Parashat Ki Teitzei is famously dense with commandments, the Rabbis count 74 of the 613 mitzvot charged within it, more than any other parashah. Amid this myriad of laws sits a quiet but powerful teaching: the mitzvah of hashavat aveidah, returning a lost object. In Deuteronomy 22:3 the Torah tells us that if we see our fellow's donkey wandering astray, or lost garment left behind, we may not simply look away. "Lo tuchal l'hitalem" ("you must not remain indifferent").
...
The Talmud expands this principle far beyond livestock. Our sages teach that lo tuchal l'hitalem applies to any situation where a fellow community member has lost something, property, yes, but also peace of mind, safety, or connection to community. Indifference, the Rabbis insist, is not neutral. It is its own kind of harm.
There's a well-known parable often told alongside this verse: a shepherd notices a single sheep has wandered from the flock, far off in the hills. His companions tell him not to bother, one sheep, they say, will hardly be missed. But the shepherd goes anyway, because to him, a flock is not just a number. It is every single sheep, known and accounted for.
This week's Haftorah reading reinforces that same spirit from another direction. Isaiah speaks words of comfort to a people who have felt forgotten ("Ki heharim yamushu") even if mountains should move, Gd's kindness will not depart. It is a promise that no one is meant to grieve alone or unnoticed.
We share these teachings this week because they capture, more clearly than we could on our own, why the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples is introducing a new community resource: a weekly notification of losses within our Jewish community, drawn from information shared with us by our local synagogues and Jewish organizations. Each week the link will be available at the end of our Friday newsletter connecting the reader to a webpage of updated names (may the memory of those listed be for a blessing).
Not every member of our community belongs to a congregation. Not everyone is on a temple listserv. But loss does not check membership rolls before it visits a family, and neither should our care. In the spirit of lo tuchal l'hitalem, we hope this small effort helps ensure that no one in our extended Jewish family passes without their neighbors, friends, and community knowing, and having the chance to reach out, sit with a grieving family, or simply say: we see you, and you are not alone. Because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom.
|
|