Ki Tetze
What do we take from our experiences?
Reflection by Or HaLev US Community Manager Carrie Watkins
"This week’s parsha, boasting more mitzvot, commandments, than any other, refers to the story of the Jewish peoples’ slavery in Egypt in a few surprising ways. Two of the references are nearly identical in their structure and context. In the first, just after Moses shares the prohibition of taking a widow’s clothing as a pawn - a law protecting vulnerable populations - he says, `Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that your God redeemed you from there; therefore I enjoin you to observe this commandment`(Deuteronomy 24:18). And then again, after announcing the commandment to leave grapes in your vineyard for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow - another commandment of care for populations that don’t have land of their own - Moses says, `Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment`(24:22).
There seems to be a profound act of learning happening here. The Children of Israel, barely a generation past many more generations of traumatic enslavement, are turning that story into a lesson in compassion, responsibility, and rewriting social inequities. Because they experienced being slaves in Egypt, they can now understand social power structures, and take responsibility for them, in new ways.
It’s not a given that this is what the People would have taken from their experiences in Egypt. They might have had a fearful mentality of `we need to care for ourselves because nobody else will. ` They might have held a grudge.
But that’s not what happened. In fact, the third reference to the Egyptians in this week’s parsha is a commandment to not hold a grudge. `Do not hate an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in that land` (23:8). For many years before we were enslaved, we were welcomed as foreigners in Egypt. To remember that and pronounce it as reason enough is a mark of something like forgiveness.
It is a remarkable lesson to take into this season of atonement. Forgiveness does not mean saying that what happened was ok. Nowhere in Torah does it say that our slavery in Egypt was in any way justified or `for the best.` And yet, it was precisely on the soil of that experience of slavery that the hope of a kinder, more just civilization was able to sprout.
As we do the spiritual work of offering and seeking forgiveness this Elul and Tishrei, may insights from this week’s parsha be our guide. May we strive to hold the complexity of experience - the judgment with the kindness, the gratitude with the grief. And may we never stop learning."