Last week, as I wrote about Elul, I suggested that we might read the month backward: envisioning the people and community we hope to become, and then working backward to ask what we need to do today to move in that direction.
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, gives us another way to think about that practice.
A verse that caught my attention comes at the beginning of chapter 22 of Deuteronomy, as Moshe is relaying laws around finding someone else’s lost animal:
“…so too shall you do with anything that your fellow Israelite loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.”
The Hebrew for “you must not remain indifferent” intrigued me: לֹא תוּכַל לְהִתְעַלֵּם / Lo tukhal lehit'alem.
In its most literal sense, it means something like: You are not able to conceal yourself.
Translating from the original Hebrew offers more texture. While many translations want this to be about how we feel toward one another, the actual words tell us what not to do, not what to feel.
Do not hide.
But it actually says more: you are not able to hide.
I physically gasped when I realized the full meaning of this.
Gulp.
Here I am. Seen. And fully a part of all that is happening around me.
While this was strangely startling, I also experienced some freedom in imagining this perspective as a truth. Freedom to choose what to do next now that I know hiding is not even possible.
And I think that is part of what this season is asking of us.
The Shiva d'Nechemta, the seven weeks of consolation between Tisha B'Av and Rosh HaShanah, is enacted most visibly through the seven haftarot of consolation. But the Torah readings keep moving along too. As Rabbi Alan Lew z"l writes about this season, the Torah and haftarah are carrying us along related paths toward the Days of Awe.
We are being asked to do two things at once: to practice teshuvah – the sacred art of repair and repentance – and to practice tokhecha – the sacred practice of telling one another difficult truths and inviting one another toward repair.
And, as such, I am making two lists this week.
One is a list of people I need to apologize to.
The other is a list of people I think need to apologize to me.
The first list is uncomfortable, but in some ways it is straightforward. I can do something about it. I can write to someone and say, “I was wrong. I am sorry.” I can ask what repair might look like. I can begin the work of teshuvah.
The second list is harder.
Because the people on it may or may not be thinking about apologizing to me. They may have a completely different understanding of what happened. They may not remember. And even if they are making their own list of people they need to apologize to, I may not be on it.
What then?
Thank G-d for the obligation among our people to do tokhecha.
I first learned about tokhecha long ago, but my excitement about it swelled when I began leading a white men’s group at my rabbinical college.
As a person carrying white male privilege, I came to understand that if I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other white men – and with everyone who isn't a white man, which is to say, everyone – I needed to not only be good at giving tokhecha, I needed to be great at inviting tokhecha and at receiving tokhecha.
And, my G-d, is this easier to write than to do.
I needed to become not only someone who could hear, “This thing you did hurt me,” without getting defensive, but I needed to be someone whom others felt they could freely and, as lovingly as possible, offer that feedback to. I needed to learn that being a good person and having caused harm are not mutually exclusive. And that when I have done hurtful or harmful things, I still deserve a degree of compassion.
As I often do when I want to learn something deeply, I signed up to teach it.
The foundational teaching about tokhecha in Torah comes in Leviticus 19:17, which we will chant together on Yom Kippur:
“You shall not hate your kin in your heart. You shall surely do tokhecha [hokhe’ach tokhi’ach] with your neighbor, and do not bear guilt because of them.”
The obligation to do tokhecha appears right in the middle of a command not to hate someone in your heart.
The Torah seems to understand something about human relationships that can be easily forgotten when we veer toward strong, visceral emotions:
Silence is not always kindness.
Sometimes we avoid difficult conversations because we want to preserve a relationship. Sometimes we avoid them because we are afraid of conflict. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we are “letting it go” when really we are storing it somewhere inside ourselves.
And sometimes we do the opposite: we speak from the heat of anger, saying what needs to be said but in a way that makes it almost impossible for the other person to hear.
Tokhecha asks us to find another way.
Constructive confrontation.
These days, we sometimes use the language of calling in and calling out. I find both useful, because tokhecha can involve some of both.
Calling someone in says: I care enough about our relationship to tell you what I see, and I believe there may be a way through this together.
Calling someone out says: Something harmful is happening. It needs to be named, and it needs to be interrupted and stopped.
Sometimes we have the privilege of choosing between those approaches. Sometimes power, safety, or the seriousness of the harm means we don't.
Jewish tradition does not pretend that every relationship is equal or that every confrontation can be gentle. But where relationship is possible, it repeatedly asks us to pursue accountability without humiliation, and truth without abandoning the possibility of repair.
The rabbis were under no illusion that this was easy.
In Arakhin 16b, Rabbi Tarfon wonders whether anyone in his generation knows how to receive tokhecha. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria wonders whether anyone knows how to give it.
We are not naturally very good at this. And we maybe haven’t been for centuries.
The Talmud goes even further in Yevamot 65b:
“Just as it is a mitzvah for a person to say something that will be heard, so it is also a mitzvah for a person not to say something that will not be heard.”
Tokhecha is not a license to unload. It is not “I have a right to tell you exactly what I think without regard for you, dear community member.”
It is a practice of constructive confrontation: saying what needs to be said in service of relationship, with enough care and attention that it might actually be heard.
And I think this is particularly important for us in the Pacific Northwest, in progressive communities, and in Jewish communities shaped in part by assimilation into a culture that often prizes politeness above almost everything else.
We have plenty of reasons to push against that.
Politeness is not the same thing as kindness.
Avoiding conflict is not the same thing as preserving relationship.
Jewish tradition does not ask us to be nice. It asks us to be present, responsible, and in relationship.
If doikayt – the Diasporist practice of being fully present where we are, centering the current location of our lives – is part of what we mean when we say Hineni – here I am, ready to do the work – then perhaps there is nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide.
Unable to hide.
Turns out we may each just be a significant and meaningful part of what has happened, is happening, and what could still happen next.
For Kadima, I think this matters enormously.
If we are truly engaged in Reconstructing Kadima Together, then reconstruction cannot simply mean deciding what structures we want in the future. We have to overcome that which may be unspoken between us. We need to know where we stand with one another in order to know what we need to change.
That requires teshuvah.
And it also requires tokhecha.
It means creating a community where people can say, “This is what I experienced,” without immediately being told that their experience is wrong.
It means being able to hear, “This is how your action affected me,” without assuming ill intent.
It means being willing to say things because we care enough about one another – maybe enough about Kadima too – to try.
And it means being willing to invite feedback as well.
I can make a list of the people I believe I owe an apology to. I can make a list of the people I believe owe me one. But I cannot make someone else do the teshuvah that is theirs to do.
What I can do is decide whether I am willing to open the conversation.
And this is where I am finding myself this week of this Elul: with lists I have made, with messages I have started drafting, and with no guarantee about what will happen when – or if – I send them.
Perhaps that is part of the practice.
Tokhecha is not a perfectly crafted statement in which I get to write both sides of the conversation. It is an opening.
I don't exactly know what will happen when things open up. I don't know whether the other person will understand, agree, apologize, or even want to have the conversation.
But I do know this:
I am not able to hide myself.
Neither are you.
Neither are we.
So perhaps this is our practice for this week: not to fix everything, not to make ourselves ready for Yom Kippur, but simply to become a little more willing to be here – to see, to speak, to listen, and to stay in relationship with what we discover.
And perhaps this is why I am drawn to another teaching from the Talmud that we may return to later this season. In Yoma 86a, Rabbi Chama bar Chanina points to the words of the prophet Hosea: אֶרְפָּא מְשׁוּבָתָם אֹהֲבֵם נְדָבָה / Erpa m’shuvatam; ohaveim n’davah: “I will heal their backsliding; I will love them generously.”
The Hebrew word Hosea uses for backsliding, m’shuvatam, comes from the same root as teshuvah: turning, returning. Even when we have turned the wrong way, the possibility of returning remains. And the response imagined by the prophet is not rejection, but healing and love.
I know that may not be where we are yet. But reading Elul backwards, it is where we could aim to be, as soon as is collectively possible – bimheira b'yameinu.
This week, our work might be to stop hiding. To investigate what is true through courageous and constructive confrontation and through humble and active listening.
Nearly half of these seven weeks are behind us. We cannot hide. Here we are.
While the bad news might be: we have work to do; the good news is: there is work we can do. May shabbat provide fuel for the work ahead, and may we do the work with imperfection and grace.
Shabbat shalom and continued Shiva d'Nechemta tovah,
R’ David
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, gives us another way to think about that practice.
A verse that caught my attention comes at the beginning of chapter 22 of Deuteronomy, as Moshe is relaying laws around finding someone else’s lost animal:
“…so too shall you do with anything that your fellow Israelite loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.”
The Hebrew for “you must not remain indifferent” intrigued me: לֹא תוּכַל לְהִתְעַלֵּם / Lo tukhal lehit'alem.
In its most literal sense, it means something like: You are not able to conceal yourself.
Translating from the original Hebrew offers more texture. While many translations want this to be about how we feel toward one another, the actual words tell us what not to do, not what to feel.
Do not hide.
But it actually says more: you are not able to hide.
I physically gasped when I realized the full meaning of this.
Gulp.
Here I am. Seen. And fully a part of all that is happening around me.
While this was strangely startling, I also experienced some freedom in imagining this perspective as a truth. Freedom to choose what to do next now that I know hiding is not even possible.
And I think that is part of what this season is asking of us.
The Shiva d'Nechemta, the seven weeks of consolation between Tisha B'Av and Rosh HaShanah, is enacted most visibly through the seven haftarot of consolation. But the Torah readings keep moving along too. As Rabbi Alan Lew z"l writes about this season, the Torah and haftarah are carrying us along related paths toward the Days of Awe.
We are being asked to do two things at once: to practice teshuvah – the sacred art of repair and repentance – and to practice tokhecha – the sacred practice of telling one another difficult truths and inviting one another toward repair.
And, as such, I am making two lists this week.
One is a list of people I need to apologize to.
The other is a list of people I think need to apologize to me.
The first list is uncomfortable, but in some ways it is straightforward. I can do something about it. I can write to someone and say, “I was wrong. I am sorry.” I can ask what repair might look like. I can begin the work of teshuvah.
The second list is harder.
Because the people on it may or may not be thinking about apologizing to me. They may have a completely different understanding of what happened. They may not remember. And even if they are making their own list of people they need to apologize to, I may not be on it.
What then?
Thank G-d for the obligation among our people to do tokhecha.
I first learned about tokhecha long ago, but my excitement about it swelled when I began leading a white men’s group at my rabbinical college.
As a person carrying white male privilege, I came to understand that if I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other white men – and with everyone who isn't a white man, which is to say, everyone – I needed to not only be good at giving tokhecha, I needed to be great at inviting tokhecha and at receiving tokhecha.
And, my G-d, is this easier to write than to do.
I needed to become not only someone who could hear, “This thing you did hurt me,” without getting defensive, but I needed to be someone whom others felt they could freely and, as lovingly as possible, offer that feedback to. I needed to learn that being a good person and having caused harm are not mutually exclusive. And that when I have done hurtful or harmful things, I still deserve a degree of compassion.
As I often do when I want to learn something deeply, I signed up to teach it.
The foundational teaching about tokhecha in Torah comes in Leviticus 19:17, which we will chant together on Yom Kippur:
“You shall not hate your kin in your heart. You shall surely do tokhecha [hokhe’ach tokhi’ach] with your neighbor, and do not bear guilt because of them.”
The obligation to do tokhecha appears right in the middle of a command not to hate someone in your heart.
The Torah seems to understand something about human relationships that can be easily forgotten when we veer toward strong, visceral emotions:
Silence is not always kindness.
Sometimes we avoid difficult conversations because we want to preserve a relationship. Sometimes we avoid them because we are afraid of conflict. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we are “letting it go” when really we are storing it somewhere inside ourselves.
And sometimes we do the opposite: we speak from the heat of anger, saying what needs to be said but in a way that makes it almost impossible for the other person to hear.
Tokhecha asks us to find another way.
Constructive confrontation.
These days, we sometimes use the language of calling in and calling out. I find both useful, because tokhecha can involve some of both.
Calling someone in says: I care enough about our relationship to tell you what I see, and I believe there may be a way through this together.
Calling someone out says: Something harmful is happening. It needs to be named, and it needs to be interrupted and stopped.
Sometimes we have the privilege of choosing between those approaches. Sometimes power, safety, or the seriousness of the harm means we don't.
Jewish tradition does not pretend that every relationship is equal or that every confrontation can be gentle. But where relationship is possible, it repeatedly asks us to pursue accountability without humiliation, and truth without abandoning the possibility of repair.
The rabbis were under no illusion that this was easy.
In Arakhin 16b, Rabbi Tarfon wonders whether anyone in his generation knows how to receive tokhecha. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria wonders whether anyone knows how to give it.
We are not naturally very good at this. And we maybe haven’t been for centuries.
The Talmud goes even further in Yevamot 65b:
“Just as it is a mitzvah for a person to say something that will be heard, so it is also a mitzvah for a person not to say something that will not be heard.”
Tokhecha is not a license to unload. It is not “I have a right to tell you exactly what I think without regard for you, dear community member.”
It is a practice of constructive confrontation: saying what needs to be said in service of relationship, with enough care and attention that it might actually be heard.
And I think this is particularly important for us in the Pacific Northwest, in progressive communities, and in Jewish communities shaped in part by assimilation into a culture that often prizes politeness above almost everything else.
We have plenty of reasons to push against that.
Politeness is not the same thing as kindness.
Avoiding conflict is not the same thing as preserving relationship.
Jewish tradition does not ask us to be nice. It asks us to be present, responsible, and in relationship.
If doikayt – the Diasporist practice of being fully present where we are, centering the current location of our lives – is part of what we mean when we say Hineni – here I am, ready to do the work – then perhaps there is nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide.
Unable to hide.
Turns out we may each just be a significant and meaningful part of what has happened, is happening, and what could still happen next.
For Kadima, I think this matters enormously.
If we are truly engaged in Reconstructing Kadima Together, then reconstruction cannot simply mean deciding what structures we want in the future. We have to overcome that which may be unspoken between us. We need to know where we stand with one another in order to know what we need to change.
That requires teshuvah.
And it also requires tokhecha.
It means creating a community where people can say, “This is what I experienced,” without immediately being told that their experience is wrong.
It means being able to hear, “This is how your action affected me,” without assuming ill intent.
It means being willing to say things because we care enough about one another – maybe enough about Kadima too – to try.
And it means being willing to invite feedback as well.
I can make a list of the people I believe I owe an apology to. I can make a list of the people I believe owe me one. But I cannot make someone else do the teshuvah that is theirs to do.
What I can do is decide whether I am willing to open the conversation.
And this is where I am finding myself this week of this Elul: with lists I have made, with messages I have started drafting, and with no guarantee about what will happen when – or if – I send them.
Perhaps that is part of the practice.
Tokhecha is not a perfectly crafted statement in which I get to write both sides of the conversation. It is an opening.
I don't exactly know what will happen when things open up. I don't know whether the other person will understand, agree, apologize, or even want to have the conversation.
But I do know this:
I am not able to hide myself.
Neither are you.
Neither are we.
So perhaps this is our practice for this week: not to fix everything, not to make ourselves ready for Yom Kippur, but simply to become a little more willing to be here – to see, to speak, to listen, and to stay in relationship with what we discover.
And perhaps this is why I am drawn to another teaching from the Talmud that we may return to later this season. In Yoma 86a, Rabbi Chama bar Chanina points to the words of the prophet Hosea: אֶרְפָּא מְשׁוּבָתָם אֹהֲבֵם נְדָבָה / Erpa m’shuvatam; ohaveim n’davah: “I will heal their backsliding; I will love them generously.”
The Hebrew word Hosea uses for backsliding, m’shuvatam, comes from the same root as teshuvah: turning, returning. Even when we have turned the wrong way, the possibility of returning remains. And the response imagined by the prophet is not rejection, but healing and love.
I know that may not be where we are yet. But reading Elul backwards, it is where we could aim to be, as soon as is collectively possible – bimheira b'yameinu.
This week, our work might be to stop hiding. To investigate what is true through courageous and constructive confrontation and through humble and active listening.
Nearly half of these seven weeks are behind us. We cannot hide. Here we are.
While the bad news might be: we have work to do; the good news is: there is work we can do. May shabbat provide fuel for the work ahead, and may we do the work with imperfection and grace.
Shabbat shalom and continued Shiva d'Nechemta tovah,
R’ David
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