When You Go Out // Ki Teitzi Dvar
This week’s parsha is called Ki Teitzei, which translates to When You Go Out. The main task of this parsha is laying out rules — very specific rules about everything from responsible agriculture, and its role in creating an equitable society, to the specifics of the obligation to build a safe fence around the roof of one’s house. All in all, 74 of the 613 mitzvot or commandments, are layed out in this parsha. Its main focus has to do with the laws of warfare.
Ki Teitzei: When You Go Out into battle, this is what you do.

I’ve come to think of our conversation here today, as we prepare to be Welcome Week Ambassadors, and some of us Engagement Interns, as the Bronfman Ki Teitzei. We’re learning what we do When We Go Out.
When We Go Out we’re approachable. We’re friendly, and we smile. We share our stories in a way that will empower new students to share theirs with us, we share our home. When we go out, we reflect who we are, and what our house believes in, or we don’t go out at all.
This is not exactly the same situation as is outlined in the parsha. As Welcome Week Ambassadors, we don’t wear armour or brandish weapons when we go out. We’re not here to defend our territory or plunder the resources of our enemies. We’re fighting a battle of a different kind.
We are at war with apathy. With the voices in our world that remind us how much easier things would be if we didn’t care. If we didn’t try. We are at war with the fear that bites at our ankles, that there is no meaning, and nothing sacred to be found in this vast, modern world of metal and glass. We are at war with a metropolitan behemoth that takes its newcomers and makes them feel so desperately alone. We are at war with those who profit off of convenient lies and sharp stakes driven through the hearts of communitie. Those who think the biggest emotion in our lives should be hate, who don’t want us to lead with love. We are at war with the long rows of streets, in whose windows there are no lights.
This war is an uphill battle. Organized religion is not a very popular thing in this time and place. It’s hard to explain to my secular friends that I choose to spend my time roping freshmen into coming to prayer services. But I will always stand up and fight to say that there is room for God and sanctity and prayer in 2018. I need people to know this, because I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t. When I have been so ready to give up on my life, I have prayed to a God that insists on my right to exist. When I wasn’t sure if it mattered if I helped people, when I felt too small to make a difference, I read Pirkei Avot (The Wisdom of the Fathers,) and learned that I am not obligated to complete the work, nor am I free to abandon it. And this time last year, when I prepared to move away from the safety my family for the first time, I walked into the Bronfman Centre and found a new one, that opened up a world of learning, fulfillment, and joy.
My greatest weapon in the fight to bring happiness and meaning to the world is my memory. The role of memory in the Jewish imagination cannot be overstated. We are told in Exodus, that you must remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord led you out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. At Passover, we are instructed to think of ourselves as if we, personally, and not just our ancestors, had been enslaved. Ki Teitzei ends with a commandment not to forget. It says “Zachor: Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt — how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the Eternal your God grants you a safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you will blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
And so I say to you: You are now an established member of this community. You don’t have to dwell on those feelings of being new and scared, because you’ve moved passed that. But you can’t let those feelings go.
Zachor: Remember who you were when you first came here. Remember how you were lonely. Remember how you were a seeker after the truth. Remember how you craved tenderness and community. Remember how hard it was to walk into room after room after room, not knowing anyone inside.
Remember the first person who talked to you when you stepped into this building. Remember the first time you came to Shabbat. Remember the people you met, and who they would go on to be to you. Remember what it was like to be a slave, and learn how to be a mighty hand, how to be an outstretched arm. Learn how to light a lamp in a window. Remember the prayer or the poem you read, or the song you sung, or the words in your heart, that got you on the path, that lead you to where you sit today.
Because if you are here, it’s because you love it here. When you go out, remember why.
Shabbat shalom.
Martine is a sophomore in Tisch studying Dramatic Writing. Martine also serves as the Chair of Religious Affairs for Kesher, the Reform Jews at NYU.

