Parashat HaShavua - Ki Tetze

Parashat Ki Tetze is always read during the month of Elul, the month in the Jewish calendar that is dedicated to beginning our process of teshuvah.  It is ironic in a way, since teshuvah (from the root lashuv, to return) is understood to be a process of returning — to God, to our highest selves — and Ki Tetze means “when you go out,” indicating not a journey of return but of setting out for a new place.

There is, however, a moment in the parasha that can be understood as bringing these two contradictory directions together.  

We read in Deuteronomy 24: If you make a loan of any sort to your countryman, if he is a poor man, you shall not go to sleep in his pledge; you must return it to him at sundown, that he may sleep in his cloth and bless you; and it will be to your merit before God.

In this case a person borrows money from you and gives you his cloak as collateral.  But the Torah stipulates that if he is poor -- that is to say, if he does not have another cloak -- you must return it to him before nightfall.  So even though the cloak technically belongs to you until your money is paid back, you still have to return it to the person so he isn’t freezing cold at night.  

And then the Torah adds an unusual little coda to this case.  It says.  ולך תהיה צדקה which Sefaria translates and it will be to your merit.  But you could also understand it to mean: “and you will become tzedaka”  What does this mean?  Rabbi Heschel in his book the Prophets defines tzedek, the root of the word tzedaka, as justice that includes compassion, in contrast to mishpat which is simply strict justice.  Somehow, in the act of returning the cloak, you will move from mishpat (the cloak is now mine) to true righteousness: you will now understand that even though the cloak technically belongs to you, your job is to return it so someone else doesn’t have to freeze in the desert at night.

Now, two things have happened.  First, there has been a process of return — the cloak has been returned to its owner.  At the same time, the finder has, in a way, moved forward spiritually, out of the comfort zone of the letter of the law, toward justice that includes compassion, just as Ki Tetze, “when you go out” (or forward) bids us to do.

And perhaps this is the true definition of teshuva — we aren’t simply instructed to return to who we used to be.  Yes, it needs to be a process of returning, whether you think of it as a return to God or to the values we hold most dear. But at the same time, that process of return should cause us to move forward, to develop spiritually every year. 

May our return be a return of renewal and change this year.

Rabbi Anne Ebersman