Parshah Commentary

Parshat Kedoshim

Over the past several months, I have struggled with the question of how to engage with people with whom I vehemently disagree: relatives, former classmates, members of my shul, the vast majority of passersby I encounter on the streets of West Jerusalem. While I sometimes argue with those who support the war on Gaza, I often avoid doing so, preferring instead to oppose the war through movement work, protest, writing, fundraising—most anything other than directly confronting people on a street corner or at a Shabbat dinner table. I find arguing to be woefully draining, and it so rarely changes people’s minds, resulting in little to show for the painful effort. But as I read this week’s parshah, Kedoshim, which details dozens of laws across various ethical and ritual spheres, I was struck by one particular commandment: “You shall surely rebuke your fellow.” Does my hesitance to reproach war-mongers in my community, I wondered, put me in violation of God’s decree?

Some commentators might say that it does not, since I may have already fulfilled the terms of the obligation imposed on me. Although the Talmud states that rebuke must be carried out “even one hundred times,” it also recognizes its limits: According to one sage, one must only rebuke up to the point that one is physically hit in response; for another, the commandment applies until one is cursed at; for a third, only until one is reprimanded. All of these are reactions I’ve faced at local ceasefire demonstrations from cops and irate spectators; while I don’t believe this diminishes my responsibility to continue protesting, perhaps it relieves me of the duty to confront ordinary individuals. Other interpreters suggest that the law might not even apply to the cases I encounter. The Kitzur Shulchan Arukh, a 19th-century legal text, uses a statement from the Talmud—“just as it is a mitzvah for a person to say something that will be heeded, so too is it a mitzvah for a person not to say something that won’t be heeded”—to rule that the commandment to rebuke applies only when there is reason to believe the transgressor will heed the admonition. In fact, the text states, “if one knows that the transgressor will not listen, it is forbidden to rebuke him.”

But even if I can technically justify not censuring those around me, I’m wary of dismissing the edict too quickly. This is a biblically-mandated commandment, the most serious kind in Jewish law. And if I am required to fulfill it and do not, I would be liable not only for that transgression but also, according to the Rambam, for the sin that I failed to protest. Finding a way out of this obligation may ultimately serve to indulge my own comfort, letting me off the hook for doing the work that might be necessary to help those in my community change. Indeed, although the Sefer HaChinukh, a 13th-century Spanish text that details and elucidates the reasoning behind the commandments, notes that one is not required to rebuke someone who will not listen, it also says that “every person of conscience must be very careful in these matters and think and see if there will be any use for his words to the sinner.”

Still, in the face of millions of Jews supporting or tolerating the horrors in Gaza, rebuking “the sinner” feels utterly insufficient. Perhaps it’s helpful to consider that the rabbinic investment in individual rebuke is rooted in an ethos of collectivity. The Talmud tells us that “Jerusalem was destroyed only because people did not rebuke one another.” The text backs this up by quoting a verse in Eicha that likens the Jewish people to deer who “found no pasture; they could only walk feebly before the pursuer.” The rabbis explain that “just as a deer turns its head toward the other’s tail [when grazing and eating], so too, the Jewish people of that generation lowered their faces to the ground and did not rebuke one another.” Rebuke here is not about expiating oneself as an individual or checking off a box of having registered dissent, but rather about a commitment to the moral conduct of the collective. Understanding the commandment in this way might help us not only to see the value in rebuking individuals for their part in communal sins, but also to develop a politics of collective rebuke more adequate to addressing national and systemic violence. In the Book of Isaiah, God implores through the prophet, “Declare to My people their transgression, to the House of Jacob their sin.” This is a call still waiting to be fulfilled.

Maya Rosen is the Israel/Palestine fellow at Jewish Currents.