Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 9 Elul, 5784
Parsha Ki Tetze’– “If you go out”: (Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19)
Fifth Portion: Deuteronomy 23:25 – 24:4

Good morning! We have a shorter portion today as we continue our journey to the full moon of Elul.

I have been sitting with yesterday’s message of living in Inadequate restlessness vs Adequate abundance. I see so much in my life where I am on either side of that equation. And I wonder if that becomes the flow of life – being put in situations where we feel inadequate vs those situations we feel adequate.

This triggers in me the idea of parenting. How often do we feel inadequate as parents?  And how does this create a sense of restlessness within us? I know for me, this connects to how much I snack when I am around the kids. When I feel restless I will pick up food and just eat. Food does not become fuel at that point – it’s a distraction.

So as we reflect on the light of the moon coming our way? May this shine on our feelings of inadequacy. Let’s dig in:

25When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you desire, until you are sated, but you shall not put [any] into your vessel.

26When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pick the ears with your hand, but you shall not lift a sickle upon your neighbor’s standing grain.

So this is interesting. When we feel inadequate – we can ask our neighbor for support – we can receive adequacy from our community, and then when we are full, and we are feeling adequate? We can move forward – we can’t get stuck in the feeling – it’s almost like a refueling process. The tank can only hold so much.

And? We are not to destroy the crops of our neighbors in this process. We are to just receive what we need.

24:1When a man takes a wife and is intimate with her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he discovers in her an unseemly [moral] matter, and he writes for her a bill of divorce and places it into her hand, and sends her away from his house,

2and she leaves his house and goes and marries another man,

3if the latter husband hates her and writes her a bill of divorce, and places it into her hand and sends her away from his house, or if the latter husband who took her as a wife, dies

4her first husband, who had sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, since she was defiled [to him], for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin to the land the Lord, your God, gives you for an inheritance.

And this is interesting right? Once two people are married – if they divorce, they should not remarry each other.

I reflect on this – though the Torah is about growth and development, freedom and liberation; the Torah connects to “right place, right time” often. When the two were married, it was for their good – because it happened. And? Once it is over, we should not go back there if one of the parties has moved on to marry someone else.

Moving forward and not looking back also seems to be a theme – as we “go out.”

What are your thoughts?

Here are my thoughts from the past two years:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 7 Elul, 5783

As this is a time of reflection, I am continuing to reflect on my life and hopefully you are as well.  Something I learned yesterday about “mattering.”  There are two components to this:

Matter as substance (life is made of matter)

Matter as importance (we matter)

I’m reflecting on which of these paradigms we internalize more?  Does being “important” matter more than being “substantive?”  Or vice versa?

I’m also reflecting on something my amazing therapist said; “Reality is on the edge of mattering and not mattering.”

As an example – if I didn’t exist tomorrow – to some degree it would not matter.  The sun would continue to rise, the earth would continue to rotate. Life would continue.

And. If I didn’t exist tomorrow?  It would matter a LOT.  To my friends. My kids. Etc.

(Don’t worry people – I am not going anywhere that I am aware of!)

So I both “matter” and I “don’t matter.”  This is the line of reality.  I come back to one of my favorite quotes from “Rainbow of liberated energy”

“We seek assurances from life that confirm the unconfirmable: that we are solid separate, permanent and continuous.”

We seek assurances that we matter.  And we really can’t.  Because on our own as individuals? In isolation? We are not solid.

Today’s Torah portion talks about this idea of relationship: from the perspective of work relationships (boss/employee) and marriages that ended.

What “matters” in the Torah? Giving. Sharing. Providing. For others.

And I think that’s a great takeaway in this conversation of what matters.

What are your thoughts?

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 12 Elul, 5782

As we continue to approach the full moon (Saturday morning at 6am) let’s continue to connect with being the object in people’s lives to shine Hashem’s light fully in this time! Remember, we go in cycles – so if you see personally going through a new moon phase where you need to see light, May others around you reflect brightly their divinity!

Let’s dig in!

Moses starts with a lesson for us; he tells us that when we go to our fellows’ vineyard for work, we can eat as many grapes as we desire until we are satisfied. But we may not put any into our container.

The takeaway seems to be that when it comes to employees, the Torah is telling us we should be providing our employees to take what they need when they are working. We have an obligation to do good and allow the staff to eat our food – if that is the job they are doing.

However, I think there is a deeper meaning here, and it comes back to how I began today’s thoughts.

When people enter our presence, and we are reflecting our divinity; the goal isn’t for others to soak up that divinity, to feed off that divinity and then “take” it with them when they leave. Our goal should be to recharging each other; but when we leave someone’s presence, we should be living in our OWN divinity; not the storage of others’ divinity. The source is within us. We sometimes need charging by being in the presence of others. But the connecting point; the charging cord; should not remain after leaving.

The next passage is around divorce. Moses is telling us, if two people get divorced, and one (or both) gets remarried – they may not marry ever again. Once one person marries again, the connection between the two is severed. Even if the second spouse dies or divorces the person, they should not re-establish the connection with the first spouse.

There is a practical reason for this mitzvah; without it, people could defile the sanctity of the concept of marriage. They could get divorced, re marry and then get divorced, and marriage would cease to have all meaning.

This is NOT to say marriage is the end all be all of relationships – it’s just to say the idea of marriage is meant to be something unique and different. Our society has put a lot of value on this concept; and that’s not a bad thing; but this mitzvah shows that the concept of marriage is connected to Hashem.

Ok. Those are my thoughts today. What are yours?