In Jewish Currents today: Ki Teitzei
Hello, readers,
I have a dvar Torah in Jewish Currents’ Friday email today; excerpt below, and read the full piece here.
“There was a boy whose father said to him: ‘Climb up this building and fetch me chicks,’” the rabbis tell us. “And he climbed up the building and dispatched the mother bird and took the young, but upon his return he fell and died.” The text wonders: “Where is the goodness of the days of this one, and where is the length of days of this one?” In other words, how could the boy die while performing the very mitzvah meant to guarantee him a long and happy life? The sages offer several potential resolutions to this theological problem—for instance, that the boy was being punished for “contemplating idol worship.” But the text also suggests that the event was so destabilizing that, for some people, no answer would be satisfactory. Referencing the Talmud’s paradigmatic heretic—“Acher” (literally “Other”), formerly known as Rabbi Elisha ben Abuya—the text indicates that witnessing this scene caused this former leading sage to give up on his belief in and commitment to Judaism. Maybe it was not only the horrifying event itself but also the fact that his fellow rabbis sought to justify it that caused him to turn away.