DRASH – KI TETZEI

Cantor Michel Laloum

Temple Beth Israel, Melbourne

Parashat Ki Tetzei: The Rebellious Son, the Rebellious Nation, and a Fractured Jewish World

Parashat Ki Tetzei introduces one of the most morally challenging passages in the Torah: the case of the rebellious son, the ben sorer u’moreh. The Talmud insists that this case “never happened and never will happen,” teaching that its purpose is not punitive but reflective. It is a warning about what happens when one part of a family becomes so alienated from another that communication collapses.

Today, this ancient anxiety reverberates across the Jewish world from Israel’s internal divides to the painful fractures within Melbourne’s Jewish community since October 7 2023.

In modern day Israel, each side sees the other as the ‘Rebellious Son’

The ultra orthodox view secular Israel as rejecting torah.  For many in Israel’s Haredi and religious Zionist communities, secular Israelis appear to be the modern rebellious son:

· Abandoning Torah and mitzvot

· Building a state on secular norms rather than sacred ones

· Treating Jewish tradition as optional rather than foundational

In this view, the Orthodox become the anguished parents of Ki Tetzei, pleading for a return to covenantal identity.

A joint poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) and Tel Aviv University found that 53% of Israeli Jews aged 55 and older identify as secular.  The current secular view is that Orthodox Israel is Rejecting Civic Responsibility.  Secular Israelis often see the situation in reverse. To them, the Orthodox especially the Haredi sector are the ones refusing to participate in the shared obligations of citizenship:

· Avoiding IDF service

· Rejecting the legitimacy of the secular state

· Accepting state funding without accepting state obligations

· Ignoring dina de‑malchuta dina, the halakhic principle that the law of the land is binding

Among some secular Israelis, the perception becomes even sharper. They argue that:

· Many Haredim do not pay taxes at the same rate as working Israelis

· They dispute the legitimacy of the state

· Yet they demand financial support from the very taxpayers whose civic obligations they reject

This is not a neutral description it is a charged secular perception, often expressed in frustration, fear, and resentment. In this framing, the Orthodox become the rebellious son: benefiting from the household while refusing to share its burdens.

The contemporary tragedy within which Israel exists today is that the crisis is not that one side is rebellious. It is that each side believes the other is.

In our very own back yard, Melbourne’s community has fracture since October 7 2023.  Since October 7, Melbourne’s Jewish community has experienced its own version of the ben sorer u’moreh dynamic.

On the one hand there is a perceived ‘Loyalty Crisis’: Where, “anything less than total support of Israel is perceived as betrayal”.  A significant portion of the community feels that any stance short of undivided, uncritical loyalty to Israel is disloyal or even traitorous. For these Jews:

· Critique of Israeli policy is conflated with abandonment of the Jewish people

· Calls for nuance are seen as weakening communal solidarity

· Public dissent is perceived as empowering hostile media and political actors

Here, Jews who express concern about Israeli decisions become the rebellious son rejecting the “parents,” the collective Jewish family, at a moment of existential threat.

Meanwhile, the ‘Radical Left’ is misrepresenting Jewish identity to government.  A small but vocal group on the extreme Jewish left has positioned itself as the “authentic” voice of Jewish ethics in front of government bodies, including the Royal Commission into Antisemitism. Their actions include:

· Presenting themselves as representative of mainstream Jewish opinion

· Minimizing or reframing antisemitism as mere political disagreement

· Suggesting that communal institutions exaggerate threats

· Providing testimony that contradicts the lived experience of most Melbourne Jews

To much of the community, this feels like another rebellious son one who misrepresents the family to outsiders, undermining communal safety and credibility.

The contemporary result, is a community where everyone feels judged, and Melbourne’s Jews now experience:

· Suspicion between denominations

· Accusations of betrayal

· Competing claims of moral authority

· Deep fractures in advocacy, leadership, and public representation

Just as in Ki Tetzei, each group brings its grievances “to the elders” to the media, to government, to commissions seeking validation rather than reconciliation.

The Torah’s Insight in Ki Tetzei, is that this scenario of a rebellious son never happened.  The rabbis insist that the rebellious son was never executed because no society can survive by destroying its children.

The law exists to teach:

· A community must listen before it condemns

· A generation must understand before it judges

· A nation must seek reconciliation before it fractures

The rebellious son is not a person. It is a breakdown in listening.

Israel is experiencing it. Melbourne is experiencing it. The Jewish world is experiencing it.

Our question must be what is the path forward? Perhaps we need to choose Shema over Sorer? The antidote to the rebellious son is the opening word of the Shema Shema, Hear.

In Israel:

· Orthodox Jews must hear secular longing for equality and shared burden.

· Secular Jews must hear Orthodox longing for continuity and holiness.

In Melbourne:

· Jews who demand total loyalty must hear that critique can come from love.

· Jews who testify to government must hear the communal fear of misrepresentation.

· Leaders must hear that unity cannot be coerced; it must be cultivated.

The rebellious son is not the one who disagrees. It is the one who refuses to hear.

Our responsibility is to be a people who choose family over fracture.  Ki Tetzei challenges us to imagine a society where alienation becomes so deep that parents bring their own child to be judged. Today, Israel and Melbourne stand at similar crossroads not with children, but with communities.

The Torah’s answer is clear: the case of the rebellious son must never occur.

A Jewish people cannot survive by declaring one part of itself illegitimate. It can only survive by insisting that every part is indispensable.

If we choose to hear—truly hear—then the law of the rebellious son will remain what the rabbis intended: a warning, not a fate.