Ki Teitze: Tending a Torah of Wholeness

Ki Teitze is a painful parashah to read. Embarrassing, really.

Sure, there is some good. Containing seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 commandments, perhaps even the majority of commandments listed seem to display a kind of ethical progressivism on the part of the Israelites, especially for their time and place. Beyond that, there are a handful of commandments that quizzically challenge our contemporary sense of logic and stretch us to submit to the realm of the mysterious. But on their surface, these seem to be at least ethically neutral. And then there is a final bucket of commandments, far too many for our modern ethical sensibilities, that are blatantly regressive and likely stir within us a fair amount of shame, anger, exasperation, or disgust at our own ancient tradition.

Have a rebellious child? Stone them to death. A man wants to make a captive woman his wife? He’s permitted, without any regard to consent from her. Capital punishment? Just don’t leave the body impaled for too long. Dressing in clothes that match your gender identity but not your birth sex? Abhorrent to God. Physically atypical? Denied admission to the congregation of God. 

This is terrible stuff. The kind of stuff that makes one feel compelled to discard the whole tradition, for how could a tradition that permits that, be a tradition we’re willing to consider our inheritance today?

Of course, each person has to grapple with that question for themselves. But what may be worth emphasizing here, is that Jewish tradition doesn’t end with a feeble acceptance of the surface words of Torah. Thankfully, just the inverse is true. Ours is a tradition that has never stopped grappling with those words. 

Take for example the rebellious child. As Rabbi Aaron Wander wrote about a few weeks back for this blog, the rabbis of the Talmud won’t let this commandment stand as is. They reason it away, unwilling to entertain that it could have ever happened, or should ever happen, almost as if they were saying amongst themselves, “One day everyone will have always been against this.”

This creative literary conviction of our sages is as much our inheritance as regressive words of Torah. We are Godwrestling people, after all, named for a character who literally wrestled a blessing out of God. So too are we text-wrestling people, alert to the folly of stasis, refusing to allow the written word to have the final word, when we know the word stretches forth for eternity, waiting for each of us to choose our own interpretation. As Rabbi Benay Lappe teaches, we are all players in the game of radical, queer, liberatory interpretation, so long as we are gamirna (learned) and savirna (aligned with our kishkes).

So then the question becomes: Will we translate and rule on the side of wholeness, more inclusivity, and more dignity? Or will we use God and Torah as a cudgel for our worst instincts, abdicating the responsibility of Interbeing for a shortcut that demeans and degrades?

As Jews and as a Jewish community, what are we willing to wrestle for? What interpretations and lessons will we choose to contribute to the world? What’s the Judaism we will shape for ourselves, each other, and our descendants?

May we take up the mantle of sacred audacity and holy humility, to teach and till and tend a Torah of wholeness, allowing the worst parts of our tradition to whither, while the parts that catalyze collective thriving serve as a Tree of Life for us and all Creation.