Boulder Aish Kodesh

Ki Tetze – ‘When you go out to war.’  You didn’t know there was a war, did you?  But there are so many forces attempting to lull us to sleep – apathy, ignorance, laziness, self-denial, business, media, and vanity, to name but a few.  Only a fool thinks there is a moment of rest from the seductive lull of sleep.  ‘Every day’, says the Gemarra, ‘countless forces emerge into the world to destroy us…’ Pretending there is no struggle does not eliminate the struggle.

Teshuva – return – is the return to the waking state, the recommitment to the ideals we hold precious but ignore in the all-too-quick flow of time.  It is a recommitment to holding at bay those forces that wish to render us weak and inept.  And to hold them at bay we must be awake to them.  And to be awake to them, we must become conscious of them – we must step outside.  ‘When you go out.  To war.’  We must be willing to step out, to stop being so enamored with our opinions, to stop pretending we know G-d and we know us and we know what we should be doing and how.  Or at least be willing to ask the question.