I dislike Deuteronomy. The book of the Torah, and the Cat (see Andrew Lloyd Weber, or TS Eliot for the reference). I have to be honest with you, I am not inspired by this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze. I have thought and thought and thought about this parshah and I am not inspired. Period. I have reread it so many times and still haven’t come away feeling more spiritually fulfilled. But, just because I am not inspired doesn’t mean I can’t gain some knowledge or have an appreciation for what it represents. It is a list of rules and regs (the most of any other portion in Torah)- mitzvot- that sometimes seem archaic and completely bias against certain groups of people, at least by today’s standards. However, other times they make complete sense with regards to how we negotiate relationships. They are an expansion of the 10 Commandments. “Thou shalt not steal, ”right? You walk across your neighbor’s yard and, yeah, you grab a blackberry or two but you don’t take the bush out and carry it home. If your come across something that doesn’t belong to you, you return it, you don’t covet it. These are basic niceties.
So what is the guiding principle of these basic niceties that we do in order to live in harmony with those around us? How do we act to build relationships, to create a more peaceful world? The answer is that our actions need to be done with integrity.
The definition of integrity means to act with honesty and wholeness of Self. It comes from Integer in Latin, meaning untainted (or wholeness). In Hebrew there is a similar word: Shlemut, which means completeness or wholeness and has the same root for Shalom. It reminds me of the yogic principle of Ahimsa- non-harming. When we act with integrity, when we act in a way that promotes wholeness of being we don’t harm. We don’t take our neighbor’s stuff. We don’t favor one child over another. We don’t falsely accuse someone of a crime. We take measures to protect others from injury, we leave extra for those in need. We act with Integrity. In the non-harming we create a world of Shalom, of peace, of oneness with each other and Gd.
When we practice yoga we work to integrate our breath and our movement. We integrate all the moving parts to create stability, strength and flexibility. Our goal is to find integrity of Self. When we practice honestly (and live honestly for that matter) we can tap into our true Selves, which as I have said before, is a sliver of Divinity within each of us.
When you divide a whole number ( AN INTEGER!) by 1, it remains that number. If we have integrity we are always whole, no matter how we divide ourselves. We are true to our Self under every circumstance. Similarly, if you divide a number by itself you get one- an integer. So you still end up with wholeness. No matter how many ways you split yourself, if you remain true to your connection to Gd, your Self, you will always remain whole and peaceful.
Wow, maybe in retrospect I got more out of the parshah than I thought.