Friday Shabbat Shalom

There are words that change the world, none more so than two sentences that appear in the first chapter of the Torah:  Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

If I were to ask you if you thought Orthodox Jewish belief supports only a literal interpretation of the creation story in the Torah, you might be inclined to say yes. After all, don't Orthodox Jews believe that the Torah is an accurate historical account dictated by G-d to Moshe Rabbeinu/Moses our Teacher on Har Sinai/Mt. Sinai?

Sukkot is tonight, and I'm not really feeling the approaching Zman Simchateinu (the season of our joy) all that much. Between the coronavirus keeping us all more isolated and unable to host many people on the holiday to the presidential debate and this horrifying election cycle (just in time for Halloween- who needs artificial scariness?!?), I'm having a difficult time 'getting my joy on.'

We’ve all been there. We’re on a video conference, and someone will be trying to make some point, but we can’t hear him or her. Or we’re talking but no one is hearing is us… So all the participants on the conference yell – in unison – “unmute yourself!”

Jon Stewart of Daily Show fame was fond of comparing the Jewish holidays to secular ones. He once quipped about Rosh Hashanah, “On the secular New Year, most people wake up New Year’s Day and regret the events of the preceding evening. The Jews just skip that part and go right to regret!” While I wouldn’t call Jon Stewart a great scholar of Jewish history, his humorous comment strikes a chord that is resonant during these times.

This past summer I had the great joy of kayaking in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. As my kayak would slip over the dark waters of the lakes, I would often peer down into the water, keeping myself quite still, so that I might catch a glimpse of the life below. Sometimes, when the light was just right, I was able to witness schools of fish darting around. Twice I saw large Muskies poised in the midst of a hunt, as they hid behind a column of water plants.

How should we remember the past so that it best teaches us how to live our lives into the future? Parashat Ki Tavo gives us a very interesting answer and model for us to use. Israelite farmers were commanded to bring the first cuttings from their produce in a basket to the Temple where the Kohein (priest) would place them in front of the altar.

This week’s parsha, Ki Teitzei (Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19), contains an enormous set of mitzvot (commandments). In its 110 verses, the parsha lays out 74 commandments, 27 positive and 47 negative, on topics as varied as the treatment of female captives, what to do with the body of an executed person, rooftop safety and the prohibition on wearing shatnez (mixtures of wool and linen).