Parashat Ki Teitzei is a microcosm of religious law. It contains some of the most painful passages in the Torah dealing with and arguably even endorsing gendered violence, and laws that read to us as expressions of nationalism and xenophobia. Equally, it contains some inspiring ethical principles couched in terms of practical obligations towards the vulnerable, including women and foreigners. By quoting selectively, you could make the case that the Torah is an instrument of a patriarchal bronze age society that no thinking person today would have any use for. I’m sure it’s been done. I’ve certainly listened to apologetic sermons that do the opposite, ignoring all the bad stuff to give the impression that the Parashah is a document of unparalleled ethical beauty.
The thing is, though, in Jewish tradition we don’t usually read the Bible literally in order to decide whether we agree or disagree with it! We comment, we interpret, we argue and debate, we try to imagine the society we want and derive the laws that will get us there from our revealed texts. As a student rabbi, I was given an assignment to spend the whole academic year working on one single Biblical verse. At first this seemed absurd, but it didn’t take long to realize that in a year I could barely scratch the surface of the whole history of a single verse in Ki Teitzei: Deuteronomy 24:14:
“You must not exploit a poor and needy hired worker, from among your kin or from your resident who is in your land, in your cities.”
There’s translations, ancient as well modern; coming up with my own translation was itself the fruit of weeks of work with dictionaries and philological scholarship. There’s all the layers of rabbinic commentary, from the earliest texts like the Mishnah, to Midrash giving spiritual interpretations to even dry legal texts, to the Mediaeval law codes and line-by-line discussions of the meanings of the verse. Not forgetting the whole broader context of what the Torah means to us.
Even within the one verse, there’s a single word that came to dominate my research: ‘resident’, in Hebrew ger. Many translations render it as ‘stranger’, and some use the rather old-fashioned term ‘sojourner’. The whole interpretation of the verse hinges on who exactly is this ger? The answer depends on whether you think Deuteronomy (and indeed Torah in its broadest sense) is a nationalist manifesto about the Israelites being the chosen people, destined by God to drive all others out of the Promised Land, or whether it’s an ethical ideal that mandates fair treatment of all regardless of geographic origin. As I traced this question through Jewish history, it became obvious that people don’t fall into two neat categories: Israelites, later defined as Jews, and “strangers” who have nothing to do with us.
I looked at how the Mishnah and early halakhic (legal) midrash interpret my verse, and found that some commentators start to redefine ger as ‘convert’. So all the times that the Torah tells us to love the ger, it doesn’t mean ‘love the stranger’ but rather treat Jews by choice fairly and grant them equality with born Jews. That’s a valid principle, but it doesn’t really add anything to the commandment to pay workers fairly (and promptly, as we find in the subsequent verse, 24:15). Jews by choice are fully equal anyway, so of course the same employment rights apply. Having decided that ger doesn’t really mean ‘stranger’, the Mishnah immediately introduces a new category: the ger toshav or ‘settled resident’, to cover the case where those who are not fully part of the people are nevertheless part of society.
Sometimes Jews employ non-Jews to work for them; the question becomes, does the settled resident, or in later times non-Jewish employee, have the same rights as an Israelite or Jew? The Babylonian Talmud, famous for representing all sides, includes the whole range: some say that any level of exploiting and even robbing non-Jews is acceptable, where others say that the settled resident has the same or nearly the same rights as a Jewish employee. There seems to be a tradition from the school of R Akiva via his student R Yehudah and R Yehudah’s son R Yosse that grants the settled resident explicit employment rights. To a modern, liberal reader, this makes sense; migrant workers are vulnerable, it’s only reasonable that they’re covered by laws designed to protect the needy. And most commentaries originating from the land of Israel, including the Jerusalem Talmud, agree with R Yosse’s view. But Babylonian Talmud wasn’t comfortable with an in-between status, neither Israelite nor idol-worshipper, so they tried to abolish the whole category of settled resident, leaving non-Jewish workers in legal limbo.
Turning to Mediaeval halakhic codes, I found that from Maimonides onwards there is a clear prohibition on exploiting non-Jews, including their labour. Phew! We have a counter to those antisemites who like to quote phrases from the Talmud out of context to prove that Jews are dishonest. The category of ‘settled resident’ remains murky, though; are there people who are neither ‘us’ nor ‘them’? In contexts where Jews hold relative financial power and are in a position to employ, and potentially exploit, outsiders, commentaries interpret the verse as an obligation towards all ‘poor and needy’ workers. But in contexts of persecution where Jews are relatively powerless, it doesn’t make sense to create an ethical obligation to those who rule over us.
The question continues into the contemporary sphere with important consequences for the relationship between the Jewish majority and Arab, Palestinian and other non-Jewish workers in Israel. Modern discussions also build on mediaeval expansions of the early Rabbinic debate, with questions of what is worker exploitation anyway? What about issues like exposing employees to dangerous conditions, or paying promptly in a complex financial system with banks, payroll and all the rest?
Ki Teitzei isn’t a pretty platitude to make us feel smug, and it isn’t a bad opinion to throw away because we’re too modern for it. It’s an invitation to go ever deeper, with the text as a thread to guide us as we navigate the complexities of our society and how we express Torah values in our diverse contexts.
Rachel Berkson, LBC rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.