Summary: Moses reviews a wide variety of laws regarding family, animals, and property. Various civil and criminal laws are delineated, including those regarding sexual relationships, interaction with non-Israelites, loans, vows, and divorce. Laws of commerce pertaining to loans, fair wages, and proper weights and measures are given. The parashah concludes with the commandment to remember the most heinous act committed against the Israelites—Amalek’s killing of the old, weak, and infirm after the Israelites left Egypt.
Lesson: The Torah presents us with both negative and positive commandments. “You shall not murder” and “you shall not steal” are examples of negative commandments. “Love your neighbor as yourself” or “observe the Shabbat and keep it holy” are examples of positive commandments. This week’s portion teaches us the important lesson that Jews cannot remain indifferent. We are taught this crucial lesson through both positive and negative commandments that seem unrelated but in the end remind us that we are not allowed to be indifferent.
Indifference is the easy path. How often do we pass by someone who needs our help? Maybe a driver by the side of the road with a flat tire or an elderly person afraid to cross the street? How often do we sit silently through a joke that stereotypes and insults others for their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation? How often do we pass by a beggar and give nothing, or a homeless person or an immigrant and turn our head? We are tempted in those situations and in countless others to do nothing. It may be human nature to be indifferent; it may be natural for us to turn away. By our nature, human beings do not like to rock the boat!
This week’s Torah portion goads us beyond our usual complacency and instructs us to get involved. “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow.” The rabbis enlarge the concept and teach that it is not simply our neighbor’s animals but also their garments and any other property which belongs to someone else that must be returned. All these obligations fall under the positive command “You must not remain indifferent.”
Along with the positive commandment we also learn this lesson through a negative commandment. No Moabite or Ammonite can ever be admitted into the people of Israel “because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey [through the desert] after you left Egypt.” Why are Moabites and Ammonites excluded from becoming Jewish? Because they failed to demonstrate empathy and concern at a crucial moment. As they Jews wandered in the Sinai desert without food and water, they remained indifferent. This negative commandment ensures that we will not become like them.
These commandments, both positive and negative, provoke us beyond our indifference, beyond our usual self-centered obsessions. A person who claims to be religious yet who cannot take an extra moment to respond to human need, demonstrates the shallowness of his or her own faith. From our own position it is easy to justify minding our own business. However exactly to the contrary, from God’s perspective all life is a matter of spiritual concern. We are commanded not to remain indifferent. As God’s agents on earth, we take God’s perspective and worry about all life. We are charged with the care of every living thing.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Donald Goor