Ki Teitzei, כִּי-תֵצֵא

Ki Teitzei, כִּי-תֵצֵא When You Go Out 21:10-25:19

ESSAY: Rising Up Together (Parashat Ki Tetzei)

“You shall surely raise it up together with him.” Together with him. — The Torah asks us not to rescue, but to partner in healing. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: Rising up Together (Parashat Ki Tetzei)

In this meditation, we look at the mitzvah of helping someone lift up their fallen donkey, considering carefully the words hakem takim imo which mean “you shall surely lift up with him” (Deutonormy 22:5). Rashi explains that “with him” means only if he participates, and this is our jumping off point for considering how it

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ESSAY: “Imo”: Lifting Up Together (Parashat Ki Tetzei)

Sometimes we are lying on the ground, and the only way to get up is to really let go into this otherworldly assistance, into our Higher Power, to admit that we can’t do it alone, but only “imo,” with God, and to open to that grace-filled support. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: “Imo”: Lifting Up Together (Parashat Ki Tetzei)

If you see your brother’s donkey falling down on the road from too many burdens, don’t turn away. Hakem takim imo. Lift it up together. (Deuteronomy 22:4). We all sometimes collapse from the weight of the burdens we carry. Sometimes we are the fallen ones and sometimes we are the ones helping lift someone else

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ESSAY: The Return of Our Lost Parts (Parashat Ki Teitzei)

Here, in the season of teshuva, of returning home to God and to our true selves, we read about another mitzvah of return, using the same root, shuv – hashavat avedah, the mitzvah of returning lost items to their owners.   I want to offer a reading of this mitzvah of returning lost objects in

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MEDITATION: The Return of Our Lost Parts (Parashat Ki Teitzei)

The mitzvah of returning lost items is read as the retrieval and ingathering of lost parts of ourselves. What parts of you are asking to be brought home this season? (Click image to read more and listen)

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ESSAY: Lifting Each Other When We Fall (Parashat Ki Tetzei)

We walk and we stumble; we walk and we stumble. All of us walk straight and proud some of the time, and all of us stumble and fall some of the time. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: Lifting Each Other When We Fall (Parashat Ki Tetzei)

This meditation deals with the mitzvah of helping to raise up a fellow’s fallen animal. Hakem takim imo, “you shall surely raise [it] up together with him.” The meditation considers this verse in terms of our experience of emotional “falling” on life’s journey, exploring some different ways of understanding what this falling is, and then

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ESSAY: Returning Lost Parts (Parashat Ki Tetze)

Hashavat Aveidah.  This mitzvah — to return lost objects to their owners —appears in this week’s parsha (Deuteronomy 22) as well as in Parashat Mishpatim and is the subject of much detailed halakhic discussion among the rabbis.   While not taking away from the concrete aspect of the mitzvah, I want to offer an additional,

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SHORT ESSAY: On Parenting and the Mother Bird (Parashat Ki Tetze)

The Torah commands us, if we wish to take for ourselves some eggs or young chicks, to first send away the mother bird. In this command to send away the mother bird, what the Torah is acknowledging is the deep pain a parent experiences in witnessing the suffering of her children. The pain the children

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