Ki Teitzei: Two years after October 7th
Parasha Ki Teitzei 2025
By RABBI NEAL BOROVITZ
September 4, 2025, 9:49 am
This week’s Torah reading is called Ki Teitzei. It begins with the verse “When you go out to war” and in fact refers the reader back to last week’s parasha, Shoftim, where we learn about the responsibilities incumbent upon citizens when they must fight in defensive wars and about the rules of war. Our extremely eclectic Torah portion continues with the issues of the rights and responsibilities of soldiers vis a vis captive enemies, and then goes on to include an assortment of unrelated commandments that, according to Maimonides, make up 72 of the Torah’s 613 commandments. When I come to study this parasha each year, during the month of Elul, I often feel that Moses, knowing both that he is about to die and that he has the entire community’s attention, is trying to say it all. The reality, as Hillel taught thousands of years after Moses, is that while the essence of Torah can be summarized by Leviticus 19:18, Love your neighbor as yourself, in every age, every person must, as Hillel taught: go and learn how to apply this Divine command to our time and our situation.
Since we don’t have the time or the attention span to discuss all 72 commandments, I am choosing to focus upon one of them: “When you build a new house, you shall build a protective barrier around your roof so that we don’t incur guilt if anyone should fall off it.” (verse 22:8).
In his Sefer HaMitzvot, Maimonides wrote regarding the protective barrier or parapet: (positive commandment 184): “By this injunction we are commanded to remove all obstacles and sources of danger from all places in which we live; that is to build walls or parapets around roofs, cisterns, trenches and the like…. In like manner it is obligatory to remove and guard against every obstacle which constitutes a threat to life and limb…”
At first glance it sounds like a wonderful plank in a political platform calling for sound building codes and an infrastructure plan to keep both public and private buildings safe. However, looking at the opening words of the parasha, 23 months after October 7 and just weeks before Rosh Hashanah, I hear a much broader obligation than placing a fence around the roof of my personal house.
From the immediate aftermath of the Hamas invasion of October 7 until this very day, I have heard from many Israelis not only a sense of hopelessness, that peace never can be achieved with Palestinians, but also the justifiable anger, mixed with sadness, that the government of Israel had broken its contract with the people. While wars with its neighboring states, terrorist infiltrations, and in the 21st century ever more sophisticated rocket attacks have been a constant fact of life for Israelis, not since 1948 has an Arab army invaded Israeli settlements and cities and slaughtered Israelis. The death toll on Simchat Torah was the largest single attack upon Jews since the Holocaust. The toll of Israelis and Palestinians who have died, been disabled, displaced from their homes, and whose lives have been uprooted is devastating in what has become Israel’s longest ongoing war in its 77-year history.
The primary responsibility of every government is to protect its citizens. The State of Israel was established for the primary purpose of providing a safe haven where Jews could live in safety and security and thereby be able to individually and communally pursue life.
So this is my dilemma — how can we rejoice on this Rosh Hashanah? Can we recite Shehecheyanu with kavanah?
As I wrestle with these questions with new intensity after the failure after failure to bring this war to an end — which I believe is the only path to see the return of the 50 remaining hostages taken on October 7 and an end to the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis — I have come to a new understanding of why there are so many unique commandments in our parasha this week and throughout the Torah in general, and why Hillel’s paraphrase of Leviticus 19:18 is “That which is hateful to you do not do unto others” and ends with the imperative: Now go forth and learn how to apply this principle to every action you take at every moment of life.
There is one final lesson I see in this often unnoticed mitzvah — to build a guardrail on our roofs. I see it as a metaphor for life in the 21st century. For me, the ethical and moral teachings of Torah are the fence, which can guard each of us from falling off the plain of decency into the cistern of hatred and selfishness. The mixture in our parasha of seemingly unconnected ritual and moral commandments stands as a reminder that each of us has the opportunity and responsibility every day, in multiple ways, to build both our own personal parapet, which not only will guard us from falling off the path of justice and righteousness but also help us to work together to build a secure society.
The theme of Rosh Hashanah is that through teshuvah, repentance; tefilah, prayer; and tzedakah, acts of charity and kindness, we can write our own inscription in the Sefer ha Chayim — the Book of Life. May this lesson from Maimonides, Sefer haMitzvot; the Book of Commandments, inspire each of us, on this Shabbat “Ki Teitzei,” to go forth in the year ahead to build a safer, more compassionate world for all God’s children.
In fact, as we continue to pray that God will answer our prayers for the release of the Israeli hostages and a ceasefire that will lead to peace, let us also act as if the realization of these goals depends upon us. To paraphrase Hillel’s restatement of love your neighbor as yourself, as we teitzei, go forward, in the year ahead, we should act as if the safety and security of Israel, of America, and the world at large does depend upon what we say and what we do; as well as what we don’t say and what we don’t do.
