D
o you know how many
commandments there
are in the Torah? If you
answered 613, you are correct.
What do those many laws
entail? Rabbi Hillel answered,
“That which is hateful to you, do
not do to your fellow. That is the
whole Torah; the rest is the expla-
nation; go and learn.
”
This week’
s portion, contains 72
commandments, the largest num-
ber in any portion. There are laws
about the treatment of captives
and rights of inheritance. There
are rules regarding defiant children
and returning lost items. There are
commandments about clothing,
adultery, loans, rights of a stranger
and more.
It seems so disjointed, like a
long list of all the things God and
Moses are rushing to impart to the
Israelites before they finally enter
the Promised Land. Yet,
there is a common thread.
As Hillel declared, we must
be kind and thoughtful of
our peers. Deuteronomy 22:1
teaches us that “We are
responsible for one anoth-
er, tied together.
”
How appropriate
that this portion, which
reminds us of our obliga-
tions to our friends, family,
neighbors and God, also
contains the command-
ment instructing us to wear tzitzit,
the fringes hanging from the
corners of our tallit (Deuteronomy
22:12). They represent our respon-
sibilities to one another and to
God, tying us all together, requir-
ing that we not ignore one another.
In a world turned upside down,
we need these reminders now
more than ever. We are making
different decisions about
work and school and socially
distant play dates. We have
different levels of comfort
when it comes to seeing fam-
ily or walking into a store.
And yet, we are knotted
together, all intertwined. If we
are lost, we need a friend to
lift us up. If we are struggling,
we need a neighbor to give
a smile.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
once said, “One of the great
liabilities in life is that all too many
people find themselves living amid
a great period of social change and
yet they fail to develop the new
attitudes, the new mental respons-
es, that the new situation demands.
They end up sleeping through a
revolution.
”
Every time I wear my tallit, I
play with the fringes, wrapping
them around my fingers, remem-
bering how I am tied to those who
came before me and those will
come after. I think about the way
we are commanded to follow God’
s
laws, to teach them to our chil-
dren. I think about how we are so
entwined with and responsible for
each other.
Each knot and each string is a
reminder to wave hello, to pick
up the phone, to offer a smile, to
donate some groceries, to be a little
kinder, a little more patient. The
next time you wrap yourself in a
tallit and fiddle with the tzitzit,
consider the lessons we have
learned from the past, but perhaps
more importantly, the lessons we
hope to pass on to our future.
Rabbi Arianna Gordon is the director of
education and lifelong learning at Temple
Israel in West Bloomfield.
Parshat
Ki Tetze:
Deuteronomy
21:10-25:19;
Isaiah
54:1-10
Rabbi Arianna
Gordon
32 | AUGUST 27 • 2020
Spirit
torah portion
We Are Tied Together
Caregivers provide
care when you
can’t be there.
877.538.5425
FeinbergConsulting.com
•Professional In-Home Caregiving
•Safe Hospital Discharges and Transitions
•Care Management Services for Oversight
of Overall Health and Wellbeing
•Medication Oversight
•Grocery, Supply, and Pharmacy Pick-Ups
•Available 24/7
Proudly Serving Our Clients Since 1996