Dvar Torá: Beyond the Four Mitzvot / Além das Quatro Mitsvot

PORTUGUÊS: O texto em português segue abaixo do texto em inglês.

For two years, I taught rabbinical students at the Ibero-American Institute for Reform Rabbinical Training — Chumash (the Five Books of Torah) one year, Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets) the next, with largely the same cohort of students across both. When the Nevi'im course came around, I asked them to write a drashah on any haftarah from the liturgical cycle. One student thought he had found a clever shortcut. He opened his paper by noting, correctly, that a parashah and its haftarah typically share a name or a theme — and from that observation he pivoted entirely to the Torah portion, never once returning to the Prophets, which was the subject of the class. It was smart. It was creative. It was completely off topic. I failed him.

I tell you this as a confession. Pay close attention as I speak, and you may notice the precise moment I pull the same trick. You have been warned.

This week's parashah is Tetzaveh — “to command,” "to give an order." The opening verse reads:

וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

V'atah tetzaveh et bnay-Yisrael

“You shall further command the Israelites.”[1]

The word tetzaveh shares its root with a word you all probably know: mitzvah. In its most technical sense, a mitzvah is a “commandment” — an “obligation”, an “order.” In Aramaic, however, the everyday language of the Talmud, the word carries a different resonance: “connection,” “attachment,” “link.”[2] And in the English of a contemporary Jewish household, when a parent says to their child, “that was a real mitzvah, standing up for that classmate who was being bullied,” the word has shifted again — now meaning something closer to “a good deed” than to a legal obligation. Three languages, three meanings: commandment, connection, kindness.

Hold that range of meanings in mind, because something happened this week that genuinely irritated me.

An Instagram post on Purim, published by an organisation connected to the international Progressive Jewish movement, listed what it called the mitzvot of the holiday. There was a technical error. Purim has four mitzvot: hearing the Megillah, sharing a festive meal, sending portions of food to friends — mishloach manot — and giving gifts to those in need — matanot la'evyonim. The post listed all four, but muddled the distinction between the last two in a way that missed the point of both.

That inaccuracy is not really what bothered me.

Progressive Judaism has staked its identity on the conviction that meaning-making matters more than mechanical compliance with laws that may no longer speak to the lives of contemporary Jews. That emphasis is not a compromise — it is a principled position, and it is ours.

Two brief examples. The central mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is to hear the shofar. In years when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, the shofar is not blown until after Shabbat ends, at the very close of the services. Imagine someone who spent weeks doing genuine t'shuvah: honest self-examination, sincere apologies, real repair. They came to shul, prayed with full attention, weeping from a recognition of their own failures. Then, for whatever reason, they had to leave before the shofar was blown. Would you truly say that person had failed their religious obligation?

Second example. Rabbinic Judaism constructed an elaborate architecture of Shabbat law — thirty-nine categories of forbidden work, the melachot, with commentary branching endlessly from each one. The Mishnah itself concedes the fragility of this structure: “the laws of Shabbat are like mountains suspended by a hair, for they have little basis in Scripture and yet the laws derived from them are numerous.”[3] One rule is clearly grounded in Torah, though: the prohibition against lighting fire.[4] And yet every person who drove a petrol-powered car to shul this evening technically violated that law. Does anyone here believe that coming to shul on Shabbat goes against the spirit of Shabbat?

These examples illustrate a genuine fault line. Orthodoxy places its emphasis on faithful transmission and performance of the law. Progressive Judaism places its emphasis on the meaning behind the law and its relevance to living human beings. Neither approach is without complications — but they are genuinely different, and we should not pretend otherwise. So when a Progressive organisation frames Purim primarily through the language of “the four mitzvot,” something has gone wrong. It feels, to borrow a word from the season, like wearing someone else's costume.

Which brings me to Purim — and to why this holiday matters so much, right now, in this city, in this country.

Purim is a Diaspora story. It unfolds in a Jewish community living as a minority under foreign rule, subject to the goodwill — or the malice — of those in authority. It is a story about antisemitism, about the compromises Jews make in pursuit of proximity to power, and about what happens when Jews who were once powerless find themselves holding power.

Beyond the reflective possibilities that Purim offers, traditions of the festival that extend far beyond the “four mitsvot” have much to teach us. For example, the tradition of wearing costumes on Purim (which is not a mitsvah in that narrow sense of the term) contains powerful possibilities. When I lived in the United States, I met some female Jewish students at the University of Illinois who chose to wear a hijab during Muslim awareness week — not as a casual gesture, not as costume or cultural appropriation, but as a deliberate act of solidarity, a way of experiencing firsthand the hostility that Muslim women faced simply by being visibly themselves. When we dress as someone else — with imagination and some humility — we open ourselves to the question of what it feels like to live inside a different skin, even if only for a few hours during a Purim celebration.

For years, I considered mishloach manot a silly tradition. Every Purim, people fill baskets with the most ultra-processed food they can find: sweets, biscuits, things wrapped in plastic that no one particularly needs. I did the same. And then one year, following the example of a dear teacher and friend, Rabbi Ebn Leader, I decided to do something different. I spent time in the kitchen and cooked fifty individual meals — fish, roasted vegetables, couscous, a dessert — and gave them away as mishloach manot. What I had not anticipated was the impact. Not on the recipients alone, but on me. Seeing the way people responded to receiving something made with genuine care, a real token of appreciation, changed the way I understood the tradition entirely. Mishloach manot is not about the basket. It is about the act of saying: I thought about you. I made something for you. You matter to me. The mitzvah — in the fullest, Aramaic sense of the word — is the connection itself.

And yet the violence at the end of the Book of Esther is not something we can dress up or celebrate our way past. The Orthodox Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz reportedly refused to leave Israel permanently for one reason above all others: it was the only country in the world where he could guarantee he would never have to celebrate Purim[5]. His method was precise. On Purim itself, he would remain in Jerusalem, which as a walled city observes the holiday a day later, on Shushan Purim. Then, the following day, he would travel to Tel Aviv, where Purim had already been celebrated. He thus arranged never to hear the Megillah, never to drink in celebration of what he saw, at its core, as a mass killing — the slaughter of Haman, his ten sons, and, according to the text of Esther chapter 9, over 75,000 enemies of the Jewish people throughout the ancient Persian empire. Leibowitz, as was his way, was simply being direct: he saw Purim, at its foundation, as a celebration of violence.

I am proud to belong to a religious movement in which I do not need to replicate that itinerary and leave the place I live in order to avoid the challenges I find in our own tradition. I can face Purim directly: celebrate the thwarting of an antisemitic massacre, and at the same time grieve, with full moral seriousness, that the very Jews who were once powerless chose, the moment power was within their reach, to answer the threat of violence with violence on a devastating scale. That grief does not cancel the celebration. The celebration does not cancel the grief. Holding both without resolving the tension too quickly is, I would argue, what Progressive Jewish maturity looks like.

Most contemporary scholars understand the Book of Esther as a literary work — a diaspora novella rather than a historical chronicle[6]. Its function in the Jewish canon, and Purim's role in the Jewish calendar, must therefore be to allow us to have these deeply important and often difficult conversations — conversations that are avoided, intentionally or unintentionally, when we restrict our focus to “the four mitzvot.”

I did not expect fifty meals to teach me something I did not already know; perhaps in the same way that my students did not expect to learn so much by walking across a university campus dressed in the clothing of another community. But that is usually how it works — the tradition you dismissed turns out to be the one that was waiting for you. Purim is full of those surprises. A holiday that looks, from the outside, like costumes and noise and too much sugar turns out to be one of the most morally serious days in the Jewish calendar: a story about power and powerlessness, about survival and its costs, about the difference between a gift and a transaction. This year, I hope you find at least one moment in the celebration when the costume slips and something true shows through. That, in the end, is what the tradition has always been asking of us.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Purim Sameach.

[1] Exodus 27:20.

[2] Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson and Rabbi Patricia Fenton (eds). Walking with Mitzvot.

[3] Mishnah Chagigah 1:8.

[4] Exodus 35:3

[5] Shaul Maggid, “The Dark Side of Purim,” The Forward, 10 March 2014: https://forward.com/opinion/194161/the-dark-side-of-purim

[6] See, for example, Adele Berlin, “The Book of Esther and Ancient Storytelling,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120, no. 1 (2001): 3-14

From Idol-Breaking to Harm-Naming: What It Means to Be Ivri

What does it mean to be a "Hebrew"? Our tradition's answer is as much of an ethical challenge as an ethnic label. The name first appears in this week's parashah, Lech Lecha, when our ancestor is called "Avram ha-Ivri". [1]

While in modern Hebrew Ivri just means "Hebrew," the Sages saw something far more profound. In a famous midrash [2], they link the name to the word ever, which means "side" or "margin." Why was he called ha-Ivri? Because, they explain, "the whole world was on one side (ever), and he was on the other (ever)."

To be an Ivri, then, is to be an iconoclast, a spiritual contrarian. In a world steeped in polytheism, Avraham was willing to stand alone, to go against the entire world because he saw that the usual way of doing things was profoundly wrong. He challenged the status quo for the sake of truth.

And yet, this same iconoclast, this man of great faith and courage, has a profound and repeated moral failing. Almost immediately after arriving in the Promised Land, a famine drives him and Sarah to Egypt. Fearing the Egyptians will kill him to take his beautiful wife, Avraham devises a plan: "Please say that you are my sister". [3]

Let us be clear: he risks Sarah's autonomy and safety to secure his own. She is taken to Pharaoh's palace, and only a divine plague saves her, while Avraham is "treated well on her account". [4]

This is not a singular lapse in judgment. It is a disturbing pattern. Avraham and Sarah do it again, years later, with King Avimelech in Gerar. [5] The trauma is apparently so deep that their son, Itzchak, repeats the exact same behaviour with his wife, Rivka, and the same King Avimelech. [6]

These episodes are not footnotes; they are the Torah’s deliberate choice to preserve actions that place a woman at risk, even when the intention is self-protection. The text resists hagiography. It asks us to praise faith where it shines and to face harm where it occurs. This is one of the gifts of our tradition. We do not read our ancestors as flawless. We bless their courage and hospitality, and we also name their failures. That honesty is not a modern import. It belongs to a people in covenant, who tell the truth about harm in order to repair it. It trains us to examine our own habits, our own households, our own institutions, and to ask who is being protected, who is being exposed, and whose voice has not been heard.

This specific failing of our patriarchs—their willingness to endanger their wives for their own security—is not just an ancient story. It is a story about a blindness that persists today: the failure of men to truly grasp the risks that women face.

The global evidence is stark. UN Women summarises the prevalence plainly: worldwide, about one in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, most often at the hands of an intimate partner. [7] In South Africa, this is a matter of life and death. According to the World Population Review, South Africa ranks as the fifth worst country in the world for femicide, with a rate of 9 women killed per 100,000 women in the population. [8]

These are not just numbers. We, as a community, are the victims, but we are also the perpetrators. Until we have the courage to stand for what is right, to be the contrarian and point to Avraham’s conduct as unacceptable, to stop instinctively believing men we like over the victims of their harassment, and to realise that our community is not immune to the same dynamics that harm women elsewhere, then we will continue to be part of the problem.

What, then, does it mean to be an Ivri—an heir to Avraham—today?

Lech Lecha teaches us that being a "Hebrew" is not just about our theological inheritance. It is an ethical challenge. If Avraham was a contrarian who challenges the world's idolatries; we must be contrarians who challenge its injustices.

This parashah calls us to cross over, to stand where risk is greatest and safety is not assumed. For the men in our community, this is a clear call to action: to cross the divide of gender and privilege. It means actively listening to the stories and experiences of women, believing them, and seeing the world not just from our own perspective of safety, but from their perspective of risk.

Avraham's journey began when he left his father’s house. Our moral journey continues when we confront our ancestors’ and leaders’ failings and commit, in our own lives, our own homes, and our own society, never to repeat them.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Gen. 14:13.

[2] B’reshit Rabbah 42:8.

[3] Gen. 12:13.

[4] Gen. 12:16.

[5] Gen. 20:1–16.

[6] Gen. 26:1–33.

[7] https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2025-09/progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2025-en.pdf

[8] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/femicide-rates-by-country

 

Dvar Torah: What Do We Do with the Offensive Passages in the Torah?

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

The right to forget and be forgotten, and the responsibility to remember

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "O direito de esquecer e de ser esquecido e a responsabilidade de lembrar")

Our memory has the interesting ability to smooth over the rough patches in our lives. Like coarse sandpaper smoothing the texture of a rough piece of furniture, over the years we come to remember milder versions of conflicts, amplifying the roles played by those we love and diminishing our own failings. It is an important tool that allows us to carry on living after we have been through particularly difficult episodes, without it, we would continue to recall traumas, dwell on grudges, and live in regret. Much like a literary work or a film “based on a true story”, our memory keeps one foot in what actually happened, but with the other, it seeks to ease the burden of living permanently with these recollections.

For some time now, however, this characteristic of our memory has been hindered by the sheer volume of records we leave of our experiences and interactions. What good is it for memory to soften a conflict if a quick look at a messaging app is all it takes to remember the exact pain we felt? When we make a slip-up, the records on social media prevent our memory from registering it in softer tones than it originally had. Everything we write, photograph, and film is indexed by search engines and is a click away for anyone seeking to know who we are, even if we are no longer the same person who produced or appears in those records. Everything we write, whether an article or a status update, becomes permanent.

Who can live with perpetual responsibility for every thoughtless act? Who can sustain relationships when past failings endlessly return to haunt us like ghosts?

A passage from this week’s parashah, Ki Tetze, states:

“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt, how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march when you were hungry and tired, and cut down all the stragglers at your rear,”

And it ends with the command:

“Therefore, when ADONAI your God gives you security from all your enemies around you, in the land that ADONAI your God is giving you as a heritage to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”[1]

The tension between remembrance and forgetting is palpable in these lines. Here, it concerns the memory of an act that has crystallised in Jewish tradition as the paradigmatic expression of cowardice and evil. In such situations, where the trauma of those who lived through them is evident, where does our duty lie: do we strive to remember and ensure that similar actions never happen again, or do we ensure they are forgotten, sparing the victims from reliving those terrible moments?

As with so many other issues, there are no absolute answers that cover every situation. In a world that records ever more details of what we say, what we do, and where we go, the allure of moments when we can truly forget, and be forgotten, is tempting. On the other hand, there is the ethical obligation to remember so that we may learn from our experiences, ensuring that, individually and socially, we do not repeatedly fall into the same traps.

May we, from the convergence of our right to be forgotten and our responsibility to remember, build situations where we can grow without permanently carrying the weight of the world and of our memories on our shoulders.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Deut. 25:17–19

Does it Make Sense to Ask, “How Many Wives Is Too Many?”

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Faz sentido perguntar “quantas esposas é demais”?!")

When I was a child, I must admit, I used to sing the Brazilian nursery rhyme "Atirei o Pau no Gato" without thinking much about animal welfare. The song, which translates to "I Threw the Stick at the Cat," tells the story of a person throwing a stick at a cat and the cat's cry of distress. Perhaps if the stick had been aimed at a dog, and not a cat, I would have had more empathy for the victim of the action. But, as I was never a big fan of felines, I never truly registered the violence of the act.

As a teenager, I started hearing different versions of the song that, with an educational purpose, changed the lyrics to "don't throw the stick at the cat because it's not the right thing to do, the kitten is our friend, we mustn't mistreat animals." [1] While we would sing these new lyrics mockingly, making light of the concern to change a children's song to avoid encouraging violence against animals, I realised for the first time that the original lyrics were, in fact, violent and encouraged undesirable behaviour.

When we look back at the past, it's quite common to see inappropriate behaviours that we once accepted as natural, but which are no longer considered acceptable today. In the spirit of chesbon hanefesh, the spiritual process of personal assessment in preparation for the High Holidays, we identify the areas of our lives in which we lived up to the person we want to be and those in which we fell short of that ideal. It is also an opportunity to broaden our perspective and recognise which inappropriate conducts have become normalised and must now be re-evaluated.

In this week's parashah, Shoftim, the Israelites are given permission to have a king after they enter the Promised Land. The text makes it clear that this leader would be a man, while also setting limits on the monarch's power: he must be an Israelite, he cannot accumulate excessive wealth in gold, silver, or horses, he shall not send his people back to Egypt, and he shall not have many wives. The text doesn't specify what "many" means, but there seems to be a consensus that up to eighteen wives would be acceptable; above that number, it would be considered an excess.

For a long time, the commentators on this passage (all men) debated whether the number eighteen was excessive or not, whether it could be exceeded if all the wives were "good," and whether the limit would also apply to a person who was not a king.[2] No one ever asked, however, why the wives were listed alongside the other forms of wealth that the king could accumulate, albeit with limits. Perhaps the greatest innovation that Judaism brought to the world was the idea that all human beings were created in the image of God and are, therefore, endowed with inalienable dignity. Do the instructions to the king that treat his wives as property truly reflect this profound Jewish value?

We can find similar examples in which women were not treated with due dignity in other stories from Jewish tradition (the book of Esther or the story of King Solomon and his 700 wives, for example) and from other cultures. However, the time has come to revisit the behaviours implicitly accepted in these narratives and to point out what we are no longer willing to accept. In the past decade, the #metoo movement has shone a light on how powerful men abuse their social and professional positions to commit harassment and violence, practices that many were aware of but considered to be "part of the game."

Parashat Shoftim also deals with the structuring of a judicial system that makes the pursuit of justice a central characteristic of Hebrew society. On this point, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote: “To seek justice is to relieve the oppressed. But how else are the oppressed to be relieved if not by judging the oppressor and crushing the ability to oppress! (…) The toleration of injustice is the toleration of human suffering. Since the proud and the mighty who inflict the suffering do not, as a rule, yield to moral persuasion, responsibility for the sufferer demands that justice be done so that oppression be ended.” [3]

May this Shabbat allow us to seek justice for all, particularly by challenging the naturalised abuses of the powerful, and thus begin the process of transforming ourselves into the version of ourselves we wish to be.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] This vídeo includes both versions of the song: https://youtube.com/shorts/jBJQQavNjyE
[2] See, for example, the commentaries of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Aderet Eliahu on Deut. 17:17.
[3] As cited in Harvey Fields, A Torah Commentary for Our Times, vol. 3, p. 140.

One light or many lights?

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Uma luz ou muitas luzes?")

The other day, I was watching an old episode of one of those satirical news programmes that blend current affairs with humour. The topic being discussed was the numerous human rights violations involved in Qatar’s preparations for hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022 [1]. During the segment, a FIFA official stated that the organisation found it challenging to work with democratic governments due to the multiple stakeholders involved in negotiations, whereas authoritarian regimes made hosting large-scale events much easier. While the candour of this remark is shocking, it reflects a belief held by many: that a single, unified vision ensures greater coherence within a group (regardless of its size) compared to the complexity of multiple differing perspectives. In contrast, others argue that engaging in dialogue and debate between diverse viewpoints ultimately strengthens processes, even if it makes them more complex and time-consuming.

This week’s parashah, Tetzaveh, opens with instructions regarding the lighting of lamps that were to remain perpetually illuminated in the Mishkan [2]. However, the very next verse instructs Moses and Aaron to light the lamps from evening until morning. Faced with this apparent contradiction, various commentators questioned whether the lights were meant to remain burning at all times or only during the dark hours. In a classically Jewish (and rabbinic!) approach, they resolved the dilemma by affirming that both interpretations were correct. A single lamp remained lit throughout the day, while the other lamps of the menorah were kindled only from dusk till dawn, when the darkness of night required additional light for the sacred space.

There are moments in our history that are marked by clarity: when we all agree on our goals and the best paths to achieve them. In such times, a single source of light may be sufficient, aligning us in a shared direction. However, Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) warns us of the dangers of such unanimity turning into totalitarianism:

“A shared language and discourse is, according to many naïve individuals today, the description of an ideal situation: all of humanity united as a single bloc, without differentiation and, as a result, without conflict. But those who truly understand will know that nothing is more threatening than this artificial conformity: a city and a tower as a symbol of concentrating all humanity into a single thought—where there are no differing opinions and no disputes over values. One cannot imagine a greater tyranny than this, nor a sterility more intellectual and moral than such a state.” [3]

Returning to the instruction in this week’s parashah, during the darkest hours of the day, multiple lamps were lit to generate the necessary illumination, even if the resulting light was more diffuse than that of a single flame. Similarly, in situations where diverse opinions naturally emerge, it is crucial to embrace multiple voices, even if this makes the process slower and more intricate. The clarity offered by a single viewpoint often pales in comparison to the richness and depth that arise from contrasting perspectives. Russian philosopher Vladimir Lossky articulated this idea particularly well regarding theology, though his argument holds true in many other fields of knowledge: “There is nothing more dangerous, more contrary to true theology, than a superficial clarity at the expense of deep analysis.”

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, a key figure in Modern Orthodox thought in the United States, expressed a similar idea in a metaphorical and theological perspective: “The white light of divinity is always refracted through the dome of reality, composed of many coloured panes of glass.”

As we seek light amidst darkness, may we never forgo the glow of our own candle, and may we learn to appreciate the strength that arises from the multiple flames of the menorah.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] https://youtu.be/UMqLDhl8PXw

[2] Ex. 27:20

[3] Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Earot leParshiot haShavua, Ch. 2: Bereshit - Noach

A Shattered World: Trying to learn from Mishpatim in the Wake of Loss

As I write these words on Thursday morning, the bodies of four Israeli hostages have been transferred to the Red Cross, being returned to their families in Israel. Among them are the youngest of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas and associated groups on October 7th—Kfir, who was nine months old at the time of the attack, and Ariel, who was four years old then—as well as their mother, Shiri Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz, a peace activist who volunteered in an organisation helping Palestinians in need of medical care to cross the border for treatment in Israeli hospitals.

Wars are rife with tragedy, and people far from the conflict often build emotional defences to endure the anguish they bring. Yet, certain events—charged with profound symbolism—can break through these barriers, forcing us to confront the full weight of suffering. Amid a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, the deaths of two children have resonated deeply across the globe. Just as, a decade ago, images of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish shore awakened the world to the horrors of the war in Syria, the deaths of the Bibas brothers have rekindled our awareness of the brutal toll the Israel-Gaza conflict has taken on children. The deaths of the Bibas brothers have shaken the world, as have the images of countless Palestinian children who have lost their lives in this war — the grief is universal, and our humanity demands that we feel the pain of all innocent victims, regardless of nationality.

This week’s parashah, Mishpatim, also known as the “Book of the Covenant,” provides instructions on how to build a society rooted in justice and care for all people. Among them are obligations to protect foreigners, orphans, and widows; to treat enemies with dignity and return their lost property; and the principle that punishment should be proportional to the damage, as expressed in the formula “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”[1] These are the values that have guided Jewish conduct throughout history—while practices may have evolved, the principles they embody have remained steadfast.

May our current pain for all victims on both sides of this conflict, especially children, remind us of our commitment to building the kind of society delineated by the Book of the Covenant: one in which justice prevails, in which everyone feels safe, and in which the most vulnerable receive our full attention. At the same time, may we remain steadfast in the pursuit of securing the release of all hostages, ensuring the safety of innocent civilians, and striving toward a future in which such tragedies no longer occur.

Shabbat Shalom

[1] After extensive discussion in the Talmud, the Rabbis determined that this principle guided the scale of financial compensation in each case but did not grant the injured party the right to inflict the same injury in return.

Dvar Torá: O que fazemos com as passagens ofensivas da Torá? (CIP)

(uma versão em inglês deste texto foi publicado neste blog com o título “What Do We Do with the Offensive Passages in the Torah?)

Vocês já devem ter ouvido a história da discussão entre dois rabinos sobre qual o versículo mais importante da Torá [1]. Um deles escolhe o verso “Ama a teu próximo como a ti mesmo” e outro escolhe um verso que fala da criação dos seres humanos à imagem de Deus. Rabinos adoram contar essa história porque ela fala de valores que nos são caros e que estão relacionados ao papel que acreditamos que o Judaísmo deve ter nas nossas vidas: a empatia e a dignidade inalienável de todo ser humano, além de falar do pluralismo judaico.

Mas uma comunidade judaica liberal com um projeto de educar para um judaísmo crítico, verdadeiro na relação com suas fontes e que dialogue com adultos, precisa reconhecer que nem todos os versículos da Torá valorizam a empatia ou a dignidade humana.

Na semana passada, eu estava em uma conversa com educadores judaicos, que estavam manifestando desconforto em terem que ler um verso da Torá cujo sentido literal está em oposição direta ao projeto de educação judaica que eles se propõem a desenvolver. 

O que fazemos quando as palavras da tradição não refletem os valores que acreditamos que o Judaísmo defende ou, ainda pior, quando elas refletem os valores opostos?

Esta não é uma questão única da CIP e nem mesmo recente. Desde o começo da era rabínica, há cerca de 2000 anos, os Rabinos vêm expressando seu desconforto com partes da tradição e buscando estratégias para lidar com ela em midrashim, no Talmud e em outros comentários.

A parashá desta semana, Ki Tetsê, é considerada a parashá com o maior número de mitsvot de toda a Torá; de acordo com uma contagem, são 72. Algumas delas, estão profundamente enraizadas nos nossos valores, como o conceito de que não podemos atrasar o salário dos nossos empregados, pois eles dependem destes pagamentos [2], a obrigação de não subverter os direitos dos oprimidos pois fomos oprimidos na terra de Mitsrayim [3] ou ainda a de devolver um objeto perdido que tenhamos encontrado ou de tomar conta dele até que encontremos o dono [4]. Há mitsvot da nossa parashá cuja razão não nos parece óbvia mas que tampouco nos ofende, como a proibição de usarmos roupas que misturem lã e linho [5]. Mas há também diversas mitsvot nesta parashá que entram em conflito com os meus valores e imagino que com os de vocês também. 

Há a instrução de que um filho desafiador e rebelde deve ser levado por seus pais até os anciãos da cidade para que ele seja condenado à morte [6], a de um homem que violentar uma mulher solteira será condenado a pagar uma multa ao pai dele e casar-se com ela sem a chance de divórcio [7] e a de que um homem que acusar sua esposa de ter mentido sobre sua virgindade – se os pais dela mostrarem que ele está mentindo, ele é castigado fisicamente, paga uma multa e perde o direito de divorciar sua esposa, mas se os pais dela não conseguirem mostrar que ela era virgem, ela será condenada à morte [8].

Muitos de vocês talvez não conhecessem estas regras. Elas não fazem parte da lista de mitsvot que nós, rabinos, gostamos de divulgar. Talvez se sintam chocados e incomodados com os valores que elas expressam: a incompreensão de como lidamos com as divergências dentro das nossas famílias ou a absoluta falta de empatia para com a perspectiva feminina em regras sobre o comportamento conjugal. Pessoalmente, eu reconheço que estas regras me deixam chocado e incomodado, só para usar eufemismos.

Frente a regras como estas, precisamos de estratégias para não descartarmos o Judaísmo como um todo, para não jogar o bebê com a água suja. 

Eu conheço quatro estratégias distintas – quatro estratégias que estão todas elas fundamentadas na tradição judaica e que têm seus adeptos hoje em dia. Muita gente, talvez a maioria de vocês, alterna em diferentes estratégias para cada situação ou ao longo de suas vidas.

A primeira estratégia nega o desconforto, atribuindo qualquer restrição que possamos ter a estas mitsvot à nossa própria incapacidade de reconhecer sua sabedoria. “Se está na Torá, vem de Deus”, seus proponentes afirmam. “Se vem de Deus, só nos resta cumprir sem questionar. Ou você acha que, na sua limitada capacidade, consegue compreender toda a lógica Divina?!”. O que os defensores desta estratégia preferem ignorar é que a tradição judaica questiona decisões Divinas o tempo todo! Avraham questionou Deus de maneira absolutamente enfática quando soube da decisão Divina de destruir Sodoma e Gomorra [9]; Moshé desafiou Deus quando soube da decisão de destruir o povo depois do episódio do bezerro de ouro [10] e, novamente, depois do episódio dos 12 espiões enviados antes da chegada à Terra de Israel [11]. Na tradição rabínica, uma das passagens mais famosas do Talmud conta como Deus decidiu intervir em um debate e de como os rabinos responderam: לא בשמיים היא, “Você nos deu a Torá e agora ela é nossa para decidirmos como interpretá-la”. Como Deus reagiu a este ato de chutspá e desafio à autoridade? Com orgulho, dizendo נצחוני בניי, “meus filhos me derrotaram”, como o pai satisfeito que perde para a filha no jogo de xadrez. A resposta de que não temos capacidade para compreender toda a complexidade da lógica Divina pode até estar correta, mas ela nunca preveniu a tradição judaica de questionar e até mesmo desafiar Deus quando temos discordâncias.

A segunda estratégia é aquela que os educadores com quem eu me reuni tinham proposto: por que não damos sumiço, paramos de ler as passagens que consideramos especialmente problemáticas? Pessoalmente, eu sou adepto de adequar alguns dos nossos textos litúrgicos, de modificar um pouco a formulação de algumas rezas. Mas a Torá?! O verbo de ação que aparece na brachá para o estudo da Torá é לעסוק, "laasók", nas palavras da Torá. A raiz do verbo é a mesma raiz de עסק, "essek", "negócio". O estudo verdadeiro da Torá é algo que vai além do plano puramente filosófico. Ele não fica só no cérebro, envolve coração, braços, pernas e nossos órgãos internos: realmente nos envolvemos de corpo e alma. Quem já trabalhou com jardinagem vai entender a metáfora de que ficamos com a unha cheia de terra – essa é a medida do estudo verdadeiro da Torá. Será que conseguiríamos este resultado se omitíssemos todas as passagens que nos incomodassem? 

O incômodo é parte deste processo de crescimento judaico – e se eliminarmos todas as passagens que nos causam incômodo, limitaríamos tremendamente nosso crescimento no encontro com a Torá!

Uma terceira estratégia é a de analisar o texto da Torá em seu contexto histórico. As leis que estabelecem uniões conjugais absolutamente assimétricas não seriam tão injustas porque a cultura da época dava ainda menos autonomia para as mulheres. Na comparação, o texto até parece um pouco mais igualitário. Em muitos círculos liberais, esta é a estratégia adotada na maior parte dos casos para lidar com trechos problemáticos. Seus adeptos argumentam que você não pode julgar um texto que tem, pelo menos, 2500 anos de história a partir das sensibilidades do século 21. Pessoalmente, meu problema com esta abordagem é que eu quero que este texto tenha relevância para a minha vida em 2019. Quando eu leio a Torá como acadêmico, eu não tenho problema nenhum em colocá-la em diálogo com as outras culturas da região ou da mesma época. Mas quando eu, um judeu adulto do século 21, leio a Torá em um contexto religioso, eu procuro no texto valores e referências que me ajudem a definir meu comportamento com relação aos oprimidos do meu tempo, a negociar o relacionamento com meus filhos quando eles se mostram desafiadores e rebeldes, a questionar minha própria relação com a autoridade. Para mim, a Torá não é simplesmente uma obra de literatura histórica que eu me permito ler com uma postura distanciada. Este livro contém as histórias sagradas do meu povo, que me convidam e me desafiam a me tornar uma versão melhor de mim a cada vez que eu o leio.

Como, então, lidar com as passagens cujos valores não estão alinhados aos meus?

A quarta estratégia – e deve ser óbvio a essa altura que essa é a estratégia com a qual eu mais me identifico – diz que as mitsvot da Torá – aqui incluídas todas as 72 mitsvot desta parashá, mesmo aquelas que eu destaquei no início como especialmente alinhadas com nossos valores – não devem ser tomadas como instruções literais, mas como convites para aprofundarmos as discussões a respeito dos temas que elas introduzem. Qualquer bom professor sabe que, em algumas situações, não há nada mais eficiente para dar início a debates produtivos que afirmações polêmicas - e é isso que a Torá nos dá em algumas situações. Nesta abordagem, as afirmações polêmicas são só o "gatilho" para dar início ao debate; elas não resumem, de forma nenhuma, o que a Torá quer que aprendamos destas conversas. A partir do "gatilho" proposto pela Torá, cada grupo estabelecerá sua conversa a respeito dos temas propostos e chegará a conclusões distintas, que mudarão ao longo do tempo e de um grupo para outro. Assim, a Torá se mantém a "árvore da vide para quem lhe dá apoio"!

Como lidar com a assimetria intrínseca às relações de trabalho? Que estratégias podemos adotar quando nossos filhos questionam o que nos é mais caro? Quais são as respostas possíveis para situações de violência sexual? Ou de infidelidade conjugal? Ou de comportamentos durante o processo de divórcio que parecem negar que sejam as mesmas pessoas que, alguns anos antes, se amavam tanto que prometeram passar o resto da vida juntos? Como garantir que a ética tenha lugar nas nossas divergências, mesmo nas disputas mais violentas, como a guerra?

Estas são algumas das conversas fundamentais que a parashá desta semana nos convida – alguns diriam, nos instrui – a termos. Numa semana em que um deputado estadual do Espírito Santo ofereceu uma recompensa de R$10.000 reais pela morte do suspeito de um assassinato [13], na qual fui divulgada a estatística de que quatro meninas de até 13 anos são violentadas por hora no Brasil [14], estes temas parecem especialmente adequados, temas para conversas urgentes, que não podemos mais ignorar.

A tradição rabínica diz que nunca houve e nunca haverá um filho desafiador e rebelde que justifique o processo descrito nesta parashá. Em resposta à pergunta “então, por que este trecho foi incluído na Torá?”, a própria tradição responde “para dar um prêmio àqueles que debaterem seriamente esta questão” [15]. O prêmio é o debate!

Um judaísmo crítico, contemporâneo e relevante não tem respostas prontas, muitas vezes nos desafia e nos causa algum nível de desconforto. Mas o prêmio para aquele que se engaja com ele verdadeiramente de corpo e de alma, até ficar com as unhas cheias de terra, é absolutamente recompensador, trazendo significado e textura a cada passo que damos, a cada ação que tomamos, a cada emoção que sentimos.

Shabat Shalom!

[1] Talmud de Jerusalém, Nedarim 30B

[2] Deut. 24:14-15

[3] Deut 24:17-18

[4] Deut 22:1-4

[5] Deut. 22:11

[6] Deut. 21:18-21

[7] Deut. 22:28-29

[8] Deut. 22:13-21

[9] Gen. 18:23-25

[10] Ex. 32:9-14

[11] Num. 14:11-25

[12] Talmud Bavli Baba Metsia 59b

[13] https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2019/09/deputado-do-psl-oferece-r-10-mil-a-quem-matar-suspeito-de-assassinato-no-es.shtm

[14] https://www.uol.com.br/universa/noticias/redacao/2019/09/10/4-meninas-de-ate-13-anos-sao-estupradas-por-hora-no-brasil.htm

[15] Tosefta Sanhedrin 11:6