In America, every person is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – a philosophical statement of rights, if nothing else. It sounds lovely, and it does appear to be the heart of western society today. The question for a Dvar Torah, however, is what does that have to do with Torah. Do these values line up with Jewish values? Let’s look at them in reverse order and see how they compare to the mitzvos of Parshas Ki Tezei, or at least some of them.
The pursuit of happiness is an abstract concept. One assumes
that it was not meant to mean that every person should put themselves and their
specific wants as first priority, but it does seem that this is how society has
devolved in the decades that have passed. The halachos of the Torah in this
week’s parsha, however, emphasize that the pursuit of happiness takes second
priority to the “pursuit” of a harmonious community. Thus we have the
commandment, and the detailed rules expanded upon in the Torah she’baal peh, of
returning a lost object (Devarim 22:1-3) and, similarly, the halachos of
helping even an enemy if his oxen have fallen on the road. We put others first.
The right to liberty is defined in the Merriam-Webster
dictionary as the quality or state of being free; the power to do as one
pleases, the freedom from physical restraint, and the freedom from arbitrary or
despotic control. Is this different than the Pursuit of Happiness? Happiness is
stating that how I feel matters more
than other people. Liberty means that my choices need to be without constraint.
But in this week’s parsha, we learn about the laws of Yibum – the law by which
a man must marry the widow of his brother if his brother died without children.
There are, of course, halachos to exempt oneself, but the idea remains a firm
part of Torah. A person does not necessarily have liberty in a Torah world. Even
the most intimate aspects of a person’s life are constraint by law.
The right to life seems like an incredibly basic entitlement.
And, in truth, most of Western Civilization is built on a Judeo-Christian
foundation that places tremendous importance on life. But stating that one has
a right to life implies that one has a right to no-life, that one can throw one’s
life away or choose not to live. There is no right to life in the Torah; there
is a responsibility to life. We see this in Parshas Ki Tezei in Devarim 22:8: “When
you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet around your roof, that you
shall not bring blood upon your house, if any man fall from there.”
It is a person’s responsibility to protect life – even on a roof-top
upon which they never choose to tread. This verse, this one simple verse,
reflects the identity of Klal Yisrael. Why are the numbers so disparate in the
current war? Because it is built into us to know that we must protect life,
that life is precious, and that life is not a right but a responsibility. Sadly,
in the State of Israel, one must not only build parapets around rooftops but safe
rooms and bunkers. The government invests in such evolved protection because
every life matters.
Western civilization has taken the American Founding Fathers’
call to the right for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness to its
extreme, and, as a result, we’ve lost far too many Jews to attrition and assimilation.
The evolution of Western society has allowed Jews an unprecedented opportunity
to live peacefully in our gulus, to feel like we can be both who we are
religiously and still be part of our host nation. And that is fine – I myself am
a proud American and a proud Canadian – as long as being a Jew is what shapes
our moral outlook.
Parshas Ki Tezei could be read as a list of rules, a review
of halacha learned throughout the wandering in the Wilderness. Within that
list, however, we see the true dignity of Torah: return a lost object; unload a
beast lying under its burden; do not leave out a stumbling block; pay your
workers’ wages on time; do not charge one’s brother interest nor hold on to the
collateral of a borrower over night if it is something that they might need;
not to have inaccurate scales; and etc. The parsha also talks about war, about bringing
home a captured woman as a wife (how to treat her so that the truth of the
relationship might be revealed and as a warning against the dangers that may
come from such a union) and about remembering Amalek, who thought us a weak nation.
In this time period, when the shadows of the world continue
to grow and the anti-Semitism long buried in the veneer of Western Civilization
continues to be revealed, remember that this is who we are – a nation that
values each person, their life and their dignity, because each life is
essential to who we all are and not just because we want to make certain that
our own happiness is guaranteed.
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