Ki Teitzei, כִּי-תֵצֵא

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)

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

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)

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,

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