Shalom. This video is about Torah parasha Kee Tisa which is in the middle of Deuteronomy starting from chapter 21, verse 10 going all the way to chapter 25. There are more principle in this Torah parasha than any other in the whole Torah. Some say over 70 and when you read it, it just looks like one commandment after another. It is very important ideas and laws from God and Judaism. It is a diverse assembly of laws, more than any other Torah parasha and one theme is predominant and prevalent in the whole parasha, the irreducible dignity and worth of every human being. So, let us start with just a few of them. Number one, the most problematic one is the ride up the community to stone away a rebellious son called Benzo Remara and what peon has not felt to challenge, stubborn and rebellious, but the actual application this law never happened because the rabbis defined it in such a narrow term that it was impossible to actually execute anyone.
Now, there are contemporary societies like in some of the Muslim world where young people are stoned to death or killed because the family does not like the way they socialize, and some have bring dishonor to the family. Well, Judaism thousand of years ago made an impossible for the community to do that, but still wanted to make sure that kids knew that they should follow their parents.
Then the Torah goes on to talk about how are you must bury even a convicted murderer right away and there is always been a sense of dignity the human body even in death. You could see my video on Jorge’s funerals for that.
And then on chapter 22, there are many laws about how you have to protect your neighbor’s property. If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep going straight do not ignore it, you must take it back to your fellow. And then, if you do not do everything you can to let somebody in the society know that you found something, then you are considered a thief by Jewish tradition.
We also have the rules here against putting on women not wearing men’s apparel and women that are wearing men’s apparel and men that are wearing women’s apparel and the orthodox take this seriously. They believe that the women should not wear pants. Now our tradition in the non-orthodox Judaism is that, of course, men and women can wear clothing that they like. It should be modest and one of the main issues has been wearing a pair shoe off for women. Some women designed them in feminine ways, but it has become obviously a conventional in the society and we found the conventions and disregard that pants are perfectly appropriate for women.
We still do not see that women in a formal men’s business suit are very similar to men. So that law basically does not really apply anymore in our world, but you can still see that there are definitely feminine clothes and masculine clothes.
Then the Torah goes on to talk about how you should make a pair pitter on the roof of your house to protect people. In contemporary laws it might be putting a fence around your property so that you do not have an attractive nuisance.
Now, one of the most interesting myths here about here is that about a bird’s nest which tells us that if you are going along and you want to have the eggs out of the nest, you have to make sure the mother bird is away before you take it. And there was a debate among the rabbis as to one of these was the actual concern for the mother bird’s feelings. Did the mother bird have such feelings or just simply to teach us compassion? It is one of two commandments in the entire Torah which promise long life for observing them. The other is honoring your mother and father in the 10 commandments. Both similar mean both. But the rabbis quickly understood that this did mean literally you personally would live longer if you observe this.
Then we go on to talk about the basic commandment of respecting all animal life and then do not bring harm to animals and Mitzvah. So these are some of the various commandments in the parasha I will talk about number two.
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