Parshat Ki Teitzei: How To Merit Long Life?

this is Rabbi David Foreman and welcome to partial ki Fateh you are watching how I made up the Torah tells us to honor our parents why well if we had to speculate the most obvious answer is our parents gave us the greatest gift of all life itself so obviously some deference is due to them when we honor them we are doing the least we can to those who've given us life then I think is the conventional interpretation of why it is that we honor our parents and I don't mean to argue with it here but speaking personally I myself have recently come to perceive a new wrinkle in why it is that we honor our parents something that at least for me makes the myths that jump to life and I pull me away and I want to share it with you the insight came from something in this week's barcia that seems to have very little indeed to do with honoring your parents so I'm going to invite you to forget everything I told you for a moment about honoring your parents and just focus on this week's partial and we'll come back to our parents and kind of title together our parsha contains the famous mitzvah of salewa Hakan sending away a mother bird the way the turf raises it is if you find a nest with chicks in it or with eggs in it and on top of the nest you notice that there is a mother bird who is crouching over her young so the Mitzvah is asha laughs to Shalaka to send the mother bird away Vetta by 90 Kozlov and then you can take the chicks for yourself or the eggs for yourself and the great $64,000 question here is what exactly is the rationale for this Mitzvah it seems to have some sort of ethical message that indeed is the way almost all the commentators interpret it but exactly what is that message so again there's a lot of discussion of this among the major medieval commentators but basically the theories that are out there break up into two main groups led by the Rambam Maimonides and not mana these as the principal proponents of two different approaches the Rambam Maimonides argues that the basic idea here is that the worst thing you could do to any parent is to force them to witness the demise of their child Briella says it's not something unique to our own humanity that we can't deal with that that's true for animals as well and therefore the bits of shoe logic on sending away the mother bird is don't impose that that kind of cruelty even upon a bird the Torah gives you permission to take eggs or take the checks but don't force the mother to watch helplessly the demise of her young send her away and then you can take the chicks nom oddities and those in Nath mana Dee's camp see a little bit differently none of these argues that there's something here that smacks of species extinction in other words while the Torah gives human beings the right to consume animal products and indeed animals themselves we all understand that there's a difference between killing a cow for food and killing out the entire species cow there's something ethically abhorrent of the Rambam argues about driving an entire species to extinction and even though you're not actually doing that here nevertheless if you were to kill mother and child together two generations at once you were to take the eggs and the chicks and take the mother bird that's a kind of unconscionable overconsumption of the species and you don't do that so if you're going to take the chicks you're gonna take the eggs you're gonna save the mother bird send out the mother bird let her live and that's the run bonds way of looking at and what I'd like to do with you now is to explore the actual text of the Mitzvah itself as given in this week's bar shot because I think if we do if we pay attention to the words carefully we will discern yet another layer of meaning here in the rationale behind this Mitzvah beyond what Maimonides and math Monte's already tell us let me begin by asking a couple questions first why is this Mitzvah phrased in particular with reference to birds is there any reason for that in other words if it's just an issue like the Rambam says don't inflict this cruelty upon a parent to watch the death of its child that would be true for any species if it's a species extinction issue like the Ramban says so i specifically phrase it in terms of birds so it's question number one and here's question number two there's a piece of the text that seems problematic here you see the language of the text is key qorikancha Parlophone aha if you find this nest and you find another tree or you find it on the ground and there's chicks and there's eggs and they're and the mother is crouching over these chicks or over these eggs but then the phrase is low takaka am a laburnum do not take the mother upon to the children now you have to sort of sit there and ask yourself what that phrase is doing there it seems strangely out of play as according to both of the rumba and the Rambam you see as the text continues it makes sense according to either the Ramban and the Rambam shalyah to Chava have to aim that up at Mt law send out the mother and then take the children according to the Rambam that would mean send out the mother because don't inflict this pain upon her to make her watch the demise of her young according to the Rambam it means send out the mother so that you don't kill both on the same day but back up a little bit and ask yourself about that phrase lo te kaha aim alibi mean and you find yourself in a little bit of a problematic position what do you mean don't take the mother upon the children I mean that's not really the point according to either the Rambam or the Rumba and according to the Rambam that it's about not inflicting this pain upon the mother to watch the demise of the child it really should be low-key cough happening before me I am take the children in front of the mother what do you mean don't take the mother in front of the trolls not about taking the mother and according to the run ban it's not really any better low-tech aha a Malibu neem should really have been Latika hi I'm Emma by name don't take the mother with the children what do you mean don't take the mother upon the children why do you emphasis on taking the mother unless there's another layer of meaning in this Mitzvah the key to seeing it is to look at the reward it turns out that sending out the mother bird comes with a promise reward of long life and there's only one other positive command in the entire Torah that comes with a promise reward and it just so happens that that promised reward for the other myths there's also long life what is that other Mitzvah the other Mitzvah that carries the same reward is kyboot of an honoring your mother and your father it too comes with the promise of long life Kabhi d'ottavio Betty McCollum Anya Riku Yamaha honor your mother and father so that your days will be lengthened what possible common denominator could there be between the myths of sending away the mother bird and honor your mother and father the tourist seems to be linking these mitzvahs why the common denominator would seem to be the honouring of motherhood let me ask you a question how easy is it to capture an adult bird what if I told you to stop watching this video right now go outside and take a few minutes to capture a bird just go out there there's plenty of trees probably a lot of birds in them you can hear them chirping all over the place just go out with your bare hands and catch me a few birds and come on back and write me an email how many emails of successful bird catches do you think I'd get from you guys like none right it ain't easy to capture a mother bird that's the point of the Torah here you are walking down the street and you see a nest with a mother hovering over its young right there is the one chance you have to take a mother bird with your bare hands you know why because that mother bird will do anything to protect her young she will sacrifice herself if need be in a desperate effort to fend you off she will flutter her wings she will hover over that nest and therefore he might say to yourself you could take not just the eggs but you could take her too right don't do that low-tech aha a Malibu moon do not take the mother as she hovers over her young send her away and then take the eggs why because it's a desecration of motherhood let me explain when God first created the earth human beings could only eat vegetation then later on God says you know what you can eat animals too but there are restrictions one natural restriction is that God gave animals various abilities to evade predators for a bird that ability is flight its wings protect it in effect God said when it comes to birds you can have as many birds as you can catch but I'm gonna give the birds wings you're not gonna be able to catch that many of them so what does the Torah saying in this week's barcia let's look at the situation there's a bird's nest there's eggs there's chicks there's a mother bird the eggs the eggs you have a right to God gave humans the ability to consume animal products even animals themselves but the mother what's the only reason you'd be able to capture that mother she has wings she could fly away it's because she's protecting her young and she won't fly away you're using her own maternal instincts against her it's like there's a trap sure and the bait in the trap is nothing but the mother's own maternal instincts to use the maternal instinct itself against her that's a desecration of motherhood don't do it let the mother bird go for you don't really have a right to catcher and here I think is where you get to the most amazing insight in the world as to what it means to honor your mother because what exactly is the idea here with the mother bird it's that a mother will do anything for her young will even sacrifice herself for her young and we are commanded to honor that not to turn a mother's own instinct against her well that's not just true for the mother bird that's true for your own mother too your own mother will do anything for you yes she has expectations for you yes she has hopes for you but at the end of the day if you do not rise to her expectations and even if you disregard her hopes she will still love you because you are her child do not desecrate that love and take advantage of it that love that parental love is intended to help you grow do not take that love and use it as a trap that you set against her where you take and you take all of that love and you give nothing in return honor your parents and if you do and if you send away the mother bird you will find that in venerated motherhood the source of all life your own life will be strengthened you may well find that you yourself would live a long healthy life it's only fitting you show deference to the source of all life have a good show that hi YouTube thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe to our Channel and for even more amazing Torah videos check out Aleph beta org just click the link below

Channel: Aleph Beta

Views: 13,890

Rating: 4.9335179 out of 5

Keywords: ki teitzei, torah, parsha, parashah, parshat, how to live a long life, weekly parsha

Id: jz1Ii324jFQ

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2018