Shared with students at Drexel Hillel at Erev Soulful Shabbat, 14 Elul 5782
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitze, contains a verse Deuteronomy 22:5, “A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to HaShem your God”. As a queer and transgender person, this seems like one more place where Torah is telling me that who I am and how I present myself in the world is not okay.
I have a firm belief in Torah’s ability to teach, and that even the most messy, offensive, and difficult verses have value for us as a people, and for each of us personally. It doesn’t work to discard Torah. When we encounter difficult passages, I would invite us to view them as invitations to engage more intently. Wrestle with it. Explore the wrestlings of others. One of our rabbinic sages, Ben Bag-Bag liked to say, “turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it”.
Something that I’ve found to be helpful when dealing with tricky verses is to zoom out. Rabbis Elliot Kukla and Rueben Zellman did just that with this verse, and their insights were heartening. They wrote, “Each and every soul is created in the multifaceted image of the Creator. When we try to conceal that uniqueness, we cause ourselves pain. And when we ask others to obscure themselves, we cause harm to them. The great majority of [parashah Ki Teitze] is concerned with the minute details of preventing harm. The lines before our verse teach that if we see that someone’s donkey has fallen down, we are required to help that person lift the animal up. The verse immediately following instructs us never to hurt a mother bird as we are collecting her eggs. And the very next verse commands us to build a guardrail, or parapet, around the roof of our houses, to prevent anyone from falling off. The verse about what to wear is nestled amongst mitzvot that guide us towards exquisite levels of empathy and gentleness towards all of creation”.
Assumptions
Cancel culture
-When do we take things at face value?
-When do we give people the benefit of the doubt?
-How often are we putting in the effort to try and see something through a different lens or perspective?