This week’s parsha, Ki Teitzei, contains more mitzvot than almost any other portion in the Torah. Many of them are about how we treat the vulnerable: the orphan, the widow, the poor, the stranger. Again and again, the Torah insists that compassion and justice are not optional extras—they are the very heart of our covenant with God.

It’s striking that even in moments of conflict or struggle, the Torah calls for restraint and dignity. Laws about captured women, about laborers who must be paid on time, about protecting animals from unnecessary suffering: all of these remind us that our ethical responsibilities do not stop at the edges of our comfort.

And when we look at the Haftorah, from Isaiah, we hear God’s words of reassurance: “Though the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed.” This is not only a promise of comfort, it’s a vision of resilience—that even when the world seems broken, justice and compassion remain the foundation of our survival.

Now, here’s the point we want to stress. People interpret Torah in many different ways, but you’ll notice something: no one ever interprets the Torah to mean, “Keep out all the immigrants. Destroy the environment. Let poor people starve.” The Torah would never support cutting off food aid around the world, or sending immigrants to foreign prisons, or shutting down the very wind farms that could preserve creation for future generations.

Ki Teitzei teaches the opposite. Care for the stranger. Leave gleanings in your field for the hungry. Protect the mother bird and her young. Pay workers on time. These are not political talking points. They are mitzvot, eternal values that tell us how to live as a people who remember we were once slaves in Egypt, and therefore must never turn our backs on the vulnerable.

So how do we apply this today? By standing up for policies that feed the hungry rather than starve them, that welcome the stranger rather than exile them, that preserve the earth rather than destroy it. And we do this not because it is fashionable or progressive, but because it is Torah.

May we carry the lessons of Ki Teitzei and Isaiah into our own lives: to act justly in the small details, to keep faith in God’s vision of renewal, and to remember that every choice we make is part of the covenant of kindness and peace that sustains the world.

Shabbat Shalom.