A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Dvar Torá: O que fazemos com as passagens ofensivas da Torá?")
You have probably heard the story of the discussion between two rabbis about which is the most important verse in the Torah [1]. One of them chooses the verse, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” whilst the other chooses a verse that speaks of the creation of human beings in the image of God. Rabbis love telling this story because it speaks of values that are dear to us and relate to the role we believe Judaism should have in our lives: empathy and the inalienable dignity of every human being, as well as speaking to Jewish pluralism.
But a liberal Jewish community, committed to fostering a critical Judaism that is truthful in its relationship with its sources and engages in dialogue with adults, must acknowledge that not all verses in the Torah value empathy or human dignity.
Some time ago, I was in a conversation with fellow Jewish educators who were expressing their discomfort at having to read a verse from the Torah whose literal meaning stood in stark contrast to the very educational values they sought to instil.
What do we do when the words of our tradition do not reflect the values we believe Judaism stands for, or even worse, when they reflect the opposite values?
This is not a question unique to our community, nor is it a recent one. Since the beginning of the rabbinic era, some 2,000 years ago, Rabbis have been expressing their discomfort with parts of the tradition and seeking strategies to deal with it in midrashim, in the Talmud, and in other commentaries.
This week's parashah, Ki Tetze, is considered to have the largest number of mitzvot in the entire Torah; according to one count, there are 72. Some of them are deeply rooted in our values, such as the concept that we must not delay the wages of our employees, as they depend on these payments [2], the obligation not to subvert the rights of the oppressed because we were oppressed in the land of Mitsrayim [3], or the duty to return a lost object we have found or to take care of it until we find its owner [4]. There are mitzvot in our parashah whose reason may not be obvious to us but which do not offend us, such as the prohibition against wearing clothes that mix wool and linen [5]. But there are also several mitzvot in this parashah that conflict with my values, and I imagine with yours as well.
There is the instruction that a defiant and rebellious son should be brought by his parents to the city elders to be stoned to death [6]. There is the law that a man who rapes an unmarried woman shall be ordered to pay a fine to her father and marry her, with no possibility of divorce [7]. And there is the law concerning a man who accuses his wife of having lied about her virginity – if her parents can prove he is lying, he is physically punished and fined; but if her parents cannot prove she was a virgin, she shall be condemned to death [8].
Many of you may not have known about these rules. They are not on the list of mitzvot that we, as rabbis, like to publicise. Perhaps you feel shocked and uncomfortable with the values they express: the apparent lack of empathy in how we approach disagreements within our families, or the absolute lack of empathy for the female perspective in rules about marital conduct. Personally, I admit that these rules leave me shocked and disturbed, to use an euphemism.
Faced with rules like these, we need strategies so that we don’t discard Judaism as a whole, so that we don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
I know of four distinct strategies – four strategies that are all grounded in Jewish tradition and have their adherents today. Many people, perhaps most of you, alternate between different strategies for different situations or throughout your lives.
The first strategy is to deny the discomfort, attributing any reservations we might have about these mitzvot to our own inability to recognise their wisdom. “If it is in the Torah, it comes from God,” its proponents claim. “If it comes from God, we can only obey without question. Or do you think that in your limited capacity, you can comprehend all of Divine logic?!” What the defenders of this strategy prefer to ignore is that Jewish tradition questions Divine decisions all the time! Abraham questioned God in the most emphatic terms when he learned of the Divine decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah [9]; Moses challenged God upon learning of the decision to destroy the people after the episode of the golden calf [10], and again after the episode of the 12 spies [11]. In rabbinic tradition, one of the most famous passages in the Talmud tells how God decided to intervene in a debate and how the rabbis responded: Lo Bashamayim Hi (לא בשמיים היא)—"It is not in Heaven" [12]. God’s reaction to this act of chutzpah? Pride. “My children have defeated me,” God says, like a proud parent watching their child outplay them in chess. The response that we lack the capacity to comprehend the full complexity of Divine logic may well be correct, but it has never prevented Jewish tradition from questioning and even challenging God when we have disagreements.
The second strategy is the one that the educators I met with had proposed: why don’t we just stop reading the passages we find especially problematic? Personally, I am a proponent of adapting some of our liturgical texts, of slightly modifying the wording of some prayers. But the Torah?! The verb of action that appears in the brachah for the study of Torah is la'asok (לעסוק), to be engaged in the words of Torah. The root of the verb is the same as that of essek (עסק), meaning "business". The true study of Torah is something that goes beyond the purely philosophical. It doesn’t just stay in the brain; it involves the heart, arms, and legs: we truly engage with it, body and soul. Anyone who has worked in a garden will understand the metaphor of getting soil under your fingernails—that is the measure of true Torah study. Could we achieve this result if we omitted all the passages that make us uncomfortable? Discomfort is part of this process of Jewish growth—and if we eliminate every passage that causes us discomfort, we would tremendously limit our growth in our encounter with the Torah!
A third strategy is to analyse the Torah text in its historical context. The laws establishing utterly asymmetrical marital unions might not seem so unjust because the culture of the time gave even less autonomy to women. By comparison, the text can even seem slightly more egalitarian. In many liberal circles, this is the most commonly adopted strategy. Its adherents argue that you cannot judge a text that is at least 2,500 years old by 21st-century sensibilities. Personally, my problem with this approach is that I want this text to have relevance for my life today. When I read the Torah as an academic, I have no problem placing it in dialogue with other cultures of the region. But when I, a 21st-century Jewish adult, read the Torah in a religious context, I look to the text for values and references that help me define my behaviour towards the oppressed of my time, to negotiate the relationship with my children when they are defiant, and to question my own relationship with authority. For me, the Torah isn’t merely a historical document to be read with detachment; it is a sacred text that speaks across generations, inviting and challenging me to become a better version of myself each time I read it.
How, then, do we deal with the passages whose values are not aligned with my own?
The fourth strategy—and it must be obvious by now that this is the one I most resonate with—is to treat the Torah’s mitzvot not as literal instructions, but as invitations to wrestle with the ethical issues they raise. Any good teacher knows that sometimes the best way to spark a meaningful debate is with a provocative statement. That is what the Torah often gives us. In this approach, these verses are not the lesson—they are the spark. They launch the conversation. Each community will engage with the prompt differently and arrive at conclusions that evolve over time. In this way, the Torah remains “a tree of life to those who grasp it.”
How do we navigate power imbalances in employment? What do we do when our children challenge what is most sacred to us? How do we respond to sexual violence, infidelity, or divorce when people seem to forget they once vowed to spend their lives together? Can we uphold ethics even in the most bitter of disputes—even in war?
These are among the urgent conversations this parashah invites—some would say commands—us to have. In a reality where the public debate on how to handle violent crime often veers into calls for street justice, and where the devastating statistics on gender-based violence are a constant source of pain and urgency, these discussions feel essential.
The rabbinic tradition teaches that the case of the rebellious son never happened and never will. So why was it included in the Torah? The answer: to reward those who engage with it seriously [13]. The reward is the debate.
A Judaism that is critical, contemporary, and meaningful doesn’t always offer easy answers. It often challenges us and unsettles us. But for those who engage with it fully—with heart, mind, and even under their fingernails—the reward is a faith that brings meaning and depth to every step we take, every decision we make, and every emotion we feel.
Shabbat Shalom.
[1] Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 30b
[2] Deuteronomy 24:14-15
[3] Deuteronomy 24:17-18
[4] Deuteronomy 22:1-4
[5] Deuteronomy 22:11
[6] Deuteronomy 21:18-21
[7] Deuteronomy 22:28-29
[8] Deuteronomy 22:13-21
[9] Genesis 18:23-25
[10] Exodus 32:9-14
[11] Numbers 14:11-25
[12] Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b
[13] Tosefta, Sanhedrin 11:6
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