Finding our way - Ki Teitzei 5786
I’m going to start by taking us back about 5 weeks, to Tisha b’Av. The public recitation of the book of Eikhah (Lamentations) concludes with the congregation singing together the penultimate verse of the book:
הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְ׳הֹ׳וָ׳ה׳ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם׃
Take us back, O ETERNAL One, to Yourself, And let us come back;
Renew our days as of old! (Lamentations 5:21)
We read Eikhah on Tisha b’Av, our lowest day of the year. And immediately following that day of mourning and fasting, we begin a process of coming up out of that hole, signified by the seven Haftarot that we read on each of the weeks that follow Tisha b’Av, taking us straight into Rosh Hashanah. And it’s well into Elul at this point, so it’s getting closer and closer.
I tend to grumble and make self-deprecating jokes about not being ready for the High Holidays during this time. (Truthfully, it’s not my favorite part of the year.) But when we think about this season that we’re in the middle of, it really starts with that moment at the end of Eikhah reading: הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ - Take us back, return us.
This word, הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ shares the same Hebrew root as תשובה (teshuvah), which we usually translate as repentance. It’s the spiritual work we’re meant to be doing during this time of year, examining our past 12 months, taking accounting of our metaphorical credits and debits, and taking accountability for what we could have done better. We strive to turn back into our truest selves, returning to who we most want to be.
Our parashah this week, Ki Teitzei, also speaks of returning, but of a different sort. Same Hebrew root, different meaning. The opening verses of Chapter 22 of Deuteronomy teach us the basics of the mitzvah of השבת אבדה (hashavat aveidah), returning lost objects. The linguistic connection here is more than just coincidental. There are deep lessons we can learn about תשובה from the mitzvah of returning a lost object.
The rules as laid out in the parashah are as follows: If you see your fellow’s animal gone astray, you cannot ignore it. Rather, you must return it to them. If you don’t know who the owner is, take the animal home until the owner comes to claim it. Same goes for anything that belongs to someone else. We must return them to their rightful owners. As the Torah states, הָשֵׁב תְּשִׁיבֵם (hasheiv t’shiveim), you must take it back.
Commentaries and later rabbinic literature make much of these three verses. The second chapter of Masekhet Bava Metzia, both in the Mishnah and in the later Talmudic discussion, is devoted in its entirety to parsing out the rules and explanations for how one properly returns a lost object.
One difficulty that is raised by the Talmud is the issue of returning something when we don’t personally know who the owner is. Enter the concept of a siman, a distinguishing mark on an object, rendering it immediately identifiable if someone comes to take it back. It would be a terrible thing to return a lost object to the wrong person, essentially enabling theft. So if the finder doesn’t know the owner of what they found, a siman – like a name written on it, or a distinctive pattern, and the like – would enable a hopeful owner to claim their item and prove their ownership.
This happens in the real world all the time. True story: Last summer, I was in Harrisburg for a weekend. We stayed at a hotel downtown and about an hour after we left, I realized I didn’t have my phone. I figured out pretty quickly that I had left it at the front desk and immediately called the hotel to make sure they had it. The first thing they did was ask me to describe it. And when I came back to retrieve it, they asked me again to describe it before giving it to me.
Teshuvah lesson #1: We need to be able to identify what we’ve lost. If we relate to the process of teshuvah as trying to return to ourselves, we need to figure out where we’re returning from. How did we stray from our path? What of ourselves have we lost along the way? What are the simanim, the distinguishing features, of those pieces of ourselves so that we can know how to get them back when we find them?
Last summer, I was able to come back to get my phone because I was driving a car and had the time available to drive back to the hotel. But this isn’t always possible. Sometimes we lose things when we’re far from home, not realizing they’re gone until we’ve left. The Talmud (BT Bava Metzia 28a-b) connects this experience to what evidently was a frequent issue during the three pilgrimage festivals, when people would come together from all around the region to celebrate in Jerusalem at the Temple. If you found something on one festival and didn’t locate its owner, you would bring it back each subsequent festival and try again and again.
Teshuvah lesson #2: This is a process that takes time. We might figure out that we’ve become disconnected from part of ourselves in one moment and need months or years to reestablish that connection. Teshuvah doesn’t happen overnight or all at once. We talk about it a lot at this time of year, but that doesn’t mean our need to return to ourselves is limited to the weeks around the High Holidays.
The Talmud also teaches that, during the time that the Temple was standing, there was a “claimant’s stone” in Jerusalem, a place where everyone would come to find what they had lost. Finders would proclaim what they had and owners would provide the necessary siman to claim their lost objects.
Teshuvah lesson #3: This isn’t something we can do alone. When we’ve really and truly lost a piece of who we are, of who we aim to be, there’s only so much we can do on our own to find it. Trusted friends, family, clergy, and therapists are all parts of the framework for finding our way back to ourselves. If there are those we’ve hurt, we need to reach out to them to seek repair. Teshuvah happens in relationship, in community.
There’s a story in the Talmud that I adore. While it doesn’t appear in the main discussion of finding lost objects, its focus is exactly that. The story goes (BT Ta’anit 25a) that a certain person passed by Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa’s house and left some chickens by the door. Rabbi Hanina’s wife (who unfortunately doesn’t get a name) finds the chickens and looks after them, anticipating being able to return them to the rightful owner.
Chickens do as chickens do and soon, there are some eggs waiting to hatch. Still no owner. Rabbi Hanina and his wife make sure not to use the eggs, since they aren’t theirs. The eggs hatch, bringing more chickens, who lay more eggs…Pretty soon, there’s no more room for chickens, for their mess or their noise, so the ben Dosas sell the chickens and buy some goats. Eventually, the original owner comes back to the ben Dosas’ house, asking if they have the chickens he left there. Rabbi Hanina asks the man if he can provide some simanim for the chickens, in order to prove his rightful ownership. The man immediately tells Rabbi Hanina what he needs to hear and Rabbi Hanina presents the man with his goats.
Teshuvah lesson #4: Sometimes the person we find is not the same person we lost. The word teshuvah, like the Hebrew root in the other places it appears, literally means “return.” While we use this word for the process that is our primary spiritual focus at this time of year, we’re not exactly returning. When we return a lost object, unless we’re Hanina ben Dosa, we’re giving back the same thing that the owner lost track of.
When we sincerely engage in teshuvah, looking carefully at ourselves and doing the emotional and relational work that it entails, we should not be the same on the other side. May we use this time of year to find the things about ourselves we’ve lost, readying ourselves to start the new year transformed for the better.
Shabbat shalom.
I’m going to start by taking us back about 5 weeks, to Tisha b’Av. The public recitation of the book of Eikhah (Lamentations) concludes with the congregation singing together the penultimate verse of the book:
הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְ׳הֹ׳וָ׳ה׳ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם׃
Take us back, O ETERNAL One, to Yourself, And let us come back;
Renew our days as of old! (Lamentations 5:21)
We read Eikhah on Tisha b’Av, our lowest day of the year. And immediately following that day of mourning and fasting, we begin a process of coming up out of that hole, signified by the seven Haftarot that we read on each of the weeks that follow Tisha b’Av, taking us straight into Rosh Hashanah. And it’s well into Elul at this point, so it’s getting closer and closer.
I tend to grumble and make self-deprecating jokes about not being ready for the High Holidays during this time. (Truthfully, it’s not my favorite part of the year.) But when we think about this season that we’re in the middle of, it really starts with that moment at the end of Eikhah reading: הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ - Take us back, return us.
This word, הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ shares the same Hebrew root as תשובה (teshuvah), which we usually translate as repentance. It’s the spiritual work we’re meant to be doing during this time of year, examining our past 12 months, taking accounting of our metaphorical credits and debits, and taking accountability for what we could have done better. We strive to turn back into our truest selves, returning to who we most want to be.
Our parashah this week, Ki Teitzei, also speaks of returning, but of a different sort. Same Hebrew root, different meaning. The opening verses of Chapter 22 of Deuteronomy teach us the basics of the mitzvah of השבת אבדה (hashavat aveidah), returning lost objects. The linguistic connection here is more than just coincidental. There are deep lessons we can learn about תשובה from the mitzvah of returning a lost object.
The rules as laid out in the parashah are as follows: If you see your fellow’s animal gone astray, you cannot ignore it. Rather, you must return it to them. If you don’t know who the owner is, take the animal home until the owner comes to claim it. Same goes for anything that belongs to someone else. We must return them to their rightful owners. As the Torah states, הָשֵׁב תְּשִׁיבֵם (hasheiv t’shiveim), you must take it back.
Commentaries and later rabbinic literature make much of these three verses. The second chapter of Masekhet Bava Metzia, both in the Mishnah and in the later Talmudic discussion, is devoted in its entirety to parsing out the rules and explanations for how one properly returns a lost object.
One difficulty that is raised by the Talmud is the issue of returning something when we don’t personally know who the owner is. Enter the concept of a siman, a distinguishing mark on an object, rendering it immediately identifiable if someone comes to take it back. It would be a terrible thing to return a lost object to the wrong person, essentially enabling theft. So if the finder doesn’t know the owner of what they found, a siman – like a name written on it, or a distinctive pattern, and the like – would enable a hopeful owner to claim their item and prove their ownership.
This happens in the real world all the time. True story: Last summer, I was in Harrisburg for a weekend. We stayed at a hotel downtown and about an hour after we left, I realized I didn’t have my phone. I figured out pretty quickly that I had left it at the front desk and immediately called the hotel to make sure they had it. The first thing they did was ask me to describe it. And when I came back to retrieve it, they asked me again to describe it before giving it to me.
Teshuvah lesson #1: We need to be able to identify what we’ve lost. If we relate to the process of teshuvah as trying to return to ourselves, we need to figure out where we’re returning from. How did we stray from our path? What of ourselves have we lost along the way? What are the simanim, the distinguishing features, of those pieces of ourselves so that we can know how to get them back when we find them?
Last summer, I was able to come back to get my phone because I was driving a car and had the time available to drive back to the hotel. But this isn’t always possible. Sometimes we lose things when we’re far from home, not realizing they’re gone until we’ve left. The Talmud (BT Bava Metzia 28a-b) connects this experience to what evidently was a frequent issue during the three pilgrimage festivals, when people would come together from all around the region to celebrate in Jerusalem at the Temple. If you found something on one festival and didn’t locate its owner, you would bring it back each subsequent festival and try again and again.
Teshuvah lesson #2: This is a process that takes time. We might figure out that we’ve become disconnected from part of ourselves in one moment and need months or years to reestablish that connection. Teshuvah doesn’t happen overnight or all at once. We talk about it a lot at this time of year, but that doesn’t mean our need to return to ourselves is limited to the weeks around the High Holidays.
The Talmud also teaches that, during the time that the Temple was standing, there was a “claimant’s stone” in Jerusalem, a place where everyone would come to find what they had lost. Finders would proclaim what they had and owners would provide the necessary siman to claim their lost objects.
Teshuvah lesson #3: This isn’t something we can do alone. When we’ve really and truly lost a piece of who we are, of who we aim to be, there’s only so much we can do on our own to find it. Trusted friends, family, clergy, and therapists are all parts of the framework for finding our way back to ourselves. If there are those we’ve hurt, we need to reach out to them to seek repair. Teshuvah happens in relationship, in community.
There’s a story in the Talmud that I adore. While it doesn’t appear in the main discussion of finding lost objects, its focus is exactly that. The story goes (BT Ta’anit 25a) that a certain person passed by Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa’s house and left some chickens by the door. Rabbi Hanina’s wife (who unfortunately doesn’t get a name) finds the chickens and looks after them, anticipating being able to return them to the rightful owner.
Chickens do as chickens do and soon, there are some eggs waiting to hatch. Still no owner. Rabbi Hanina and his wife make sure not to use the eggs, since they aren’t theirs. The eggs hatch, bringing more chickens, who lay more eggs…Pretty soon, there’s no more room for chickens, for their mess or their noise, so the ben Dosas sell the chickens and buy some goats. Eventually, the original owner comes back to the ben Dosas’ house, asking if they have the chickens he left there. Rabbi Hanina asks the man if he can provide some simanim for the chickens, in order to prove his rightful ownership. The man immediately tells Rabbi Hanina what he needs to hear and Rabbi Hanina presents the man with his goats.
Teshuvah lesson #4: Sometimes the person we find is not the same person we lost. The word teshuvah, like the Hebrew root in the other places it appears, literally means “return.” While we use this word for the process that is our primary spiritual focus at this time of year, we’re not exactly returning. When we return a lost object, unless we’re Hanina ben Dosa, we’re giving back the same thing that the owner lost track of.
When we sincerely engage in teshuvah, looking carefully at ourselves and doing the emotional and relational work that it entails, we should not be the same on the other side. May we use this time of year to find the things about ourselves we’ve lost, readying ourselves to start the new year transformed for the better.
Shabbat shalom.