September 13, 2024 / 10 Elul 5784
Parashat Ki Teitzei – a long collection of laws – contains more mitzvot (commandments) than any other Torah portion; 72 mitzvot to be precise, more than 10% of the total! Here’s one of them:
You must fulfill what has crossed your lips and perform what you have voluntarily vowed to Adonai your God, having made the promise with your own mouth. [Deuteronomy 23:24]
The early Midrash opens up a beautiful underlying principle for us.
‘having made the promise with your own mouth’ Why are these words added? Does it not already say, ‘You must fulfill what has crossed your lips and perform what you have voluntarily vowed?’ What, then, does it mean? (This law applies) only once his mouth and his heart are equal. [Midrash Tana’im]
Heart and mouth must align, say the rabbis, a principle reiterated over and over again in halakhic writing. Take Rambam’s word for it:
the rule among us (ha’ikar etzleinu) is that the conclusion of one’s heart should emerge from one’s lips. [Commentary on the Mishnah, Terumot 3:8]
19th and early 20th century Hasidic master, R. Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, adds a spiritual layer:
The mouth is the most inward of our limbs; all the breath and the inward self come out as we open our mouths. That is why the mouth needs special guarding…that is why this mitzvah requires full-time duty – day and night – because the opening of the mouth needs to be so guarded. The very root of a person’s life is in that inner breath. Guarding this stands at the root of all one’s deeds…the rest of our deeds all depend upon guarding the mouth. [Sefat Emet]
Sefat Emet’s insight is striking and resonant. The root of a person’s being, of their human-ness, is their inner breath; it is that inner breath that becomes speech; we need to mind them both. Full time work indeed! And everything else depends on it.
50 years ago, I was called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah, Shabbat Ki Teitzei 5734 (1974). As a 13 year old, I wasn’t so focused on spirituality let alone my (or anyone else’s) inner breath. I guess one grows a bit in half a century. Today, Rambam and Sefat Emet really speak to me; perhaps they speak to you as well. I hope so. This Shabbat, I’ll get to chant those words again, along with Ki Teitzei’s haftarah, whose ringing closing words couldn’t arrive at a more propitious moment for all of us:
כִּ֤י הֶהָרִים֙ יָמ֔וּשׁוּ וְהַגְּבָע֖וֹת תְּמוּטֶ֑ינָה וְחַסְדִּ֞י מֵאִתֵּ֣ךְ לֹא־יָמ֗וּשׁ וּבְרִ֤ית שְׁלוֹמִי֙ לֹ֣א תָמ֔וּט אָמַ֥ר מְרַחֲמֵ֖ךְ יְהֹוָֽה׃
For the mountains may move and the hills be shaken,
But my loyalty shall never move from you, nor My covenant of friendship be shaken
—said GOD, who takes you back in love.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi David
