Podcast #29 Ki Tetze

Two friends discuss the Parashat Ki Titzeh, which has many mitzvot. They focus on the mitzvot of kil'ayim, or mixing between species, and the idea of recognizing and appreciating diversity. They discuss how humans share genes with other living things, even bananas, and how this should inspire humility and celebration of differences. They question why the Torah is so adamant about kil'ayim when everything is a mixture of genes. They also talk about discrimination between different Jewish ethnic groups and the importance of recognizing the uniqueness of each individual. They mention the wrongness of making comparisons and the need to focus on similarities rather than differences. They share a story about a family's obsession with what their neighbors would think and how it relates to the theme of comparison. Shalom Shlomo. Shalom Elisha. It's good to see you here. It's August outside. It's hot in Israel. It's humid. Although it's gotten, it feels as if it's gotten a little bit cooler. A little, but just for a few days. Yeah, yeah. It ain't over yet. So we also know it's summer because we're in Parashat Ki Titzeh and Ki Titzeh is always at the peak of summer. And it's at the peak of the Parashat Elisha. It's the champion Parashat as you know because there are 74 mitzvot in Parashat Ki Titzeh. More than any other Parashat. There are 613 mitzvot. So this Parashat alone has one in every eight of the mitzvot. 12 percent, which is a lot. And not only that, some of the mitzvot are really, really tough ones. And I'm going to ask you about the Elisha forewarning, forewarning. Bring it on. Bring it on. But the dress I've chosen to discuss that you wrote from your book, Ayaka, titled The Sanctity of Diversity. It's about how we are different, how we are unique, and how the Torah recognizes that. And you mention at the start of your dress one of the less logical and less observed mitzvot is kil'ayim. Mixing between species of plants, textiles, kinds of animals, fruit trees, or we're not allowed to do kil'ayim. And it's explored in the Parashat in terms of what we wear. And the mitzvot you mentioned is not yoking an ox and an ass together when we plow the field. It's not fair. Burden on the ass. But Elisha, I'm going to push back a bit on this one. And I called to the witness stand this banana. I'm not going to eat it. I brought it along as a witness, not as a food. I looked this up, Elisha. I didn't believe it. It's true. It's amazing. So every living thing, Elisha, has genes. Every plant, every animal on the face of the earth. We humans have 20,000 to 25,000 genes. We share those genes with other living things. You want to know how many genes we have in common with this banana? 60%. Wow. 60% of the genes. So, Elisha, we have much in common with this lowly banana. And perhaps we should be a little more humble if a lowly banana has 60% of the genes that we have. We are all living things created by God. And we have much in common. And we need to remember that as well as to celebrate how we are different because we are different than these bananas for sure. We're also very much the same. That's such a good point. Maybe we got it all wrong until now. We didn't really come from the apes. We came from the bananas. And I think if I'm not mistaken, even a banana is some form of a kil'aim. One civilization once created a banana. It wasn't created by nature, if I'm not mistaken. There are wild bananas, but they're really different from the nice yellow ones that we've done some hybridization and genetic engineering to make them tasty and yellow and soft and delicious and healthy. So, this is beautiful. This is beautiful. Because at the end of the day, on the physical, on the material level, we're all made up of the same material. Everything and everyone, we're all made up. There's room for so much humility. You're calling for humility. And I think you're absolutely right. We have so much in common with what we usually call the lowly. And it's not lowly at all. We're all made of this lowly matter, material. And the proteins that make up who we are. A good friend of mine who is one of the leading experts in Israel on cholesterol. He said, you know, we see cholesterol as the big enemy. Cholesterol is the secret for life. Without cholesterol, without that fat, no cell can be a cell. Because otherwise all the cells would become a mishmash of liquid. And it's the cholesterol, the fat that actually creates boundaries in life. So, it does call for humility. And furthermore, every time two people get together and they bring a child to the world, they mix their genetic materials and a new creature is created. So, it actually poses even a bigger question. So, why kil'ayim? Why kil'ayim? When everything is kil'ayim, everything is a mixture of genes. And Israel is also a great example of tribes, of groups of people, ethnic people who came from all over the world. At first they married among themselves, but in the last few decades, you can see Ashkenazis, Sephardic, North African and Polish and Jews marrying each other. And that's considered to be very, very healthy for the widening of the genetic pool. So, indeed, the question remains, so why is the Torah so adamant about kil'ayim, about mixing types of fruit and types of... So, okay, I can see your facial expression. All life is created by kil'ayim with a male cell and a female cell combined and each contributing half of the genes. Right, and it's not just male and female, it's obviously male and female, but every male, there are many different kinds of males and many different kinds of females and that in itself is another mixture. It's a Sephardic male and an Ashkenazi female or a Yemenite female and a Moroccan male. So, it's all about kil'ayim. So, why is the Torah so careful about kil'ayim, about mixing the species? And in Israel, Elisha, there's an awful lot of silly talk, I believe it's silly, about discrimination between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. My family is a mixture and most of the country now is a mixture. It's so irrelevant, this distinction. We are one people. Yeah, yeah, and I don't want to make general statements and observations, but I think in the Haredi world, it's still very, very much an issue of not allowing Sephardic girls into a predominantly Ashkenazi Haredi girl's school and obviously not marrying out. Marrying out is not marrying someone who's not Jewish. Marrying out is marrying someone who's not from your ethnic group. Jewish, Haredi, but not from your ethnic group. So, the question looms. The question remains. And what comes to mind, since I didn't prepare for our conversation, what comes to mind is that possibility number one is indeed the whole idea of the mixing of the donkey and the ox, kind of mixing together, where it's simply not fair game. It's just not fair for the ox to till the soil side by side with the donkey. A, the ox will carry most of the burden. But B, the donkey, as I tried to explain to Darsha, the donkey who's not a very social animal will have a really difficult time, painful time, cruelty to have him tied to whatever the instrument is with an ox next to him. So, it's just simply not fair. It's morally, morally wrong. But the other reason that I bring in this to Darsha and I still stand behind it. How do you say, behind it or by it? Stand behind it. Stand behind it. Okay, good. I don't want to mix species of languages here. So, it's helping us recognize that every species is miraculous and wonderful. Lest we think, for example, that, oh, Sephardic, that is so much greater and it should not mix with Ashkenazi gene pool. I think, no, quite the opposite. It's kind of saying the Sephardic is unique. It's special. It brings something magical and miraculous in what it is. Be able to see it for what it is and don't try to dilute things. Don't mix things for the purpose of diluting the species. Be able to appreciate every living creature, everything on earth for what it truly is. Furthermore, even looking at the banana, we could say, ah, we're 60% alike and in this sense kind of almost disregard the banana as being special. Sometimes it's that one gene that makes all the difference. Take twins, for example. Twins have identical twin sisters. And they are identical and they look very much alike. And yet each one of them is so incredibly unique. And if you look at their genetic makeup, the difference will be, if any, will be really minuscule. But yet it says it will tell us, appreciate each one of them for not 60%, not 90%, not 1% for their uniqueness, but 100% for their uniqueness. And don't confuse the two. Twins hate it when they get confused with one another. They do, although I've heard twins who play tricks a lot. We have friends of the family who have two twin girls identical and I couldn't tell them apart. And they've done that. They've used that to good profit in school from time to time. There's another brilliant point you make in your Drosha Elisha related to comparisons, related to differences and sameness. And that is the wrongness of making comparisons. And we are always making comparisons. It's part of capitalism, keeping up with the Joneses. And if we could just make fewer comparisons and focus more on the similarities and less on the differences, we'd be better off. And perhaps that is a subtext in this Parsha. Yes, yes. So I want to share a little story. You always tell me that stories are good. So here's a little story. My son and I just went with my parents on an exploration of my father's roots in London. We were there for about a week. And we always grew up with the myth of my father's mythological neighbors, the Galinskys. What will the Galinskys say? The Galinskys were a lot more observant than my dad's parents who were also traditional but were not as observant. And my grandmother, apparently, whenever my grandfather, I don't know, maybe wanted to smoke on Shabbat or whatever, or maybe take out the car, go somewhere, she would say, no, no, no, no, no, no. What are the Galinskys going to say? Are we good enough Jews? Are we worthy human beings? If the Galinskys are going to say anything wrong about us. And I've always heard that story. And it was really fun going to my father's childhood home, and he pointed out the house across the street. That's where the Galinskys were, the Joneses. The Joneses for us are the Galinskys. And then we walked over to the local shul where my dad had his bar mitzvah, where his father was very involved, I think even on the board. And it was really interesting on many, many levels, but I'm going to try and keep the story a little bit shorter. After finally security allowed us into the synagogue, there was a guy who kind of gave us a tour, a spontaneous tour. It was really nice, and he kind of remembered my grandfather. Yeah, Wolfin, yes, yes, yes, I do remember Wolfin. I think, you know, there's something written up on him. My dad especially was very, very moving. And then my father asked, and do you remember the Galinskys? And the guy looked and said, Galinskys? No, I don't remember the Galinskys. And all of a sudden, you know, the Galinskys, the Joneses, they were, you know, who remembers the Galinskys? Yes, but I do remember your grandfather, my dad's father. I do remember him. So comparison, you know, my dad is 89 years old, and I think it still has this comparison between their Jewish life and the Galinskys. It still has it as a force within him, starting to realize who remembers the Galinskys, but I do remember your dad. That's a great, great story. Elisha, this parasha has some very tough stories and mitzvot. Some of them relate to dysfunctional families. The Torah, from the very start, is full of stories about dysfunctional families, quarrels within the family. And this one is an especially tough one. You know what I'm coming about to ask you. Ben sorer omoed, the rebellious child. And my wife and I have four wonderful children. Three of them are boys. They're all rebellious. Every child, we learn from psychologists, must rebel during adolescence, because it's part of becoming an adult, finding out who they are. The Torah comes down really, really hard, Elisha, on a rebellious son. What in the world is this about? You have to treat this rebellious son incredibly harshly. What is this? Yes, yes, yes. No, I'm really glad you brought it up, because it's the opening aliyah. It's the first aliyah in the parashah. Before people tune out, they'll listen to that. And in our bar mitzvahs, it's really interesting. Maybe we should first explain that one paragraph is about if there's a child who is rebellious, does not listen to his parents. And on all kinds of levels, the parents go to the wise men at the gate, who are sitting at the gate, and say, our son doesn't listen to us, and is rebellious. And the wise men say, well, I hear what you're saying, stone the kid. Stone the kid, and the whole entire village or town stones the children and stones the kid, and it's absolutely awful. Now, before we get serious about this, just a cute anecdote, on bar mitzvahs that we have midweek, and most of our bar mitzvahs are midweek, this is actually the end of the bar mitzvah boy's ogre, their own aliyah. So right after it is said, and you shall stone that kid, and remove all evil from your midst. He finishes his aliyah, and everybody throws candy at him, stones him with candy, as if almost saying, you are that rebellious kid. So, putting that aside, the sages are, I have a lot of respect for the sages, and for this particular thing, I have the most tremendous amount of respect for them. They claim the sages read it, and they felt really uncomfortable with this phrase already 2,000 years ago, and they eventually said, there was never, there isn't, and there never will be, a ben soreo umuray. This case never happened, isn't happening, and will never happen. There is no possibility for this to happen. Now, I don't think they were ever adamant about anything, as adamant as they are about this one, and the question comes up and says, so first of all, so why does the Torah mention it, if there is no such case? Why would the Torah mention it? And secondly, so what does it say about rebellious children who are really, really rebellious? I'm not talking about your three boys and one girl. So, the Torah says something really interesting. First of all, one commentary links the two paragraphs, the two prior paragraphs, to this paragraph. The first paragraph is, Ki Tetze, if you go out to war, and you see a beautiful woman out there, among the captives, you may not, God forbid, rape her or anything, you can take her to your house, you've got to give her a whole month to grieve over her parents, to cut her hair, to cut her nails, to go through the mourning process, and meanwhile, you have calmed down a little bit. When someone's at war, you are not in your right mind. You've calmed down, she's calmed down, and you now look at her and you say, what was I thinking? What was I thinking? I don't want to be with this woman. So, first of all, you're not allowed to rape her, period. You have to marry her. And if you decide you don't want to marry her, after all, then you have to let her go, as you would any other daughter of Israel. You have to let her go. That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. In today's world, we still have, in the culture of war, rape is one of the worst parts of war to this very, very day. And this, already in the Torah, 3,000 years ago, kind of saying, that is not permissible. You may not do that. That's the first verse. Not verse, but the first piska. The second one is, if a man has two wives, one that he loves and one that he doesn't love, and if the oldest son is from the wife that he doesn't love, he may not favor the children of the beloved wife that his firstborn son gets half the portion of the hereditary laws, as was the custom. The firstborn son gets half. You may not exclude him from what he deserves to receive. And then the third paragraph is the rebellious child. Right. The sages come and say, brilliant move. It says, we're talking about one story. That child who's rebellious, he is the son of that woman that you went out to war and when your hormones were totally out of balance, out of whack, you didn't give her and yourself the month to settle a little bit and to let your mind settle. You did, God forbid, rape her, sleep with her, whatever. She became pregnant. She had that son. You married her. And because you were not in the right mind when she entered your life, you eventually hated her, got to hate her. And this poor little kid was raised in a family where he knows that you basically kidnapped this poor captive woman and you maybe even raped her and then you hated her and deserted her and he is the son of that union. And therefore, say the sages, it's not his fault. If he's, and then they say, in general, generally speaking, a rebellious child is rebellious because of his upbringing. The parents are always to blame. You can't blame the kid for his rebellious nature and therefore, you cannot execute a person who is not responsible for his actions. So you're to blame. It's your responsibility. Do whatever it takes. But that is why there was never, there isn't, and there will never be a case of stoning a rebellious kid. There will be rebellious kids, but you can't stone them. Absolutely. And in that context, Elisha, in the same part of the parasha that you talk about, the word hatred, snua, isha snua, is mentioned. The Torah has very few times when the word hate, snua, is used. Very few. Common on one hand, fingers of one hand. But it is used here and it raises a really tough question. The word ahavai is throughout the Torah, but not snua. Yet, one of the commandments, one of the 74 commandments, has to do with hatred. We have to really hate Amalek and the descendants of Amalek and remember them as a whole and wipe them out. At the same time, there is another mitzvah. Do not hate the Edomite, people from Edom, near Eilat, the southern part of Israel. Do not hate the Egyptian, even though they enslaved you. Wait a second. We are commanded not to hate the people like the Edomites and the Egyptians and we have a case against them, but really hate Amalek and his tribe and to remember, but also to wipe their memory off. How do you wipe the memory off if you have to remember to hate them? Why the hatred? What's going on here, Elisha? Yeah, yeah, wow. That's a huge question. I think it's somewhat, it's easier to explain in Leviticus, right before, I love thy neighbor as yourself, it also says, it talks about, Don't hate your own brother in your heart, also using the same verb, your fellow human being. So the Egyptians, they also, in a way, are brothers. First of all, they nurtured our ancestors when there was famine in the land and we were strangers in their land and before things went sour, we survived the famine in Egypt and they enslaved us and they enslaved us as people, unfortunately, enslave others. People still today enslave others. It looks a bit different, but people still enslave other people's life force for their own purposes. The Edomites, the Edomites are our brothers. Esav, who's according to tradition, one of the Edomites, he's Jacob's brother. So we're not allowed to hate, we're not allowed to hate our fellow human being. So far, so good. Really pretty evolved even. But indeed, what about the Amalekites? Why are the Amalekites out of this equation? They're not considered your brother. They're not considered part of the human family. And I think that there's something very healthy in that. The Amalekites stand for, they went way beyond the way human beings often exploit others, the way human beings often fight others. They took it a step further. The Amalekites stand for, and we don't know who the Amalekites are today, and it's more of an archetype than an actual living people. The Amalekites stand for the people who have this cunning ability to divide and conquer, to separate the children of Israel. They, if you remember in the desert, they went after the weak ones, the weak ones who were at the very, very end of the long, long chain of people walking out of Egypt. And they create a wedge between the children of Israel who were walking a little bit faster and the weak and the old who were at the back. They created this wedge and they went after the weaker ones. And that is incredibly, incredibly awful. And it's, I have a hard time even finding the right words to express the evil within such a move. And it's also important to remind us that the Amalekites were able to do it because we didn't take care of the weak and the elderly. So, but we were also, we just came out of Egypt, we were escaping, we were on the run. But nevertheless, it's a call for us, maybe don't forget, don't forget what the Amalekites did to you so that never ever leave the weak, disabled, elderly behind. It's your responsibility to maintain the oneness, the unity of the people of Israel because if you don't, Amalekites will show up and just further the wedge that you are responsible for and go after your beloved weak ones. That's a really important lesson here. And the lesson is that we are obligated to be compassionate, loving people who help our fellow man and fellow woman. But at the same time, there are cases of extreme evil when you simply have to rise up and fight it with everything you have. And it's part of being a human being, knowing when to do that. And the cases are rare, but they exist. And the Torah mentions that so that we don't forget. Elisha, I prepared something and it's not related to the Parsha. Maybe you can find a way to relate it to the Parsha. So in Shul, on Shabbat, you're very, very fond of recognizing births. And in about a month or so, we look forward to bringing our daughter-in-law and our son and to note the birth of our great granddaughter, little Erez Miriam. So Israel is blessed. As I mentioned before in this podcast, we have the highest birth rate in the OECD, 3.2 children per woman. We have lots of babies. We see them all over the place. It's a huge blessing. I hope it continues. Many countries like Germany, Russia, Japan have shrinking populations. They're like old folks home. And I visited some of these countries and they feel old. They feel that they lack energy. What has this got to do with anything, Elisha? So in the universe, Elisha, we also have birth and death. Maybe sometime on Shabbat you might mention that as we speak, there are stars being born in the universe. The universe is full of gas and helium and hydrogen. And these gases come together through the force of gravity and they're compressed and spontaneously start the process of fusion where hydrogen atoms combine and create tremendous energy and the sun is born. And stars are being born all the time. But Elisha, at the same time, stars are burning out as well because there were stars created 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was born. And these stars are running out of gas, running out of energy. They become red dwarfs. They burn out like the embers, the embers of a campfire that you create. And Elisha, I have bad news. The universe is cooling. More stars are dying than are being born. Like more people are dying in Germany and Japan and Russia than are being born. The good news is that this will take billions of years for the universe to really cool off. We won't be around. But it's worth thinking of that even something as infinite as the universe is finite in terms of the age of the stars that give us warmth and light and give us life. Right, right. At the end of the day, the universe is finite. The only infinite is God. And so, I would suggest, I don't know what the connection is. I'm sure, of course, there's a connection. But I'm more kind of drawn to the idea of we're taking our own, if we go to the micro now, taking our own individual life as how tragic it is when we die. And if we were able not to take ourselves so personally, and maybe we can't not take ourselves personally, but when our death is the beginning of the creation of something new, energy is never lost. It always transforms into something else. And what remains, the question is, so what remains? Is it just energy? That's good enough, but is that all it is? Is there nothing personal about it? The older I get, the more I believe that there is something uniquely personal, so to speak, that does remain. And that part of us is the part that we are not aware of, usually. We're so focused on what we look like, and what we do, and the material. We identify with the material. So when the material dies, we are at a loss because we identify with the material. But if we could start entertaining the idea that the physical form, the physical capital L, is essentially that much greater than the physical form that it takes. So life always continues. Life always gets reborn in new forms. And we, who we are, we are that life. We are that life, that life force. We are divine. For the 120 years that we're going to be dwelling in them, the life that we are will continue. And if we can really start training our psyche, our mind, to identify, and it's possible, it takes practice, to identify with us being life, and not the particular form that we're taking right now, everything is going to change. Everything will change. And maybe that does go back to Kil'aim. Kil'aim kind of suggesting, don't be fooled by the outer form. Don't mix the outer form. Every form kind of contains within it a very unique essence. And that unique essence is eternal. And it will evolve. It will take a new form. But be conscious that in every form that you see there is a unique life force. You did it, Elisha. You found a way to connect it. I knew you would come through. Well done, my friend. So I think it's time to wish everyone Shabbat Shalom. And remember, next time you go to the field, let the donkey do its thing. Let the ox do its thing. Don't put them together under the same agricultural equipment, or in real life. And have a great Shabbat. Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom, Elisha.