Teitzei Deuteronomy 21:10 - 25:19

August 28, 2020
8 Elul 5780

Parashat Ki Teitzei
Deuteronomy 21:10 - 25:19

Dear Friends,

We are less than a month away from Rosh Hashanah, and we at Tehillah are planning (and planning and planning!) to create a meaningful High Holy Days experience for all. As we work, we are trying to think of as many ways as we can to create a meaningful yet different set of High Holy Days.

The name of this week's Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, means “you will exit." In some ways, this moment in the Torah is very similar to the moment in which we find ourselves. Moses is doing his utmost to prepare the people for an unknown future. He does so by once more laying out laws involving many aspects of daily living, justice, family responsibility, work, and sexuality. Like us, he is trying to think through everything and to prepare the people as best as he can.

Our journey is a bit different, but we too can garner strength and wisdom from our ancestors and our tradition. We are reminded once more how important our relationships with other people are and that we are to treat one another with care and respect.

“Do not withhold anything from a day laborer who is poor or a stranger.
Pay them their rightful wages before sundown. Let him not cry out to God against you, for that sin would cling to you."

“Fathers shall not be put to death on account of sons, nor sons be put to death on account of fathers."

“You shall not twist justice for the orphans, widows or strangers. Leave some remains of your crops in the field for them, too."

Once more we are reminded that we are not on this journey alone. We are in community, and thus in relationship with one another. I invoke community with regularity; yet, as you read this, your response may be that you are currently isolated and unable to be with those who are part of your community. Indeed, this is true.

The way in which we create community has shifted over the last six months with the pandemic. Yet, we are still creating community and we are still part of a larger community. It is certainly different, and it is causing us to see the world and ourselves through different lenses. But what has always been true is that we come into community as individuals, as separate entities, each one of us unique with a different set of experiences and expectations.

This year, unlike any previous other, we will be creating our community on-line, creating sacred time and space in a way that we have never done before. Although we have been meeting regularly since the pandemic began via Zoom, we never took the time to really examine what this new format meant in terms of creating sacred space.

In a session I led earlier this week, we began to think upon and reflect on how we can create spaces within our own homes that will reflect our sense of the sacred, so that when we join together on-line each of us will be coming from our own special space.

We, like our ancestors, are charting new territory, albeit not by marching across an actual wilderness, but by creating a process of transforming our homes into sanctuaries and joining together having done that piece of preparation.

Please share with us how you will be creating sacred space. Will you be wearing an article of clothing that is special? Setting a holiday table? Surrounding your viewing perch with pictures of those you love. What will you do before we come together to welcome a new year as one diverse community?

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn