9.3.25 ~ The Easiest Commandment
Good morning!
From antiheroes to heroes. From the least of all commandments to the greatest, Every story in Scripture has multiple layers and mining the depths or scaling the heights of each story, topic or commandment is determined where one is in life and the amount of time they want to give in meditating upon that truth. This week's Torah portion, Ki Tetze/when you go out is full of 31 topics and 72 commands for sinking shafts deep or scaling to great heights.
One of the simplest concepts expressed in Scripture is to honor your parents! The Torah tells us to honor our parents and you will be granted long life (Ex. 20:11). 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 have given us life. That's straight forward and very basic for sure!
Ki Tetze contains the not so famous sending away a mother bird commandment, which may many of the stages from Time past is considered to be the least full Commandments, because it shows the fundamental aspect of mercy. The way the Torah phrases 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, send the mother bird away and then you can take the chicks for yourself or the eggs for yourself (Deut. 22:6, 7). What does this mean? Inquiring minds want to know 😊
Let me begin by asking your inquiring mind a couple of questions. First, why is this commandment/Mitzvah phrased with reference to birds? Is there any reason for that? So that's question number 1.
Here's question number 2. There's a piece of the text that seems A little strange in it’s wording. You see the language of the text is,
'if you find this nest and you find it on a tree or you find it on the ground and there's chicks and there's eggs in there and the mother is crouching over these chicks or over these eggs, do not take the mother upon the children. (Deut 22:6)
Why the emphasis on taking the mother?
Unless, there's another layer of meaning in this commandment/Mitzvah. The key to seeing it is to look at the reward. It turns out that sending the mother bird away comes with a promised reward of long life; The same as honoring your mother and father (Ex. 20:11). What do these two have in common? The common denominator would seem to be the honoring of motherhood.
Let's look at the situation with our Sherlock Holmes, detective kit. 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 can fly away? It's because she's protecting her young and she won't fly away. And there is the key to everything:You're using her own maternal instincts against her. It's like there's a trap here and the bait in the trap is nothing but the mother's own maternal instincts. You're using the maternal instinct itself against her. That's a desecration of motherhood, don't do it. Let the mother bird go free, you don't really have a right to catch her.
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. A healthy 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 esteeming motherhood, the source of all life, your own life will be strengthened. You may well find that you yourself will live a long, healthy life…maybe even 120! 🥳
In nature, this is the easiest commandment to do In life. With many of the troubling family dynamics it’s one of the first Commandments to be destroyed.
Live a long life!
Happy middle of the week!
Shalom!
One of the simplest concepts expressed in Scripture is to honor your parents! The Torah tells us to honor our parents and you will be granted long life (Ex. 20:11). 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 have given us life. That's straight forward and very basic for sure!
Ki Tetze contains the not so famous sending away a mother bird commandment, which may many of the stages from Time past is considered to be the least full Commandments, because it shows the fundamental aspect of mercy. The way the Torah phrases 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, send the mother bird away and then you can take the chicks for yourself or the eggs for yourself (Deut. 22:6, 7). What does this mean? Inquiring minds want to know 😊
Let me begin by asking your inquiring mind a couple of questions. First, why is this commandment/Mitzvah phrased with reference to birds? Is there any reason for that? So that's question number 1.
Here's question number 2. There's a piece of the text that seems A little strange in it’s wording. You see the language of the text is,
'if you find this nest and you find it on a tree or you find it on the ground and there's chicks and there's eggs in there and the mother is crouching over these chicks or over these eggs, do not take the mother upon the children. (Deut 22:6)
Why the emphasis on taking the mother?
Unless, there's another layer of meaning in this commandment/Mitzvah. The key to seeing it is to look at the reward. It turns out that sending the mother bird away comes with a promised reward of long life; The same as honoring your mother and father (Ex. 20:11). What do these two have in common? The common denominator would seem to be the honoring of motherhood.
Let's look at the situation with our Sherlock Holmes, detective kit. 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 can fly away? It's because she's protecting her young and she won't fly away. And there is the key to everything:You're using her own maternal instincts against her. It's like there's a trap here and the bait in the trap is nothing but the mother's own maternal instincts. You're using the maternal instinct itself against her. That's a desecration of motherhood, don't do it. Let the mother bird go free, you don't really have a right to catch her.
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. A healthy 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 esteeming motherhood, the source of all life, your own life will be strengthened. You may well find that you yourself will live a long, healthy life…maybe even 120! 🥳
In nature, this is the easiest commandment to do In life. With many of the troubling family dynamics it’s one of the first Commandments to be destroyed.
Live a long life!
Happy middle of the week!
Shalom!
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