Month: August 2026

The Torah portion "Ki Tavo" opens with Moses" words to the Children of Israel. When they enter the land, inherit it, and settle in it, they are to bring the first of the first-fruits of their soil to the place that the Lord will choose, thereby expressing gratitude to the Lord. However, bringing the fruits is not all. Every person who brings their first-fruits is also required to recite a few verses known as the "Miqra Bikkurim" (declaration of the first-fruits).
These verses have become one of the best-known passages in the Torah. Although they were originally intended to be recited during the ceremony of bringing the first fruits, from the time of the Sages onward, these verses have become a central part of the Passover Haggadah:
A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. And we cried unto the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our toil, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders. (Deuteronomy 26:5–8).

Howard Gardner, a professor of education and psychology at Harvard University, argues that leadership is the ability to tell a particular kind of story: a story through which we explain to ourselves who we are, and impart power and resonance to our shared vision. The big questions—Who are we? Why are we here? And what is our mission?—are often answered by way of a story, plot, or narrative.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks views the ritual of the declaration of the first fruits as one of the central foundations upon which Jewish identity rests. This is a ritual that generates a spiritual and historical revolution along three central axes.
1. The national revolution: turning history into a personal identity story.
At the ceremony of bringing the first fruits, one would expect a person to speak about the land, the rain, and the fertility of nature. Yet the verses of the first fruits passage tell a different story: the story of the wanderings, the slavery in Egypt, the cry, the exodus to freedom, and the arrival in the land.
Rabbi Sacks argues that this is not merely a foundational story, but that a profound innovation is created in the connection between the private fruit in the farmer's hand and the entire national history. The farmer does not merely give thanks for his land and his yield, but recounts how his ancestors went down to Egypt, how they were enslaved, and how God brought them out to freedom and brought them to the land. Moreover, he tells the story in the first person: "And they dealt hardly with us," "And we cried," "And He brought us out." Although he himself was not in Egypt, he inserts himself into the story. Thus, national history becomes the personal biography of each and every individual. The past does not remain behind; it becomes part of the identity in the present.
2. Connection to the Haggadah of Passover
The connection between Parashat Ki Tavo and the holiday of Passover is deep and direct, as the verses regarding the bringing of the firstfruits (Bikkurim) stand at the heart of the "Maggid" section of the Passover Haggadah. Our Sages took a text originally intended to be spoken by a farmer bringing the fruit of his land in the Land of Israel, and transformed it into a text that every Jewish family retells on the Seder night, both in the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora. Rabbi Sacks emphasizes that Judaism does not preserve memory merely in history books or museums. It brings it to life through speech, story, ritual, questions, and communal eating. In every generation, we return to the story, place ourselves within it, and pass it on to our children.
This is a dynamic memory: we do not only learn what happened to our fathers and mothers, but we ask what the meaning of the story is for us today. Thus, memory becomes part of the identity and shared responsibility of the nation.
3. The Holiness of Joy and Gratitude
The Torah portion "Ki Tavo" also emphasizes the obligation of joy: "And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given you." Joy is not merely a spontaneous emotion that arises when things are good for us, but rather a commandment and a religious and social way of life.
Precisely in a moment of abundance and success, a person is asked to stop, look back, and recognize that their success is not taken for granted and is not solely their own doing. The declaration of the first fruits is therefore a counterbalance to the mindset of "my power and the might of my hand." It teaches a person gratitude, humility, and the recognition that they are part of a larger story than themselves.
But the joy does not remain the private property of the landowner. The Torah commands: "And you shall rejoice in all the good... you and the Levite and the stranger who is within your gates." Joy is complete only when it includes those who have no land, security, or abundance of their own.

By outlining a narrative framework into which future generations could also insert themselves and pass it on to their children, Moses transformed the children of Israel, in Rabbi Sacks's words, into a "nation of storytellers"—and in a sense, also a nation of leaders. Every person is not only a listener to the story, but becomes responsible for carrying it, interpreting it, and passing it on.
This is a people bound together by mutual responsibility, one toward another, toward the past and the future, and toward its God.

Rabbi Sacks also applies these insights to the modern era, where affluent and successful societies grapple with deep internal crises. He writes about several points we can learn for our own day regarding the biblical ritual of the first fruits (bikkurim):
1. Gratitude versus the "I deserve it" culture: The biblical reading of the first fruits and the remembrance of "A wandering Aramean was my father" teach us that our success is not taken for granted. It relies on grace, the efforts of previous generations, and belonging to a story greater than ourselves. A person who recognizes this becomes more humble, more grateful, and more aware of their responsibility toward others.
2. Resilience versus Loss of Direction: Societies may forget the story that shaped them and the values upon which they were founded. Rabbi Sacks warns that a society that loses its shared narrative may also lose its identity and its ability to defend its values. Active memory, which not only preserves the past but also gives meaning to the present, is one of the sources of national resilience.
3. Social justice from memory: The memory that we were strangers, wanderers, slaves, and powerless is meant to be a moral engine obligating us to care for the stranger, the vulnerable, and those who do not belong to the majority group. It is not enough to remember the story; the question is what the memory gives birth to within us. The value of the national story is tested not only by our ability to preserve it, but also by the way it shapes our attitude toward other human beings.
And here I return to the reality in our country. While preparing the Torah thought, I read a news item that deeply saddened me:
Ultra-Orthodox youths attacked an Arab bus driver on line 2 in Jerusalem and broke four of his teeth. It is suspected that the attack was racially motivated (Srugim website, Aug 2, 2026)
The actions of those boys do not testify to an entire public. And yet, when youths identified with the world of Torah attack a person because of their background, the contradiction screams out. How is it possible to tell over and again that we were strangers, persecuted, and powerless, and at the same time harm another person simply because he is an Arab?
In my view, this is not only a grave act of violence. It is a desecration of the Torah, a desecration of memory, and a desecration of God's name. If Jewish memory does not awaken in us a responsibility toward the other, and if the story of our vulnerability does not teach us to protect the vulnerable in our society—something profound in the meaning of the story we tell ourselves over and over again is lost!
In the spirit of the month of Elul and the process of soul-searching, we must also ask ourselves regarding our own story and that of our family: What stories are passed down in our family from generation to generation? What values and beliefs were instilled in us? How do these stories influence the way we treat other human beings? Are there stories we would like to preserve, empower, and pass on to future generations, and are there stories that it is time to re-examine, change, or tell differently?
Shabbat Shalom!

"And you see among the captives a woman of beautiful form... and she shall bewail her father and her mother a full month" (Deuteronomy 21:11–13).

The Torah portion of Ki Teitzei opens with the words: "When you go out to war against your enemies." Seemingly, this is an opening for a portion about war and victory. But it immediately becomes clear that the Torah is also interested in another question: what happens to a person when they are in a position of power—and what war might do to them.

The law of the beautiful captive woman is difficult to read with modern eyes. But precisely for this reason, it is interesting to see how the Sages of the Talmud read it. Rashi, following the Talmud in Kiddushin, writes: "The Torah spoke only against the evil inclination." The Torah does not assume that someone who fights on the just side will inherently be moral. It recognizes that in the midst of war, precisely when power is in our hands, impulses and boundaries also change—and therefore restraint is required.

Maimonides goes a step further. In The Guide of the Perplexed, he dwells on the month during which the captive woman bewails her father and her mother. He writes that she is not prevented from weeping and mourning, "for those who mourn find relief in tears," and adds: "And for this reason, the Torah had compassion on her." Amidst a very violent reality, the Torah suddenly makes room for the grief of the woman from the defeated side.

There is something staggering in this small detail. The soldier initially sees a "beautiful woman" – a figure amidst the crowd of captives. The Torah forces him to stop. She has a father and a mother. She has a past. She has a loss. She has mourning. Before she becomes part of his story, she is a person with a story of her own.

Later in the Torah portion, the Torah returns to the military camp and states: "When you go out in camp against your enemies, guard yourself from any evil thing" (Deuteronomy 23:10). Ramban interprets the verse in a particularly sharp manner. According to him, sin is prevalent in camps going out to war, and even "the most upright of men by nature takes on cruelty and wrath when a camp goes out against an enemy." Therefore, precisely there, the Torah warns: "Guard yourself.".

This is a sobering thought: morality is not a trait we can bestow upon ourselves once and check off the list. Even if we believe in the righteousness of the war, and even if we are proud—and rightfully so—of the aspiration for a moral army, Ramban reminds us that war itself can blur boundaries. Perhaps precisely those who wish to be moral must continue to examine themselves.

And within the large collection of commandments in the Torah portion, the command regarding returning lost property also appears: "You must not remain indifferent" (Deuteronomy 22:3). On a simple level, it is of course about an ox, a sheep, or your brother's lost item. I do not want to turn the verse into a slogan divorced from its context. And yet, these words stay with me: to train the eyes not to look away.

I am reading this week's Torah portion from the Netherlands, and therefore experiencing the war through other eyes as well. Alongside one-sided and sometimes even antisemitic voices, I also hear genuine concern for the severe human toll in Gaza. It is not always comfortable for me to listen to these voices. It is important to remember October 7th, Hamas, the hostages, and Israel's need for security; all of these are a necessary part of the story.

And yet, perhaps the Torah portion of Ki Teitzei asks me not to rush to end the conversation there, and to ask: Even in the midst of an argument, are we still capable of seeing pain that is not our own?

Toward the end of the Torah portion, the Torah returns to those at the margins of power: "You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless... And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt" (Deuteronomy 24:17–18). The biblical categories are not identical, of course, to the political reality of our time. And yet, the principle is intriguing: the memory of our suffering does not remain merely a memory. The Torah transforms it into a source of responsibility toward those who are now in a vulnerable position.

And the Torah portion ends with a different memory: "Remember what Amalek did to you." And what is emphasized in the act of Amalek? "He attacked all the stragglers behind you, when you were faint and weary." I do not wish to compare Amalek to any side in today's conflict. The question that interests me is different: What does the memory of once having been weary, straggling, and defenseless do to us when we ourselves are in a position of power?

What happened cannot be changed. But the question of what we do from here can still be asked. Can we hold together the need for Israel's security and the desire for human beings living beyond our borders to have a future of dignity and hope? Are these necessarily two contradictory desires?

Parashat Ki Teitzei begins with the question of how to go out to war. It seems to leave us with a harder question: how to come back from it. How do you return home after years of fear, loss, anger, and power—and remain human beings capable of seeing also the story of someone who is not us.

Perhaps this is another meaning I am hearing this year in the simple and harsh words of the Torah portion:
"You cannot ignore it"

Judges network – how do we protect our goals?
Parashat Shoftim opens with the commandment: "You shall appoint judges and officers for yourself in all your gates, which the Lord your God is giving you, throughout your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment" (Deuteronomy 16:18).
Why does the Torah command that there be both judges and officers? What is the difference between them, and why is one of them not sufficient?

Rashi explains: "Judges — judges who render the verdict; and officers — those who compel the people to follow their commandments." The judge listens, examines the evidence, interprets the law, and decides what the ruling is. The officer is entrusted with bringing the decision from potential to actual. The judge determines what is right to do; the officer ensures that it is indeed done.

Midrash Tanchuma phrases it sharply: “Rabbi Eleazar says: If there is no enforcer, there is no judge” (Midrash Tanchuma, Shoftim 2). That is, if a person was found liable in court but refuses to comply with the verdict, the judge can do nothing without the enforcer to execute the ruling. Justice that has no way to be realized in reality is liable to remain a beautiful and helpless idea. A society cannot suffice with proper laws and just verdicts; it also needs the power to protect and enforce them.

However, the words of the Midrash also raise the opposite question: if there is no police officer – there is no judge: what is a police officer who has no judge above him?
A police officer who is not subject to the law is no longer someone who carries out a reviewed and deliberated judgment. He becomes a force that determines the limits of his own action: whom to protect, whom to arrest, against whom to use force, and which injustice to ignore. Without a judge, without review, and without the obligation to explain and justify his actions, the police officer may cease to serve the law and become the law himself.

Perhaps that is why the Torah is not content with the words "judges and officers," but concludes: "and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment." Maintaining order is not the goal, nor is enforcement an end in itself. The goal is justice. A society can be very orderly and regimented and yet still be unjust. The Torah demands that power serve the law, and that the law serve justice.

The idea of judges and officers can also be taken inward, into the human soul. The holy Shelah, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, reads the verse not only as a commandment for building a society, but also as an instruction for the spiritual work of the soul. He interprets the words "in all your gates" as an allusion to the seven gates in a person's face: the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils, and the mouth. These are the gates through which we encounter the world, taking in sights and sounds and uttering words from within us. Upon these we must place: judges and officers.

How true his words are for our times. We must guard our eyes and not believe everything shown to us, especially in the era of artificial intelligence. We must watch over our ears, that they not be attuned to words of falsehood and slander. The nose, too, with its two nostrils, reminds us to stop and breathe before we answer, honk, or flare up in an argument—to slow down and breathe. And following the breath, we must also guard our mouths: our speech, our generalizations, and our shouting.

If we continue the metaphor of the Shelah, we can distinguish between two different internal forces. The internal judge is the force that observes, listens, and discerns. It asks what is right to bring into the soul and what is fitting to remove from it; to which voices I want to listen, how the sights I consume affect me, and what the words I am about to speak might cause. The internal policeman is the force that sets a boundary and executes the decision. It stops a hurtful word before it is spoken, prevents us from getting carried away by an inciting or false voice, and helps us distance ourselves from something we have already realized harms us.

We need both of them. An internal judge without a policeman can reach deep insights and wonderful moral decisions that fail to change anything in life. We know what is right and yet return again and again to the same patterns. But an internal policeman without a judge is also dangerous. It can become a harsh and automatic voice that says: you must not, don't you dare, be quiet. It may enforce within us rules we never chose, rules born of fear, shame, or an attempt to please others. Even within the psyche, power needs discretion, criticism, and compassion.

But the verse is not only about the gates of the individual. It moves between three circles: the individual, the tribe, and the nation. First it says "you shall provide for yourself," then "for your tribes," and finally: "and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.".
The Torah does not remain with the person who appoints [the judges], nor with the tribe within which the judges operate. It turns its gaze toward the collective: "And they shall judge the people." The judgment is not meant to serve those who appointed the judges, nor solely the interests of the tribe to which they belong. Before their eyes must stand the welfare of the entire nation.

The verse acknowledges that the people of Israel are not made of one piece. Every tribe has its own identity, its own tradition, its own leadership, and its own needs. The Torah does not seek to erase these differences, but it also does not allow each tribe to become a state unto itself. The judges and officers are appointed "for your tribes," but their role is to judge "the people with righteous judgment." The Torah recognizes our right to be tribes, but demands that the judicial system be founded upon the people.

 
This tension is very present in Israeli society. We are a society composed of different tribes. Different groups live within separate systems of education, leadership, authority, and interpretation. There is also great richness in this, and a shared society does not need to erase the different identities within it. The question is what happens when a community or leadership sees itself as subject only to its own laws and authorities, even though it is part of a shared state and its decisions affect the entire public.

This question arises acutely with regard to various groups and publics in Israeli society — from communities seeking to preserve a separate system of authority and law and not see themselves as subject to shared decisions, to extreme and law-breaking leaderships that behave violently toward minorities as if the latter are not entitled to the protection of the law.

Nor is it possible to look away from the Prime Minister’s criminal trial, which has been underway in the country for years. This is not the place to determine his guilt or innocence; but the very fact that the person in power stands before the court brings us back to the insight offered by the "Kli Yakar," Rabbi Ephraim Luntschitz, who also lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, who says regarding "Judges and officers shalt thou appoint thee" — over yourself! He who holds the authority is required to appoint judges who will be able to judge him as well, and he shall hearken to their authority. "Appoint them so that they will be judges and will not flatter even the one who appointed them." The leader is not above the law, and the terror of the law must apply to everyone.

As long as it concerns a way of life, tradition, and communal identity, as expressed for example in Haredi society, great importance is attached to the freedom of every tribe to preserve its uniqueness. But when decisions touch upon the allocation of resources, bearing the burden, security, and the future of the state, it is impossible to see only the needs of the tribe. The right to be a tribe does not exempt one from the responsibility of being a people.

And here the different parts of the verse meet. When the police become more loyal to the person in power than to the law, and when an attempt is made to weaken the judicial system to prevent it from setting a limit on governmental power, the common ground upon which all the tribes are supposed to meet is lost.

This does not mean that every judge is always right or that every police officer is corrupt. It means that a shared society needs a system of law that does not belong to any specific tribe and is not subservient to whoever holds power at any given moment. Without a common playing field, every tribe appoints its own judges and police officers, interprets justice according to its own needs, and the people become a collection of competing power groups.

The verse begins with "Lecha" (to you), passes through "LeShivtecha" (to your tribes), but is ultimately tested by its ability to see "HaAm" (the people). The guarding begins at my gates, but it cannot end only with me or the tribe to which I belong. In order for us to continue being a people, we need judges and officers, borders and laws — but above all, we need a shared ground upon which we can still collectively seek true justice.

How interesting that it fell to my lot to deal specifically with this Torah portion, which deals with blessings and curses. 

My Hebrew name is Bracha, and until I studied this Torah portion, I didn't realize how connected it is to the idea of living in the Land of Israel! 

We read in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 11: 

Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day; and the curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which you have not known. (Deuteronomy 11:26-28) 

Because blessing and curse are abstract ideas that are sometimes difficult for us to deal with, God asks to plant these ideas in a tangible way and says that when we arrive in the land there will be a ceremony of giving blessing and curse on two mountains: 

"And it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal." (29) 

These two mountains stand opposite each other, they surround the city of Nablus, and when you look at them from above you see one mountain covered with trees—Mount Gerizim—and another mountain that is completely barren and without vegetation, which is of course Mount Ebal. Which once again vividly illustrates the blessing as a green and flourishing mountain and the curse as a barren mountain that produces nothing good...  

Shechem is significant in Jewish history and is as ancient as Jerusalem and Hebron, but what is important in my opinion is that Joseph's Tomb is located in Shechem and that the two mountains stand opposite it. Joseph experienced both blessing and cursing in his life and reminds us to this day that every action we take can lead to a blessing or a curse – there is no third option... This awareness should help us behave in the way God expects of us.  

The possibility of planting abstract ideas within a tangible reality is also realized when we "make aliyah.". 

"For you are crossing the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall possess it and dwell in it. And you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today."
(31-32) 

God wants us to settle in this land and obey His laws through the constant study of them. As a liberal Jew, I interpret this sentence as a call to "continually adapt the law to the reality surrounding us." We must not worship other gods, but rather concentrate on our laws and observe our commandments. Indeed, it is much easier to do this in Israel than in the Diaspora! Moreover, many laws are related to agricultural matters, and they can only be fulfilled in a land that belongs to us. 

One of the central themes in Parashat Re'eh is the centralization of worship: meaning that sacrificial worship must be performed in the designated place, “the place the Lord will choose.” As part of this effort to centralize worship, there is also a commandment to uproot the places of worship of the idolaters, the inhabitants of the land: 

"You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you are dispossessing served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and smash their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. (Deuteronomy 12:2-3) 

This sounds quite cruel, but I believe God is asking us to uproot idolatry, which also includes the shocking sacrifice of human beings, as described later in the Torah portion, so that we can focus on His commandments and not be influenced by the other nations. We must fulfill our duties and respect all the laws He gave us… God wants us to live pure lives in the land He gave us, to enjoy the food we eat, to work all week, and to rejoice on the Sabbath. 

Since I travel the world a lot, I can promise you that there is no place in the world where I can rest on the Sabbath as I rest here! I feel that the entire land is resting and trying to forget the hardships,
The pains and the worries. The feeling of being part of the majority is a wonderful feeling, which of course I could never experience in Switzerland, my native land. The very connection to people we do not know, simply because they live as we live and feel as we feel, gives the soul tremendous energy, peace of mind, and quiet that open a gate to the comfort of feeling that we are in the right place at the right time.  

Living in the Land of Israel is a very costly thing, and we must preserve this ability. In the Torah portion, it says: 

"When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, "How did these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise." (12:29-30) 

The verses continue to warn us not to act as other nations do: we must guard ourselves against the cruelty of our enemies and not follow in their ways. And no less importantly—we must appreciate what we have: our Judaism, the land, and all that we have achieved through hard work, for we have no other land. 

Shabbat Shalom!