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PARSHA POSTS: KI TEITZEI

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Aug 19, 2026, 3:02 AM

Ki Tetze – Boaz: When Kindness Respects Dignity

This is a difficult parashah. Parashat Ki Tetze contains some of the Torah's most challenging subjects: the woman captured in war, the unloved wife, the wayward and rebellious son, and the laws of yibum. These are halachic responses to complicated...

Aug 18, 2026, 6:08 PM

Who Should Build the Railing?

Why prevention deserves as much of our attention as blame after tragedy. Turn on daytime television for any length of time and the commercials become familiar. Have you been injured in an accident? Were you harmed by a medical procedure?...

Aug 18, 2026, 2:11 PM

How Do We Exercise Power Without Being Corrupted by It?

From the battlefield to the halls of government, Parashat Ki Tetzei offers an ancient warning for Israel and America today, one that Locke and Montesquieu would articulate centuries later: power may be necessary, but without limits, it can corrupt...

Mordechai Silverstein

Aug 18, 2026, 10:21 AM

How To Make Yourself Into a Better Person

The English name of Sefer Devarim, Deuteronomy, derives from the Greek and means “repetition of the law.” The fact that many of the laws are repeated in Devarim, sometimes with significant variations in language and detail, provided the sages...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Aug 17, 2026, 7:07 PM

The role of the roof

In Parshat Ki Tetze (Dvarim 22:8) we learn about the importance of fencing in the roof of a building: “When you build a new home, you are to make a fence for your roof…” What were roofs like in Biblical...

Aug 17, 2026, 6:26 PM

The Torah flip-flops when it comes to justice for an innocent bride (Ki Tetze)

In last week’s Torah reading, Parshat Shoftim, the Torah establishes a paradigm of justice when it declares: וְדָרְשׁ֥וּ הַשֹּׁפְטִ֖ים הֵיטֵ֑ב וְהִנֵּ֤ה עֵֽד־שֶׁ֙קֶר֙ הָעֵ֔ד שֶׁ֖קֶר עָנָ֥ה בְאָחִֽיו׃ and (should) the judges investigate thoroughly and behold the one who testified is a...

Yael Chaya Miriam Gray

Sep 9, 2025, 7:32 AM

Parsha Ki Teitze: The Mother Bird, the Lost Daughter, and the Long Road Home

“If a bird’s nest chances before you on the road…” (Devarim 22:6) כִּי יִקָּרֵא קַן־צִפּוֹר לְפָנֶיךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ The language is strange. Yikareh—“chances upon you.” As though this encounter, this sighting of a trembling nest in your path, were a coincidence. As...

Sep 9, 2025, 12:10 AM

Building Parapets, and Community- Ki Tetzei 5785

I have a cousin who’s a few years older than me, who lives in south Florida with his wife and young son. Both his wife and son, sadly, are dealing with long-term serious health problems, but are thankfully doing...

Yael Chaya Miriam Gray

Sep 8, 2025, 6:03 AM

Why Are The Laws Of The Firstborn and the Wayward Son Juxtaposed In Ki Teitze?

Parashat Ki Teitzei, in its weaving of laws, contains juxtapositions that are themselves revelations. One of the most striking is the passage that insists on the rights of the firstborn immediately before the passage that describes the fate of...

Sep 7, 2025, 6:14 PM

Remember…What?

The following interpretation of the relevant Biblical verses is grammatically erroneous, and also, most likely, textually and theologically inadequate and unsupportable. That never stopped me before when I believed the message to be sound, so here goes. At the conclusion...

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