Derekh Daily · Parashat Hashavua

Transcript

Welcome to Derekh Daily.

Imagine for a moment that you are walking down a busy city street. It is a weeknight, the air is cooling down, and the sidewalk is crowded with people rushing toward the subway or heading home after a long day of work. You are in that same rush, eyes fixed on your phone or your watch, thinking about the dinner you need to make or the email you forgot to send. Suddenly, you notice something. Just a few feet away, a person drops a wallet. They don’t notice. They keep walking, lost in their own world. Or perhaps, in a slightly different scenario, you see someone struggling to carry a heavy load, or a stray dog wandering dangerously close to the traffic.

In that split second, a choice emerges. You could keep walking. You could tell yourself that someone else will handle it, or that you simply don’t have the time to get involved. After all, you have your own life, your own burdens, and your own destination. But the Torah portion we read this week, Ki Teitzei, asks us to pause in that exact moment of hesitation. It tells us that holiness isn’t something we find only in a synagogue or in deep, solitary prayer. Holiness, according to this parsha, is built in the small, quiet, and sometimes inconvenient decisions we make when we encounter someone else’s need.

Ki Teitzei is a remarkable collection of laws. It contains more commandments than any other portion in the entire Torah—seventy-four of them, covering everything from the ethics of war to the way we treat our neighbors, from the construction of our homes to the way we handle our business dealings. At first glance, it can feel like a laundry list of rules that don’t have much to do with each other. But if you look closely, you see a golden thread running through every single one of them. That thread is the duty of active empathy. The Torah refuses to let us be passive observers of the world. It commands us to be participants.

Take, for example, the very first instruction regarding a lost animal. The Torah says that if you see your neighbor’s ox or sheep wandering off, you must not ignore it. You are commanded to take it back to its owner. In the ancient world, an animal was a person’s livelihood. If it was lost, that family’s security was at risk. But the principle is timeless. It isn’t just about a cow or a sheep; it’s about the refusal to look away when we see something that isn’t right. It’s the refusal to say, "That’s not my problem." The Torah teaches us that we are all, in some way, the keepers of our neighbor’s wellbeing. When we see a "wandering" situation—a neighbor in distress, a community member struggling, or someone being treated with less than full dignity—we are required to step in.

But there is a catch. The Torah doesn’t just tell us to help; it tells us how to help. It cares deeply about the dignity of the person being helped. Consider the law regarding a loan. If you lend money to your neighbor, you might take a pledge, or collateral, to ensure the loan is repaid. It’s a standard business practice. But the Torah says that if you go to collect that pledge, you cannot enter their house to grab it. You must stand outside. You must wait for them to bring it to you. Think about how powerful that is. When someone is in debt, they are already in a vulnerable, potentially shameful position. By staying outside, you are giving them their privacy. You are allowing them to maintain their dignity within the walls of their own home. You aren’t exerting power over them; you are engaging in a partnership of mutual respect.

This is the "Dignity Threshold." It’s a concept that applies to everything we do. Whether we are helping a friend who is failing a class, supporting a family member through a crisis, or giving charity to someone in need, the goal isn't just to solve the problem. The goal is to solve the problem in a way that leaves the other person feeling whole, respected, and seen.

This theme of empathy even extends to the natural world. The Torah commands us to build a parapet, a small wall or railing, around the roof of a new house. Why? To prevent anyone from falling. It’s a law about structural safety, but it’s also a law about mindfulness. It teaches us that our private property is not truly private if it poses a danger to others. We are responsible for the environment we create. We are responsible for the safety of the stranger who might step onto our roof. This is a profound shift in perspective. It moves us from a mindset of "my house, my rules" to "my house, my responsibility to the community."

It’s easy to live our lives on autopilot, treating our daily interactions as mere transactions. We go to the store, we go to work, we go home. But Ki Teitzei invites us to break that cycle. It asks us to be intentional. It asks us to look at the "empty spaces" in our lives—the moments where we could be indifferent—and fill them with kindness.

One of the most beautiful laws in this parsha concerns the harvest. When you harvest your olive trees or gather your grapes, you are not allowed to go over the branches a second time to get every last fruit. You must leave the leftovers for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. There is a built-in "inefficiency" here. We are commanded to leave something behind so that someone else can have the joy of gathering it. This is a radical way to look at success. We are taught that true prosperity isn't about how much we can hoard or how efficiently we can extract every last resource; it’s about how much room we make for others to survive and thrive. It asks us to leave space for the vulnerable, to ensure that our success doesn't come at the expense of those who have less.

So, here is a question for you to bring to your Shabbat table this week. It is a question about the tension between our own busy lives and the needs of others. Think about a time when you were in a rush—maybe you were heading to an important interview or a meeting—and you saw someone who needed help, like the neighbor in our story who was struggling with their dog. How do we balance our pressing personal obligations with the unexpected, immediate needs of the people and creatures around us? Is there a way to be "efficient" and productive while still remaining open to these interruptions? And how do we decide which interruptions are the ones we are meant to answer?

This is a deep, human dilemma. We cannot fix every problem in the world. If we stopped for every single person, every single time, we might never get anywhere. But the Torah is warning us against the opposite extreme—the life of total indifference. Perhaps the answer lies in the quality of our attention. Maybe it’s not about stopping for everything, but about being the kind of person who is actually capable of noticing. When we are aware, when we have cultivated a heart of empathy, we start to see the difference between a moment where we must act and a moment where we can continue on our way.

As you sit down for your meal this evening, remember that the table itself is a place where we practice these lessons. We share our food, we listen to one another, we make sure everyone is included. That is the essence of what it means to build a world of loving-kindness. We are building a home, and by extension a community, that is safe, that is dignified, and that is profoundly attentive to the needs of the other.

This week, try to take one small action. Before you offer help or advice to a friend, a coworker, or a family member, take a breath. Ask yourself: "How can I deliver this support in a way that leaves their dignity completely intact?" Maybe it’s by listening more than you speak, or by offering help in a way that doesn't make them feel like a charity case. Maybe it’s by simply being present, standing "outside the door," and waiting for them to invite you into their space.

The laws of Ki Teitzei might seem like they belong to a distant, ancient time, but they are actually a blueprint for how to be a fully realized human being in any era. They teach us that we are never just individuals walking through the world. We are part of a web of connections. We are responsible for the stray ox, we are responsible for the stranger in our field, and we are responsible for the way we treat the people closest to us. When we choose empathy over indifference, when we choose dignity over dominance, we aren’t just following a set of ancient rules. We are actively building holiness, one small, quiet, and meaningful act at a time.

May this coming time of rest be a chance for you to slow down, to look around, and to appreciate the people who share your table and your life. May you find the strength to be the person who notices the lost wallet, who builds the railing, and who leaves room in the harvest for someone else to find their way.

Thank you for joining me for this moment of reflection. I wish you and your loved ones a Shabbat Shalom, and I look forward to welcoming you back here next week.