Weekly Davar - Ki-Tietse

GOOD MORNING!! Thank you to all those who sent good wishes on the birth of our little boy. We have named him Noach after my late teacher, Rabbi Noach Weinberg.

 

Dr. George and Linda Pransky are speaking at Tikun tonight at 8pm. They are perhaps the foremost educators in the field of Innate Health, the approach to mental and spiritual wellbeing that we teach at Tikun. Listening to them in the UK is a rare opportunity not to be missed. If you are interested, please be in touch or just come along on the night – we should have some space.

 

 

A very partial listing of the topics in this portion, the most packed in all of Torah: women captives in war; the stubborn and rebellious son; hanging and burial; returning lost articles; helping a fallen animal; transvestitism;  sending the mother bird away while taking eggs from a nest; guard rails on one's property; the defamed wife; the penalty for adultery; rape; a bastard; moral rules of warfare; sheltering slaves; prostitution; interest; divorce and remarriage; kidnapping; leprosy; paying wages on time; widows and orphans; flogging; a childless brother in law (Yibum and Chalitzah); Amalek. If you can’t find something of interest in that lot, then you never will!

 

 

There is a short and simple law in this week’s portion that is not always so well known or so well practised. The law is to pay a worker on time. Torah says that if a worker works for you during the day, you must pay him before the evening and if he works for you in the evening, you must pay him before morning.

 

Obviously, agreements and contracts may affect the details of this law, but the principal always applies. If you owe someone money and payment is due, give it to him immediately – even if it means going out of your way to do so. It’s all too easy to be busy and procrastinate, putting your own personal needs and desires above your responsibilities to, and care for, others. Often it’s a hassle to go out and get the money to pay someone, or to write the cheque and find a stamp to send it. So you leave it until you have the time. But Torah says that’s wrong. If you owe someone something then he comes first – before dinner, before the kids, even before Match of the Day.

 

In short, if someone (or a company) has done something for you, you must pay them and you must do so immediately. Be it a plumber, a bill at a shop, the cleaner, your therapist, or the people who came to clean your carpets, they should not need to be chasing you for payment; it is your responsibility to pay them, not their responsibility to collect from you.

 

The point is, as always in Torah, to guide us towards relating to other people as though they are as real as we are – rather than plastic dolls who populate our world.

 

Acting appropriately towards people on a day to day basis affects the way that we relate to people in general. I have found, as I do with much of Torah, that doing my best to live by this law makes a difference to my life – in particular to the way I feel about my responsibilities to those who give to me. As such, I recommend it highly.