D'var Torah

When we ignore the needs of others, what might we be doing to ourselves?

This is the provacative question implicitly posed by this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetzei. Ki Tetzei means “when you go out,” and it contains a variety of commandments about how we should act in public, and how we should treat other people in our community (and in surrounding communities, too). As you might expect from a text that was originally a guidebook for daily life in an ancient society quite different from our own, many of Ki Tetzei’s commandments sound offensive to modern ears, and others aren’t so much offensive as a little random. (See for example, Deuteronomy 22:11 — “Don’t wear cloth made out of both wool and linen.”) What is most startling, however, is how RELEVANT some of the commandments in Ki Tetzei are. 

For example, Deuteronomy 22:8 says that when you are building a new house, you need to build a railing on the roof, or you are responsible for anyone who falls off. (In Ancient Israelite homes — as in some modern-day apartment buildings — roofs were important social gathering spaces.) Deuteronomy 23:16-17 says that if someone who has been enslaved flees to your community, you can’t turn them over to the person who was enslaving them - you need to protect them and help them build a new life in your community. Deuteronomy 24:14-15 prohibits abusing workers in need, and stipulates that wages need to be given to a needy person on the same day that they did the work. Deuteronomy 24:17-22 contains one of the Torah’s many treatises on caring for people who are marginalized in society, and who in an agrarian society with strong traditions of land inheritance (rather than sale) might not have had access to their own land, including the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. 

Ki Tetzei also repeatedly instructs readers not to ignore others in need. In Deuteronomy 22:1-4, we are first told that it is our responsibility to help reunite other people with lost animals and lost property, and then that if we see a fallen ox or donkey on the side of the road, we need to help lift it up. In both cases, the commandments are strengthened by the admonition not to “l’hit’alem,” ignore, the struggling animals, or our neighbors. 

What happens to us if we do ignore others in need? The root of the Hebrew verb “l’hit’alem,” repeated three times in four verses, offers us an intriguing clue.

The English word “ignore” comes (by way of French) from the Latin “ignorare” — to not know, or be “ignorant.” When we ignore others, we might say, we remain (intentionally) ignorant of their experiences and needs. 

But the Hebrew l’hit’alem is different. It is a reflexive verb (like all “hitpalel” verbs — verbs that start with l’hit), something a person does to themselves, and the biblical Hebrew root alem (עלם) means to “hide” or “disappear” — so broken down to its roots, the Torah’s commandment that we must not "l’hit’alem” might be understood to mean something like “don’t hide yourself” or “ don’t cause yourself to disappear.” 

Don’t ignore the people - and animals - with whom you share a society and a world. Don’t hide yourself, don’t cause yourself to disappear. 

In our world today, we often encounter or hear about people (and animals, though maybe not so many donkeys or oxen!) who are in need. Sometimes we help them, and sometimes we don’t. What I find so poignant about the Torah’s use of the verb l’hit’alem is that it captures an element of the experience of turning away from someone in need that the English ignore does not. When we ignore someone, especially someone asking for help, we are not just remaining ignorant of their needs (indeed, we’ve likely been informed of them, and probably won’t forget them once we’ve heard them) — we are also disappearing or hiding a part of ourselves, the part that wants to reach out to that person, and help them. This kind of hiding and disappearing can be painful — not just for the person who is ignored, but also for the person doing the ignoring. 

So conversely, when we pay attention to someone in need, we are not just refocusing (or spending a resource, as the English idiom implies) — we are also engaging in an act of healing and relationship building, for them and for ourselves. We are making ourselves visible to them, allowing them to see us, just as we see them. 

We are currently in the second week of Elul, the 12th month of the year on the Jewish calendar. Jewish communtiies all over the world take this month as a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for Rosh HaShanah — a time to reconnect with ourselves and with other people, as we approach a new year. This week, Ki Tetzei offers us an extra invitation, to know that by reaching out to others, by paying attention to their lives and to their needs, we are also uncovering parts of ourselves we may have hidden (intentionally or otherwise), and perhaps, becoming more whole.