TorahParsha

Building Questions

 

For Parshat Ki Teitzeh

 

i

God commands Noah to build an Ark

to carry the animals of the earth.

 

God commands Israel

to build a Mishkan

to keep Him amongst us.

 

Moses says:

When you build a new house

build a fence around the roof

lest you bear the blood of one who falls.

 

ii

The people of Babel

take a different approach to building.

They say:

Let us build a city and a tower

to hold ourselves in one place,

to make a name for ourselves.

 

iii

What are we commanded to build?

A ship to carry the fragile creatures.

A building to hold the holiness of God.

A rail to guard our neighbor’s life.

 

What will we choose to build?

These things—

or a tower to capture our own name?

 

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Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

Buy The House at the End of the World

Pinnacles

 

for Parshat Ki Teizei 

 

The people of Babel

build a tower to reach the heavens—

a literal skyscraper,

achievement itself raised up.

 

Moses says:

When you build a house,

build a fence around the roof

so those who climb to the top

will not come to harm.

 

The pinnacle we build up to

is not the great height.

The pinnacle we build up to

—our great height—

is the protection we offer each other.

 

 

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

With thanks to Kathi, as always

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Why we need love in wartime

(for Parshat Ki Teitzeh)

 

i

God said

it is not good

for Man to be alone

so He formed the Woman

for the man to come to,

to be with as one flesh.

*

Thus God creates humanity:

man,

and the woman man comes to.

*

Therefore a man will leave his father

and his mother

and cling to his wife:

therefore a man

will look beyond the family

beyond his close group

and seek out this woman

this other

so that he will achieve this good,

so he will become fully human.

 

ii

War is different.

In war,

we destroy the other

who is beyond our group.

We achieve the opposite

of seeking out the other,

the opposite of

of good,

the opposite

of humanity.

 

iii

A man in his first year of marriage

does not go to war.

He stays home

away from the battlefield,

from his countrymen,

and he will make his wife happy.

*

So even as we fight

we never can fully forsake

the ideal of engaging the other:

we never fully forsake

what is good,

we never fully forsake

what makes us human.

 

 

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Shabbat shalom,

Abe

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Verses cited: Gen. 2:18-23 (quoted slightly out of order); Deut. 24.5

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Thought for Parshat Ki Teitzeh

How do we keep peace at home if there is war?

i

Moses teaches the Law of when you go to war against your enemy.

Then he teaches Laws of hated wives, and wayward sons, and defiled corpses, and rape in the cities, and rape in the fields, and neighbors plummeting from irresponsible neighbors’ rooftops—and other Laws of violence between neighbors and wives and husbands and sons, of keeping this violence in check.

*
From war, violence spills in to the home front.

 

ii

Here is one Law amongst these Laws:

When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out to war;

he shall not be brought into service:

he shall be at home for one year

he shall make his wife happy.

 

iii

This man and his wife are not a nation at war.

They are only two people.

This man is not a soldier.

His only duty he must keep is to make this one woman happy.

*
War will not spill in to such a life.

War will not spill in to a nation built of these lives.  

 

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Shabbat shalom, Abe

 

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Note - The quotes from these verses have been shortened and woven together; they are not exact quotes.

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Houses, Lives

i
You may not enter God’s House when you are impure.

On Yom Kippur, the High Priest must enter the innermost chamber of God’s House.

*
We learn these Laws in the Desert.

ii
If you see your brother’s missing ox, or donkey, or sheep go astray, you must return it to him.

If you cannot, you must bring the animal into...your house...until your brother comes.

*
When you build a…house, you must surround the roof with a fence: so no one will fall from the roof, so you do not bring blood into your house.

*
When you gather collateral on a debt, you may not go into the house of the one who owes you money.

*
We learn these Laws on the verge of entering the Land.

iii
In the Desert, we are a people alone with God.

Then we become a nation in the Land.

*
In the Desert, we learn to enter God’s House, or (at other times) to stay away from it.

As we become a nation, we learn to bring one another’s lives into our houses, or (at other times) to stay away from one another’s houses.

iv
So that our life with God provides the framework for our life as a nation.

So that our life with God provides the framework for our lives with each other.

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

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