We also want reasons to celebrate, reasons to take comfort.” And there are many meaningful and inspirational parts of this week’s torah portion. Like rules about protecting runaway slaves, or the yearlong celebration of newlyweds. You might even point out that antisemites often use our more troubling texts to paint the Jewish people and our religion in a negative light, and that this space should be a refuge from all of that.

However, this week’s parasha presents us with several laws that also bothered our rabbis nearly two thousand years ago. But when they asked the obvious question about one of them, why is this included in the Torah? They answered, “study it to receive merit.” Our sages didn’t erase these texts. They engaged with them. Following in their footsteps, I believe there is a benefit to learning about our past, even the parts we want to ignore.

Three such cases are marrying the “beautiful” war captive, executing the rebellious son, and outlawing marriage to ammonites and Moabites. I won’t go into too much detail, you can read about them in your blue stone chumashim.  

 Our parasha opens with the case of marrying a “beautiful female” war captive, a reading made all the more difficult by the current war and our fears for remaining hostages. The rabbis also found this law troubling and responded in their day, like they always did, by interpreting the Torah. They taught these laws in ways that would make it difficult to ever actually perform them and they spoke very poorly of those who would try.

Moreover, they looked immediately ahead at the next two cases in the parsha, of the “hated wife” and the “rebellious son” and argued more or less that it such a marriage will inevitably be loveless with messed up children.

This case is sadly relevant still in today’s world, but it also provides us with a means to express our fears after October 7^th, it helps us recognize that our Torah understood the terrors of war, but also instills a sense of empathy. It reminds us that we have responsibilities to our own prisoners of war as well.

The second case, the laws about the rebellious son, also bothered the sages. A historian might argue that even a child could pose an existential danger to a vulnerable community. But here, again the rabbis made the law nearly impossible to enforce by interpreting it in unlikely ways, like saying the voices of the parents must sound exactly the same. They didn’t mean that as a metaphor. Ultimately, the rabbis declared the case of the rebellious child never happened and never will happen. The rabbis used the case of the rebellious child to talk about the ways we, for better and for worse, judge people based on what we think they will do in the future. They push us to be exceedingly careful about the sanctity of life even when we are afraid. We can also see the lengths the sages went to protect children from being labeled as dangerous threats with no future.

Finally, in today’s reading, the Torah addressed an ancient grudge against the Ammonites and Moabites, who refused to help Israel in the dessert. The Torah prohibits intermarriage with these tribes, which the sages understood to mean they were not eligible for conversion. Our rabbis tell a story of an ammonite man who converted to Judaism, who came to them to ask about this very verse from our parsha. He came to ask them if it was true that he could not convert. Although there was debate, they concluded that the Assyrian empire had dispersed these nations centuries earlier, so the ammonites and Moabites aren’t really the same people the Torah was talking about. Therefore the law no longer applied.

Here too, not only can we learn from them but I believe we can also get a glimmer of hope. First, the fact is, up until the ammonite man showed up in person, some rabbis clearly thought the law was still in effect.  But when they faced the person in front of them, the rabbis rendered these laws defunct. More importantly, for today, this shows us the ultimate hope that time really does heal, and ancient grudges need not last forever. Even longstanding ethnic conflicts can be overcome.

In general, there is great value in accepting that these texts are part of our tradition. We should be open to studying them, learning from them, and yes, even criticizing them, without shame. Doing so allows us to look at the ways we can grow together as a community, encouraging us to find ways to be more sensitive and welcoming. It also strengthens us in confronting extremists—whether they are those who hate us or the growing number of Jewish extremists who resort to violence. It allows us to thoughtfully talk about ethical dilemmas in impossible situations and helps us acknowledge human weakness.

 

Our traditions, even those born from dark or traumatic times, are part of our past. They don’t define us but we can learn from them. We have been around too long as people to expect a pure religion free from texts we disagree with, and I believe our Torah is strong enough to withstand criticism.

May we find peace both inner and outer this Shabbat, and may we continue to learn from and celebrate our traditions together. Shabbat Shalom.

 

Rabbi Dave Almog

Congregation Anshe Emeth

9-14-2024